Mixdown Tips

victorgonzales · Post by **victorgonzales** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 6:51 am

Very good tips. I would recomend that everyone buy a book about mixing. I bought a 50 dollar book about audio engineering and mastering and it was probably one of the best things to happen to my sound since I started producing. It has about 400 pages worth of tips like the ones above. It also goes into great detail on how to get the sounds you are looking for out of specific instruments.

Buy a book sit down and read it.

dvdt · Post by **dvdt** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 8:49 am

useful post.. .thanks

i978 · Post by **i978** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 1:36 pm

Excellent Thread! Nice one Tourque.

I have a couple of questions about the importance of mono compatability / phase issues. If anyone can give me some guidence, it would be much appreciated.

I'm currently working on a track and I have purposely inverted the phase of the right channel of my HH track to get the mix to "fill the room" a bit more. The effect sounds good (to me at least), which is the most important thing, but I'm wondering if there are any potential technical problems with this?

I know phase problems at the bottom end of a mix cause problems if mastering to vinyl. Is there also an issue for the high end? Will the phase be "corrected", loosing the effect? I.e. is using anti-phase as an effect pointless if the final destination of the tune is vinyl?

Also, when checking the mix in mono, the hats dissapear. I am aware that many club soundsystems are, essentially, mono (for various reasons and done in different ways). If my track is played in a club, will the hats be lost too?

Robot Criminal · Post by **Robot Criminal** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 2:08 pm

u basically answered your questions....

i978 · Post by **i978** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 5:52 pm

Hmmm. Don't think I have, mate.

I don't know if inverted phase on high frequencies is possible to reproduce on vinyl.
I don't know if the hats will be heard if the track is pumped through a club soundsystem.

There is no need to be dismissive. Can we try to be a bit more constructive please?

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 7:25 pm

sorgenkind wrote:about the fact that bass and kick may have fighting frequencies or phase cancellation problems...
before i ever tried side chain compression between bass and kick the only way I had to have a proper sounding low end was to make compromise, so no 808 kick with a sine sub bass for example, which was very limiting for me.
Since I am using side chain compression for the bassline it seem to me that I can quite always ignore all that and simply let the sidechain compressor sink the volume of the bassline each time the kick is triggered (brief explanation about the most common use of sidechain compression).
I always check my mixes with a phase meter, and I could really notice few phase problems since the sidechain.

I'd like to know other experiences/point of wiev about that sidechain thing, maybe it's just me on "sidechain trip" and therfore not being really objective...

i used to use side chaining, its extremely useful no doubt, but now rather than using a machine to do the job, i work on the sounds themselves and do it manually, it gives me much more control.
i suppose it really depends on how you work, but because i write everything in midi, its not difficult to just keep the velocity of the bass notes lower when they coincide with the kick, especially when working in loops, that way i can have exactly as much of the bass note as i want, so the tune doesnt get lost, if the bass is very integrale to the tune.
sometimes i might drop the kick an imperceptable amount, just so the bass can keep its energy, but avoiding spikes.
in other words, what i'd rather do is find the right mix of kick and bass when they coincide, and that might vary from bar to bar, than booting the bass out of the mix with a machine.
but its quicker and easier to use a compressor.

sorgenkind · Post by **sorgenkind** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 8:54 pm

sincei do almost all basslines with hardware synths i can try this velocity thing, thanks

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 11:27 am

sorgenkind wrote:sincei do almost all basslines with hardware synths i can try this velocity thing, thanks

i also quite often avoid placing bass notes on top of kicks anyway.
i always consider kick and bass together when constructing the tune, and i dont really write basslines as such. the bottom end of the tune can come from any number of elements from different patterns. i might have a sound on a synth which is a pattern that covers three or four octaves, and the bottom octave sits in the bass area with no resonance so that it acts as a bassline, while the top octave has resonance and tighter envelopes and sounds like a clave.
so i dont write basslines, i write patterns which morph around and sound like different instruments in different parts of the spectrum.
so to avoid phase cancellation, or spikes, i just make sure where notes coincide, i adjust the velocities accordingly, or even delete notes which seem unneccessary.
also if you have machines with limited polyphony, you can let the machines inadequacies do it for you. i have an original Nord Lead, and i deliberately haven't expanded it from its original 4 notes, so that it drops notes when they stack up. sometimes lots of polyphony isn't what you want.
i've used this effect many times, it throws up interesting results.