Audio Mixing Training Notes with Avid Pro Tools

Audio Mixing Training Notes with Avid Pro Tools

  • Delete Unecessary tracks
  • group like tracks
    • group by proximity
    • or use Ctrl+g to add tracks to group
  • set like tracks to same color (use color pallete)
    • green for drums
    • red for vocals
  • Identify subgroups (stems) with all caps
    • use stems instead of grouping, but set groups just in case
  • Effect Setups
    • good idea to have effects set up before you begin to mix
      • reverbs should be in stereo
        • create short reverb and long reverb
          •  short reverb is for drums, especially snare (use for toms as wel)
          • use a large plate for vocals (also good for guitars and keys)
        • delays should be mono signals (!)
          • to create short delay, use long delay and shrink it (175 milliseconds is a favorite of Paul McCarteney) with 5% feedback, use for lead vocals
          • 300ms is good for long delay with 5% feedback, use for background vocals
        • use stems to send / receive with effects channel
  • Must Emphaize Groove on song
    • groove is the pulse, the better the perfarmance, the deeper the groove
      • doesn’t usually have perfect time
      • doesn’t always come from drum and bass, but most likely for hip hop music
  • Finding the Most Important Element
    • captures listeners attention
      • many times is the vocal
    • element that creates the feel and excitement of the song
      • often drumset in hip hop music, but can be a catchy lead
  • Mix Elements to Avoid
    • Don’t use same effect on all tracks (use different reverbs and delays)
    • Make sure there is always focal point
      • constatly emphasize some elements
    • remove all noise
    • make sure mix has clarity and punch
    • avoid using too much reverb, making the mix sound distant
    • make sure element levels are consistent
    • make sure sounds and samples are interesting and relevant
  • Subrouping (Stems)
    • mostly use stereo (if planning to pan or you want a steroe field)
      • use ALL CAPS titles
  • Building Mix
    • Build Mix from Bass Drum
      • many mixers like to mix from the bass drum as it is often a focal point of the song
      • start by soloing bass drum (kick) and mix it to output around -10db
      • then bring snare in at similar relative amplitude
      • then work to Toms, knowing that Toms will change sound of entire drum kit, so don’t fall in love with kit without toms
        • move to tom fill, then balance individual toms to about the same relative amplitude
      • these are only starting points, and will ba changed when mixed with other instruments, but this will give you a good foundation
    • Building from Snare
      • many times, snare provides the pulse of the song, so it can be good idea to begin with it
        • once again, bring it up to -10db (average, above or below is okay)
    • Can also build from vocals, set to -10db then bring in drums, starting with bass
      • make sure drums never get louder than vocal, and most often they need to be lower
  • Checking phase of drums
    • 2 reason why out of phase
      • incorrect cable wiring or two microphones that are listening to the same sound source
        • can use compressor plugin or EQ plugin to change phase on track.  Bring multiple tracks to same relative level and switch phase on one track, then go with whatever sounds better
  • Balancing the Drum Mix with Bassline
    • Start with Bassline and bring to -10db (can use compression to help with this)
    • then mute bassline and bring in kick, set to around -10db
    • then bring snares in and they should be all at a similar level
  • Balancing Rhythm with Rest of Mix
    • start by bringing keys into mix with rhythem section playing (drums and bass), want to hear it without overpowing
    • then bring in strings, want to hear it without overpowing
    • In pop music, vocal is in front of mix
    • in rock, vocal is back a bit in the mix
      • hip hop would more follow the Pop standard
    • BG vocals can be similar in level to lead, but they NEVER are louder than lead
  • Mix without building
    • advantages
      • by hearing everything at once, you can create aural space for everything
    • downside – might not have power and punch that you are looking for
    • concentrate first on rhythm section, begin with bassline and kick drum, then move to other drums, then to keys and then to vocals
  • Balancing Harmony Vocals
    • start with lowest vocal (in pitch) and work from there
      • want to always start with low sounds because high pitch vocals will cut most and be toughest to place in mix
    • then bring in middle vocal and bring up until about same level or with low being a bith higher in volume
      • pay special attention to middle vocal, it often is color of track
    • then bring in high vocal and have it sound not as loud as the other two, always go from bottom up and have the higher sounds less than the lower sounds.
