Reference Recordings: Getting out of your own mix!

And . . . I'm back at it after a short hiatus while on tour. So far we have only discussed some segmented concepts in the mix. EQing, depth, space, reverb, delay. Now, we are going to take things a step further, but not with adjusting your mix. This time we are going to actually get out of the mix for a moment and into something called reference recordings. A reference recording is anything that you feel you want your music to sound like (a finished, commercially produced product). By sound like, I don't mean copy cat. We are talking about mix, not song-writing. You should already have your song worked out and recorded (and possibly mixed to some degree) if you are delving into this step. At most, your reference recording should be within the same style. Here are a few things to think about before selecting a reference recording:

1. Instrument Sound  

You should ask yourself a few questions. How big are your guitars? What about your kick drum? Snare? Piano? Do they fit in the mix? Or do they sound segmented and out of place? Do specific instruments shine through the way you would like? Regardless of instrument, you need to think about what your mix sounds like when you hit the playback button and then what you WANT it to sound like. What are you going for? 

2. Depth

We have already discussed this in an earlier post and it is something to consider here. Is your track 'deep' enough? Is there enough distance between each instrument? Should there be more? Do you want more? Does the style call for a lot or a little?

3. Compression

I have not discussed the inner workings of compression as of yet in this blog (it is coming soon) but it is something to consider here (please message me if you don't understand this step and I can give you more of a synopsis). Do you want your track squashed and have everything as loud as possible with no dynamic range (lots of hiphop and rap records are mixed in this fashion)? Or do you want to maintain the dynamics of your original track and allow some ebb and flow? 

After thinking about these things, get ready for the mirror. Select a reference recording (or more than one) . . . then play it back to back with your track. Don't be shocked if the difference is pretty great. Keep in mind that a commercial recording is already mastered and has probably been mixed with gear that is worth more than most of your possessions combined. However, don't worry . . . one thing I was told when I first started tearing into audio production, was that 'your mixes aren't going to sound like everyone else's, and that's okay.' You are going to have your own sound, and that is a good thing and nothing to be ashamed of. However, you still want to have a quality product so listen to your reference recordings. Remember the concepts mentioned earlier? Instrument sound, depth, and compression? Analyze the references using these concepts except this time, use the info you find to tweak your own mix. One of the best ways to learn is to watch (in this case listen) what others have done and expand your knowledge and capability accordingly. I have used recordings from Prince, Bruce Hornsby, Whiteheart, Steve Stevens, and others to assist in this process. These artists (among others) have some of the best engineers alive working on their stuff and they are fantastic sources to utilize for learning. Also keep in mind, that this whole thing is very subjective. Finally, if you are unsure of yourself (and you should always be somewhat unsure because that is what will keep you striving towards perfection), let someone whose opinion you trust hear it.

And when you are happy with your mix . . . this is what you'll look like:

Mix Depth: An Orchestra Conductor's Perspective

While we are cruising around the idea of spaciousness, let's discuss the idea of mix depth. To describe the semi-abstract world of mix engineering, I'm going to use a very real world example. For the guitarists reading this, set aside the guitar for a minute. No worries though; you can bring this back to guitar music and apply these concepts to many different areas.

Imagine a symphony orchestra from the conductor's point of view. This type of group can be around 100 players and requires (as I'm sure you can imagine) a sizable room in which to rehearse, and even more so to perform in. Each section extends row by row, further away from the conductor and eventually ends with the percussion section towards the back of the room (or in a performance setting, back of the stage). Due to the fact that every player in the room or on the stage, is sitting in a different spot with varying distances in relation to the conductor, the actual time it takes for the sound to travel between the two is going to vary greatly. The further away a player is from the conductor, the greater the delay in sound travel. So far, we have only discussed the physical delay between the players and the conductor. Now, there is reverb to take into consideration and depending on the size of the room and where you are standing, it will very widely. These factors create the very distinct depth that is associated with a symphony orchestra. We could spend a lot of time talking about that, however, I would like to just touch on it for the time being and head back to applying these concepts to a mix.

