DrScythe Recording Blog - Part IV: My mixing philosophy

I wanted to do a blog about EQing and then noticed that I didn’t explain my approach to mixing so far. And that would leave you with my tips for using EQs without knowing why I do use them in this way. So my mixing philosophy boils down to this:

Keep it as natural as possible but do whatever necessary to make it sound good to your ears.

This leads to several consequences.

1. My mixes will never sound as modern as most of the others.

This is pretty obvious. Modern mixes sound everything but natural and are pushed to the max in terms of usage of limiters especially the releases of mainstream artists or the big players of some genres. Of course this doesn’t apply to every major release…but the ‘plastic sound’ as I tend to call it is a standard at the moment. A standard I chose to avoid for matters of taste. I know that some of my songs would profit from an overly processed sound (Calling The X for example) but I prefer to keep learning how to achieve a fat but also warm sound that keeps the character of the originally recorded tracks. It seems that gluing the tracks together is a little bit more complicated this way but I will keep on learning and improving.

2. My mixes will never have a constant volume.

If there is a more quiet part in a song I won’t use the tricks of modern loudness to eliminate the overall dynamic of it. What you might have noticed is that I am very cautious when it comes to compression so far and that’s something I am working on. Controlling the dynamics on track level so that I don’t need much compression on the sum. I think it’s becoming better. Compression works a little counterintuitive so that I think most of the people will struggle a little with that when beginning to mix music.

3. Very few effects.

Well…I had a POD XT Pro, POD X3 Live, POD HD and a Vetta II Combo for years and used all the effects extremely rarely. I like effects when just fiddling around but not really in a finished song. A little chorus on an arpeggio here and there and the almighty duo of reverb and delay. But that’s it. Bit crusher, phaser, flanger, ring modulators…nice to play with but nothing more to me so far. We’ll see…I am not against them by default (although ‘natural’ seems to suggest no effects) but it’s basically just not my style.

4. I don’t care about competitive loudness.

Seriously. I just don’t care. I don’t think it’ll ever have to compete on airplay so I can just keep it at a normal level.

5. You wouldn’t normally…too bad.

You wouldn’t pan the drums from the drummer’s point of view – I do because it sounds and feels right to me. One of the most important things I took away from reading and watching interviews with well-known mixing engineers: they really don’t care about things like ‘normal’ or ‘regularly’. They are called if someone wants their style of mixing applied. Try out their tricks and tips, try out the standards but be honest with yourself and ‘mix it your way’ if that’s what you want the music to sound like.

6. But your mixes sound really cheap so far.

What a surprise I am still a beginner. I am not even able to achieve the things I want to but that’s part of the whole learning process. And instead of ruining other people’s hard work I am practicing with my own and will be able to easily remix everything later on.

Well this was a shorter one as I am busy getting two tracks out to you this month. And I am pretty sure that only few will like both songs. And owls won't like either of them.

Guaranteed displeasure if you're an owl

So long,

DrScythe

DrScythe Recording Blog - Part II or Know Your Gear!

Let me begin with good news: my fifth song is out!

And this inspired today’s topic: Know Your Gear. D’Angelico and their European Distributor FACE lend me an EX-SS and I used it for this song. The difference between using this wonderful guitar vs. one of my guitar in the end? None. The difference on the way: large. 

 

It’s nice to own (or at least use) the best stuff available but it’s also quite expensive. To some my (regular) equipment might seem luxurious but if you take a closer look at it you might know why I could afford it (my AT2020 cost me 25 bucks as it is scratched and damaged but works fine). So if you’re not into looks – this can improve the audio quality vastly and you can keep your kidneys.

But besides that it’s all about knowing your stuff. Which flaws does it have and how to work around or with it. All the legendary EQs, channel strips and compressors are not legendary because of their perfect neutrality but because their flaws. You want those to add ‘character’ to a signal or mix. And as there is a lot of very good free stuff (plugins) out there, there is no excuse left to settle for something less than ‘decent’ except for style reasons.

The first step is to learn what compressors, gates, expanders and EQs actually do. While it is quite obvious for the EQ what it does the possible results are not always exactly what you expected at first. And compressors were completely unnatural to me so I had to learn everything about them until I could really use them. With that being said one can easily see why many first attempts on mixing fail. It’s much more than just randomly adding comps and EQs using factory presets. Especially with VSTs often offering many more controls than analog devices you easily end up messing things up more than improving it.

So after you learned how those things work in general you got to learn to differentiate between two aspects: controlling and coloring a signal. I will go into detail about that in a later blog so for now you just need to know that most DAWs offer enough tools for controlling the signal. Coloring is a whole different story that needs some sort of idea of where you’re going with your material (see: http://drscytheband.blogspot.de/2016/01/drscythe-recording-blog-part-i-or-what.html).