  • Stereo Placement (Paning)
    • stereo provides sense of spaciousness and as a result, clarity
      • 3 main fields, hard left, hard right, and center
    • anything with a lot of low end is panned to the center, makes it sound very solid
      • panning them to the side will take away their power
    • Panning Vocals
      • if go hard left and hard right and up center, vocals will detach from one another
        • use about 20% – 30% to give spaciousness but keep vocals in the same space
    • Panning Guitars
      • pan guitars in much the same way as vocals, about 20% – 30%
    • most prominent instruments are also usually panned to the middle
    • Panning Drums
      • 2 ways to pan drums, from audience perspective, or drummers perspective
        • most pan from audience perspective
      • goal is to make drums sound as they would if the listener was in the room with the drummer
      • the more space you give your instruments through panning, the more power you take away from the instrument (might be necessary to fit everything in the mix)
        • when using samples, can pan everything hard left and hard right
          • if making music that will be played in club, must have everything closer because entire audience won’t be in center of stereo field to pick everything up
  • Instrument with artificial stereo
    • tendency is to pan stereo instrument hard left and hard right
      • when you have a bunch of items in stereo that are panned hard left and hard right, creates a situation where instruments sit on top of eachother, or in essence, puts everything into a hack mono feel
      • can take stereo instrument and pan one side hard, then the other side towards the middle of the hard side, which creates great offset
      • can also put stereo track towards middle, but offset by 30 percent to give it some more power but still perserve spaciousness
      • can use send receives to spread out instruments as well, just make send wide
  • Compression
    • automated level control that uses input level to determine output level
      • different ways of designing compression circuit
    • controls
      • ratio – controls how much of output level the compressor will increase in comparison to input level
        • 4:1 means every 4 db that goes through compressor comes out as 1 db
      • threashold – determines signal level where compressor begins to work
      • attack/release – controls how fast or slow compressor reacts to beginning or end of signal level
      • gain – make up gain that is added to output
        • gain reduction meter tells how much compression is ocurring at any one time
        • if -12, then 12db of gain reduction is ocurring
      • bypass is great for checking that compressed signal is same relative level as uncompressed signal
    • Set Up Compressor
      • timing of attack and release is important for sound modeling
      • use snare drum as template then use approxomite settings on other instruments
      • NOTE- most of time, put compressor before eq
      • Start with snare drum without any compression at all, goal is to set compressor to breathe with track
        • move attack to longest setting and move release to shortest setting
        • then set threashold so you can see some compression occur
        • then move attack down until you begin to hear sound change
        • then increase release until the decay reaches next snare hit
      • use compressor on any instrument that has great variation of dynamics
        • no more than 3db variation in instrument
      • then use compression setting on vocal track
        • then tweak attack and release so there is no change in vocal sound due to compressor
        • usually, will use ratio around 3:1, but if using 10:1, then you are creating a limiter
      • Limiter – used to keep next stage in signal path from distorting, limits output rather than controls dynamics
        • anything beyond ration of 10:1 has audible distortion from compressor
        • limiting can be desirable on a live bass
      • Drum Compression –
        • too little attacks cuts transients off of beginning or note/hit
        • on drums, set release so makes it seem that snare is elongated until next hit
        • go for about 3 db of compression with any single compressor, use multiple compressor if you want more gain reduction
        • the more erratic the peaks are, the higher ratio we require
        • use bypass to check the gain control, want to have similiar level than what was begun with
        • for Kick Drum, set attack so that it barely changes transient, and release so that it last until next hit
      • Bass Compression –
        • use same general method as snare and kick drum compression setting
          • increase release so that it feels that the compressor is breathing with track