Stick yourself back in your mix chair, and imagine the conductor's position and his viewpoint. Now, considering we are in an artificial environment, there are lots of sneaky things one can do to establish depth in a mix. We are going to look at two of them. Remember the delay from the player to the conductor? You can add a small amount of delay to a track (or several) in order to distinguish them in the mix. Now when I say 'add delay,' I am talking about 20-30 ms. This is very specific to application though. It will all depend on what you are doing and how far back you want the track to sound (you don't want it to be out of time unless that is the vibe you're going for). Sound travels at roughly 1 ft. per ms so we are talking about mimicking sound traveling around 30 ft. If you have strings in your song, then this technique is crucial for a sense of both depth and realism (remember the orchestral imagery). This leads me to my second topic, reverb.

Reverb can be severely overused if you aren't careful so try to use it sparingly in the beginning. The use of this effect will place your mix (or elements thereof) in an environment. Be it a bathroom, a church, or a horse stall, it will be an environment that will have it's own characteristics which will in turn effect your mix a certain way. This is another topic that could become very drawn out so I will cut to the chase for this post. Depending on what I'm doing, I usually set up a reverb bus (normal bus with a reverb loaded into an effects send) and route whatever tracks I desire to it. As long as you use a 'send' on each track, you can control the send level to the reverb. To start establishing depth, only put a little (or no reverb) on the tracks that you want in the front of the mix. The tracks that you want further back, add a bit more reverb. The more tracks you have, the more you can (and should) layer to establish depth. So to wrap it up . . . based upon how deep you want your tracks to sound, and where you want to place your tracks in the mix, you can utilize delay and reverb to establish a sense of depth. Please feel free to comment or ask questions! This post was probably a little too short to explain certain aspects of depth so if there is something you want explained in a more detailed fashion, please feel free to ask away!

Big Guitars: Makin' it Wider

Let me set up a scenario: You are in your studio, and just finished laying down a rhythm guitar part for a new song. You hit the right notes, your amp tone sounds good, everything seems to have been set up perfectly. Then you hit the playback button . . . something is missing. Depending on how you recorded your tracks, your guitar track probably sounds very centered in the mix, not at all spread out extra wide and thick like that Metallica record you listen to all the time. What do you do?

Much of the time, guitar tracks are recorded in mono. This means there is just one track (and one waveform) and usually the default panning (the knob above the volume fader in your recording software) is set to center. So, if you are listening to your mix on headphones, it's going to sound as though the guitar was coming right at your nose. Most of the time, this is probably not what you are going to want and it isn't going to deliver that massive sound. What you are looking for (whether consciously or not) is that wide, stereo sound. The big guitar, wall of sound associated with many of the famous rock recordings within the past 30 years is attributed to a myriad of different sound engineering tactics including everything from stereo miking to playing each rhythm part twice. However, there is one very simple, very easy tactic you can use to help get that big sound and take your mono guitar track into a wide, stereo-emulating, guitar sound. For starters, double your guitar track. You should be able to right-click on the track and select that option (it may be referred to as cloning). Then pan your original track hard left, and your newly doubled track, hard right. See Ex. 1: 

In the picture, I only panned mine to 80% on either side, but you can pan all the way to 100%. You want to be sure to pan in order to create space (I will discuss 'space' in a later post). If you do not, they will only make the guitar part louder and even more in the way of everything else in the mix. The next step is REQUIRED to effectively use this technique. Go to your effects rack for your newly doubled track and add a delay. This is not going to be your solo delay type of effect, but rather a literal 'delaying' of the sound. What we are going to do, is delay the arrival time of the doubled track to your ear. In this case, it is the right ear. This causes an offset between the two tracks and in turn, it creates a stereo-like effect. See Ex. 2: 

Set the delay time to around 20 ms (I set it a little past that in the picture). Depending on the plugin you use, make sure the 'mix' and 'gain' controls are all the way up. You should hear an instant 'widening' of the sound and some distinct separation between the left side and the right side (you can hear this effect best with headphones). To understand what is going on here, think of it this way . . . you have two guitarists standing about 20 feet apart from each other playing the same song and you are standing directly between them. They may be playing the song together incredibly well but because of the human factor, they are simply not going to hit the strings at precisely the same fraction of a second. This is going to cause the sound coming from their amps to hit each of your ears at slightly different times. The resulting sound from this sort of a situation is a stereo effect which is what we have emulated in the above examples. You can use this tactic in a lot of different situations and for many different styles of music. Please understand though that this is very subjective. The width of your guitar (% of panning and amount of delay) is going to depend highly on the type of music you are recording. For example, if you are recording an R&B track, you may not want it that wide. It all depends on taste. Always keep that in mind.