Well, what to control and watch? Noise, (nasty) frequencies, dynamic range, correlation. The easiest way to get a clean base mix for later shaping is to know where the weaknesses of all your gear are. Certain frequencies that your acoustic guitar lacks or pronounces. The combination of your voice and your mic (my voice and the AT2020 are not friends…). After saying that: the easiest way is equipment that doesn’t have flaws but if we all could afford that stuff I wouldn’t write this blog…

And it doesn’t stop with your physical gear. Your workflow and plugins are also part of it. If you know the stuff that you use you will be way quicker than if you have to look for functions and think about which plugin works best for a specific task all the time. This applies to editing too – learn the shortcuts of your DAW and it will save you time and work.

The more knowledge you got the faster you get rid of the problems and the more time you can spend on actually sculpting the song and create something bigger than some instruments accidentally playing the same. Which leads to better results even if you’re going for a lo-fi sound. Ok, if you already recorded lo-fi for the sake of it that doesn’t apply but I don’t think you’d read stuff about recording if you always want a cassette recorder type of sound.

That’s it for this week and until next time

DrScythe

DrScythe Recording Blog - Part I or What do you pay studios for? (2016)

For most of the time that the modern music industry existed you’ve paid for the equipment they’ve got and for the experienced engineers. But nowadays you can build and setup your own small studio for 1k and achieve an amazing quality. And it doesn’t even take the thousand bucks if you already got a decent computer (no matter if win or mac) and let’s say a mic and an interface. Freeware sounds excellent nowadays and so you just need to learn how to use it. If you already got money to spend, no matter if you’re a solo artist or a band it might be better to buy some recording equipment instead of just ‘renting’ the stuff. You don’t need a 128 track mixing console to get good results. Owning the stuff yourself will pay off when you want to record another song/EP/album.

Recording and mixing music isn’t that hard to learn (but to master – which is another story). Basically it boils down to this:

-       Adjust your ears to the overall sound instead of just your instrument

-       Understand what which piece of equipment does (EQ, Comp, Gate, Verbs...)

-       Know your hardware (adjust ears to monitors, know your plugins)

-       Practice repeatedly

Throw in some diligence while editing and you’ll be able to produce a nicely balanced mix of your songs. The ‘old masters’ weren’t born mixing engineers – they learned a lot ‘on the fly’. New technologies popping up all the time back then, tons of analog hardware with different characteristics (even if it’s supposed to sound the same) and so on. If you read The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook (by Bobby Owskinski; no ad here, just a reference) you will notice that the most valuable part of this book is indeed the one containing the interviews. You’ll notice that almost all of the engineers are very vague about rules and fixed settings. They just know what they want and how to achieve it. Years of practice may come in handy if you want to get a certain result. And that’s what you’re paying for. Their experience and understanding of (your) music. So if you know a studio or engineer that repeatedly was involved in the making of records whose sounds you love and don’t have the time or interest to learn – go for it. If you have a very precise idea of the result yourself – learn how to achieve it.

I am not bashing studios here. If no one in your band (or you as a solo artist) is interested in recording and mixing then using their services is fine. If you got an album prepared and never recorded or mixed before you shouldn’t consider ruining your creative work by practicing on it. But if you are a/the songwriter/composer and if you can hear the final song ‘in your ear’ while writing it then you might be better off learning to record and mix yourself – at least in the long run.

What do you need to begin is a PC or Mac (tablets can do the trick but for handling more than say 6-8 tracks I wouldn’t bother), some sort of interface and a DAW (recording software). There are a lot of ‘recording beginner buyer’s guides’ and as they change constantly due to new hardware I suggest that you just search for those or head over to sites like gearslutz.com 

As soon as your system is up and running and you grabbed all the free plugins (e.g. vst4free.com) you need/want you should begin recording and mixing. Not the full tracks but riffs and parts. Try a little automation. Get used to your monitors. You don’t need a pair that costs 2000 bucks and is the most neutral one can buy. It’s more important that your ears know what they’re hearing. So listening to your favorite tracks (sound wise!) isn’t a bad idea. If your first mixdowns sound like you want them, choose the song with the simplest structure and fewest instruments involved to practice. There are many small traps ahead. I will let you know for which ones I fell in a future blog.

Don’t be afraid to experiment. It is right if it sounds right. Of course there are many ‘ideals’ you can aim for (‘hear everything clearly’, ‘punchy and tight sound’ or ‘warm and vintage’ etc.) and there are some basic qualities which separate the ‘decent quality’ mix from the ‘well-I-placed-a-mic-and-pressed-record’-mix. But the ‘sound’ of a song (or a whole album) is part of what the listener experiences so it might as well add some character (your character) instead of being a generic production. Just to clarify that: a studio will (should) add character too. But it might not be what you originally intended. That’s another reason why I chose to do everything myself. It might not be the best possible quality in the ears of some but it’s closer to what I want than any mixing engineer could ever achieve. The only thing I would give away is the mastering. A second pair of ears for the final polish cannot be that bad.

So long

DrScythe

PS: I mostly trained on soundsamples I made. Just like this one here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIvEV8QcL0Q

Or this one (for a competition):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raMqbQRgXYA