        • common to use very high ratio (around 10:1 limiter) when compressing live bass
        • the more even the bass, the more powerful the entire sound
      • New York Compression Trick (Parallel Compression)
        • Set up additional subgroup for drums with aggressive compression setting
        • then mix levels to play with compression settings
        • use send/receives to send drum to additional subgroup, not bus them out
        • many times, give compressor high ratio (around limiter level 10:1)
        • also add EQ before compressor on subgroup, and raise low and high bands to increase low and high end of NY Compressed subroup
      • Compression Clean Electric Guitar –
        • more amplified or distorted, less compression is necessary
        • use same method for setting attacl
        • 2 methods for setting release, can make it breathe with track or can extend it out
      • Compression of Distorted Electric Guitar
        • distortion implies some level of compression
        • follow similar process to compressing any other instrument, but it won’t need as much (low ratio)
          • the more peaks the guitar has, the more aggressive the ratio
      • Compression of Acoustic Guitar
        • acousitic instruments are often times more dynamic than electic instruments
        • is acoustic guitar is stumming, it is more of a rhtym piece that is used to create the groove
        • follow same process
        • knee parameter will soften change from uncompressed signal to compressed sign
        • BF76 is a software version of the most popual compressor (called the 1176)
          • big difference is that dials are reverse of normal compressor plugin
          • good for compressing acoustic instruments
        • then reduce gain until acoustic guitar is just audible enough to give groove, but not really noticable
      • Compression of Acoustic Piano
        • Very dynamic instrument
        • if compressing during solo, then have to be careful of audible compression artifacts
        • start with long attack then decrease until you can hear instrument dull
        • once again, it is a good idea to use a longer knee when compressing acoustic instruments
      • Compression of Electic Keys
        • good pianists play dynamically, but that doesn’t always work well in a record mix
        • compression helps all notes be heard evenly, in effect bringing the instrument forward in the mix
      • Compression for Vocals
        • when you cut too much attack from vocals, sound is dull and “s” sound is dropped
        • seems like 80 ms of release is good for many instruments, including vocals
      • Compression of Acoustic Horns
        • Do the same stuff
  • Gate (Noise Gate / Expander)
    • used to remove low level signals, coughs, basic noise, and track leakage
    • like compression, a little goes a long way
    • to use gate, put threshold in middle and listen to ensure that everything you want is removed but rest of audio is perserved
    • range between -12bdb to -18db is good place to smooth gain reduction out
    • range is how much the noise will be reduced by
    • if range was set to max (maximum gain reduction), then the attack and release settings are important
      • set them similarly to how you use a compressor
      • long release causes signal to fade out slowly
    • hold control holds open gate before release kicks in
    • gates are very touchy and take a bunch of experimentation to get perfect
    • goal isn’t to remove leakage completely, just to attenuate it enough so you don’t hear it very well
    • side-chains allow you to cut specific frequencies
      • use the listen button to hear just the frequencies that the gate is going to react to
    • gates are used mainly on drumkits
    • look ahead function allows computer to analyze signal and ensure that gate only reacts to peaks in signal
      • look ahead is only available on digital systems
  • Deesser
    • Sibilance is a slurred “S” sound that usually comes from improper micing and compression
    • if you notice sibilance, use a desser
    • 2 controls, frequency and range control
      • frequency allos you to set where sibilance is ocurring
      • range is amount of gain reduction
      • listen button allows you to hear only part of audio that is being attenuated
        • between listen and frequency, can select the exact band where the sibilance is ocurring
  • Equalization
    • all equalizers sound different from eachother, experiment to find your favoriate
    • paremetric equalizer allow you to control 3 different peramiters of the equalizer
      • gain, frequency, and Q or quality of filter
        • a better name for Q is bandwidth, referring to how many bands filter is working on
    • equalizers sound best when not pushed too hard, can cause distortion easily
