Mixing

Mixing is a process of 4 steps:

Corrective action
Spatial mixing
Artistic mixing
Final touches

Corrective Action

Ideally we should listen to each track individually and look out for places that need corrective action.

The methodical approach would be:

You hear a problem
- ex. guitar is too muddy, vocalist's breath sounds are too loud etc.
You brainstorm ways to fix that problem
You try to fix the problem
You determine whether or not you fixed the problem
...and repeat

Examples of things that require corrective action, and thus should be fixed at this stage:

guitar track sounds too boomy
individual drum sounds (ex. of a MIDI drumkit) don't have the right timbre
small glitches that need removing
minimizing impact of bleed
removing unwanted background noise
conspicuous vocal plosives (firm B and P sounds), esses and gasping

Spatial mixing (stereo imaging)

This is where we work out our desired sound stage, by positioning each instrument as we want it to be in our final mix.

Stereo Imaging is the manipulation of a signal within a 180-degree stereo field, for the purpose of creating a perception of locality within that field.

Panning gives perception of sound coming from left to right
- x axis
Volume gives perception of volume closer or further away
- z axis
Frequency of sound gives perception of height (which can be manipulated with eq)
- y axis

Giving a mix space means you can hear each and every instrument clearly and distinctly, yet with everything also blended in nicely with the overall production.

Each sound should have its own space.

There are 4 dimensions to space:

width (between the speakers)
height (frequency)
depth (volume)
time

note: (ReaMix p.64) find a table of different ways to position each sound within a location on this soundscape (e.g. panning and EQ, but also reverb, delay, compression etc.)

Artistic mixing

This is where we set about building our song and creating its structure.

ex. highlight a particular instrument here, add some clever effects at certain passages etc.

High-level Philosophy

Make contrasting moves

When visualizing a change, consider making contrasting moves (ie. splitting that change across 2 different areas).

ex. say you want to get more bite out of your guitars, so your inclination is to make a 2dB boost at 2.8kHz. Instead of doing this, make a 1dB boost at the 1.2kHz, but on some other track/bus, make a 1dB cut at 400-500hZ (complementary EQ)
ex. if mix is not dense enough, your inclination might be to add 2dB of gain reduction on the compressor. Instead of doing that, add 1dB of gain reduction on the compressor, but then add a bit of saturation before and/or after the compressor.
ex. if your vocal doesn't feel present enough, you might want bump it up by 2dB at 1.8kHz. Instead of doing that, try bumping it up by 1dB, and take your vocal FX (e.g. delay, reverb) and turn it all up. Then, if the vocal is too low, pull the whole volume fader down (vocal dry track and FX), while at the same time nudging up that 1.8kHz.

Use many instances of plugins, with small impact per plugin

Making dynamics in a mix

There are 4 tools that can be used to create dynamics in a mix:

Volume faders
Pan pots (panoramic potentiometer)
Equalization
FX (e.g. chorusing, flanging, Reverb)

Stereo Imaging

What is a sound?

Every sound can be described fully by a combination of:

volume
Frequency
Time

Therefore, each piece of equipment in the studio controls one or more of these parameters

Volume

volume fader
Pan
Compressors/limiters

Vol/freq

wah-wah
rolloffs

Time

delay
Reverb

Freq/time

flangers
Chorus
Vibrato
Phase shifter

Vol/time

tremolo

Mixing order

As a simple (not hard) rule, mixing should be done in the following order:

Volume - a lot of care should be taken at this step to make sure we get it right
Pan
Mix bus compressor (to "glue" the instruments together)
EQ
Compression
Reverb
Delay

It might be effective to apply subtractive EQ, then compression, then additive EQ.

the logic here is to first remove obvious faults of the sound (unwanted resonances, overly boomy bass etc) so they don't affect the compressor. Then get the dynamics you want. Then do tone shaping without affecting dynamics.

Things to try

distortion - make sounds stand out more in a mix by applying some level of distortion. If you don't add too much, distortion can be imperceptible within the whole mix, but makes the instrument that it's on stand out more
- see saturation
- anal: distortion in this case is like salt that brings out the distinctive flavors of an umami food.