    • some have high pass or low pass filters that can be used to remove bands of frequencies
      • use between 6db/oct and 18db/oct, usually center on 12db/oct
      • very powerful and used commonly on most every instrument
    • input and output controls attenuate or boost signal level as it comes in and goes out of equalizer
      • input can be used to keep signal from overloading
      • output is used to boost sound coming out into next processor
    • use bypass often to make sure you are actually helping audio, it is easy to make things sound worse
    • Subtractive Equalization
      • used by top audio engineers to improve audio by attenuating frequencies instead of boosting
        • when EQ is boosted, phase shift is added (distortion)
      • to perform technique
        • set gain to around -10db then sweep frequencies to most definition of sound
        • set Q to be moderate, around 2.5
        • can also boost frequencies to find bands that don’t work, then attenuate same band
      • subtractive equalization works best between 200 to 600hz
        • this band has lot of proximity effect, caused by getting directional mic closer to the source
        • if same mic is used on many tracks, this can build up and become undesirable
      • also works well between 2kHZ to 4kHZ
        • when using good condenser mic it has presence boost in this range, but can become too much when mixing
        • to add definition after subtractive EQ, use these boosts (1 to 2 db at most)
          • Point is upper midrange that helps definition between 1kHZ to 4kHZ
          • Sparkle is a small boost (1 to 2db) between 5kHZ to 10kHZ
            • great for vocals or high-pitch instruments
          • Air is a small boost between 10kHZ to 15kHZ
            • can use either peak or shelve filter, great for vocals
    • Frequency Juggling
      • one of the hardest problems when mixing occurs when instruements clash because they share fundemental frequencies
        • try to listen to other instruments while EQ’ing, if you find two instruments that share same frequency range, then you need to frequency juggle
      • take first instrument and use subtractive EQ to define instrument
      • then take 2nd instrument and boost where you subtracted other instrument
      • NOTE – 6kHZ is magic number for improving upper end of quiter
      • can also boost a bit of the high end of 2nd instrument to differentiate a bit more
        • if you boost high end, go back to first instrument and cut same band a similar amount
      • key is to go back and forth until you receive the definition that you are looking for
      • can also use high pass and low pass filters to define
    • High Pass Filter
      • for most instruments, the low frequencies don’t add much to the sound and can be rolled off for clarity
      • vocals are great for high-pass filters as well
      • use a HPF on anything that uses a mic to remove any mud in the track
    • Equalization Principles
      • if it sounds muddy, cut around 250HZ
      • if it sounds honky, cut around 500Hz
      • Cut to add clarity
      • boost to make things sound different
      • use narrow Q when cutting (6 – 10)
      • use wide Q when boosting (0.5 – 2)
      • to make something stick out, roll off the bottom
      • to make something blend in, roll off the top
    • Snare EQ
      • cannot overcome bad drum sound with EQ
      • can make drum sound more crisp by boosting at 5kHz
      • can add snap to snare drum by boosting 10kHz
      • can add fatness by boosting between 140Hz to 240Hz
    • Kick EQ
      • Ideal Kick thump is around 80Hz to 100Hz.  If you boost below that, it might sound good on some speakers but it is likely overloading others
      • get rid of hollow sound in drum by cutting between 200Hz to 400Hz
      • add point to the drum by boosting between 3kHz to 5kHz
      • can add a subkick drum by EQing drum to boost 40Hz to 60Hz
      • adding a High Pass Filter between 20Hz to 40Hz will clean up Kick drum
    • Tom EQ
      • Toms are big pieces of drum fills
      • cut around 200Hz to add clarity (cut a small bit and use peaking filter)
      • boost at 400Hz to add fullness
      • boost at 5kHz to add definition on drum
      • add a High Pass Filter between 50Hz and 60Hz to add further definition and clean up mud
      • NOTE – High Pass Filters are very important and can be used in many situations
    • Hi Hat EQ
      • the thickness of high hats will dramatically change the sound
      • can put high pass filter (12db / Oct) around 200Hz – 400Hz, can even be more aggressive than that (up to 1kHz)
      • add crispness and sparkle by boosting between 8kHz to 12kHz (use shelf for this)
    • Bass EQ
      • good idea to EQ bass along with drums to get a good balance
      • low end on bass is a higher frequency that you might think.
        • boost around 100Hz to 200Hz to add punch
      • try to EQ above where you EQ’d kick drum, use some frequency juggling with the kick drum to keep them separate
      • add attack and definition by boosting at 700Hz
      • add snap by boosting around 2kHz to 3kHz
    • Electric Guitar EQ
      • Electric guitars have nothing below 100Hz, so can high pass around that point to clean it up (maybe a little bit more)
      • boost at 2kHz to 5kHz to give guitar more presence
      • boost at 240Hz to 400Hz to give guitar fullness
      • boost at 4kHz to give guitar pick noise and brightness
    • Acoustic Guitar EQ
      • Bigger the guitar body, the more low end the sound will have
      • cutaway guitars have less bass because of the wood it is composed of
      • many times it is used to give song pulse and move song along
      • boost at 250Hz to give guitar more body
      • boost at 80Hz with low shelf to give fullness
      • boost at 2KHz to 5kHz to give more presence
      • boost at 5kHz to 6kHz to make guitar cut into track and be clearly defined
    • High Frequency Hand Percussion EQ
      • tamborine, shaker, the like…
      • can use High Pass Filter to roll of most everything below 1kHz
      • boost between 5KHz to 10kHz to make instrument jump out of track
    • Lead Vocal EQ
      • EQ’ing can make vocal sound up front, or back in the mix
      • For Male Vocal
        • boost at 125kHz to 250kHz to give male vocal more presence and chest, can use low shelf for this
        • boost at 2kHz to 5kHz to add consonance and more definition
        • boost at 10kHz to add air to vocal, be careful that you don’t add sibilance to record
        • can add high pass filter at 60Hz to further clean up vocal
      • For Female Vocal – ? 😉
      • Background Vocal EQ
        • goal is to not have them competing
        • if you cut between 2kHz and 5kHz, the lead vocal won’t clash with background
        • boost at 6kHz to add brightness
        • toss in high pass around 150kHz to clean up background vocals
    • Piano EQ
      • because it can play almost any role in the arrangement, it can be EQ’d in many different ways
        • boost between 80Hz to 120Hz to give piano more fullness
        • between 2kHz to 5kHz to give piano more presence
          • on most pianos, go towards the high range of the band
        • boost at 1kHz to make piano sound like honky-tonk piano
          • provides distortion, don’t do this unless you want
    • Organ EQ
      • Quintessential instrument to add glue to the track
      • has very wide frequency range, and can also have large low end that can interfere with percussion and bass
        • many times a high pass filter is added to carve in space for the rhythm section
      • 240Hz to 300Hz boost give organ more body
      • boost between 2kHz to 5kHz to give organ more presence
        • many instruments share this presence band, but don’t EQ all of them, use frequency juggling and try to boost at different points
      • common to use HPF on organ also to roll off low end around 100Hz
    • Strings EQ
      • boost between 200Hz to 500Hz to give strings more body
      • can put HPF at 200Hz
      • cut between 4kHz to 5kHz to soften strings from being too harsh and fit better in the mix
      • boost between 7kHz to 10kHz to add brightness, don’t put too much
    • Brass and Woodwind EQ
      • boost at 120Hz to give brass more fullness
      • boost at 5kHz to add brightness, but make sure it’s not too piercing and doesn’t interfer with other instruments
      • like most acoustic instruments, add HPF at 100Hz
  • QUICK FACT – If bringing two similarly levels tracks into the master fader, they will add up to about 3db more than the loudest track by itself