Comments on: 7 Questions from Amateur Mix Engineers

by: jason johnston

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:20:03 +0000

Good stuff….

I do agree with Keith, I've found a little gate on a track where someone printed down the reverb already can help.

Thanks for the post.

by: garagespin

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 04:12:17 +0000

Heh, heh. Too funny! Good post. Have you considered writing a self-help book? ;)

by: Rich H

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:39:23 +0000

Good point about brevity "des". Maybe it is short sighted of me to presume that we can summarize what good technique is. It certainly wouldn't be honest to give ppl the impression that there is any quick fix to recording. But to my point, I see these types of "it depends" comments EVERYWHERE on audio forums and they drive me crazy. I think we can say what you said and append with…"here are 20 tips to get ya started".

And… YES! This is a great website. I am quickly discovering that :-) As I said, thank you for the article. I depended on articles like this when I was starting out as a way to understand what was going on.

I hope you'll keep going with it…

Rich

by: des

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:06:36 +0000

I appreciate the comments Rich.

> While it's answer is true, it IS trite to say

I agree, and I go back and forth on that myself. But at the end of the day, I have to draw the line somewhere. Writing a piece like this, I need to strike a balance between practicality and brevity. I could write pages about EQ frequencies and compressor settings and whatnot, but then the article is no longer on point.

My hope is that, after reading the high-level treatment I gave the subject above, folks will have their interest piqued enough to read some more, on this site or any of the other great sites I've linked to.

> and if you put some effort into it you CAN give "tips"
> …
> Give ppl a starting place! Why is everyone so afraid to do that?

Take a look around the rest of the site. There are lots of tips and practical advice!

Cheers.

by: Rich H

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 21:54:48 +0000

No 2 is a lazy answer also. Different mics can be described as warm, bright, transparent, dark, etc. etc. So give people examples such as the U47 is a warm, vintage sounding mic because of it's tube and design. The Sure SM7 is a darker mic that is popular for rock vocals where the singer is projecting or screaming. Give ppl a starting place! Why is everyone so afraid to do that?

Rich

by: Rich H

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 21:47:52 +0000

Your response to question one is a bit of a cop out that people use when they don't want to take the time to help someone starting out. While it's answer is true, it IS trite to say, "whatever sounds best or, is best for the song". A beginner is only discouraged by that and if you put some effort into it you CAN give "tips" that are helpful starting places. Here are two just for an example….

1. When a mix or part sounds "muddy" or undefined a cut in the mid range frequencies between 300 and 600Khz can bring back some clarity.

2. Most frequencies below 150Hz on vocals are not needed and can be safely cut.

3. When compressing try for a small ration of 2 or 3 to 1 and a fast attack with medium release. This is a good starting place for compression.

These are just random examples. But there are easily several times you can throw out to help people who don't have ears to hear for themselves where the problem is (yet).

Do people a favor and don't be lazy by perpetuating this answer. It's only mostly true and it just aggravates people trying to get going. I know because I WAS one of them!

That said, thanks for the article :-)

Rich

by: Blair

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:56:45 +0000

Ha! That article was great! Usually I skip over those because of how cheesey they are, but that was good by how little "fact" you actually wrote.

And that last line about plugins; Genius.

by: Jon

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 05:09:09 +0000

Excellent post Des

by: Keith Handy

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 04:21:44 +0000

5. Although you technically can't remove reverb, there are some tricks to slightly compensate for starting out with a little too much. Expansion/gating/noise removal (three variants on the same broad theme) can sometimes cut it back a little. Also, if you fold something down from stereo to mono, it usually dulls the reverb down by cancelling the out-of-phase component. Rarely is the track so fantastic in every other sense that re-taking it wouldn't make more sense.

7. I nodded/smiled at this one, because a guy has recently been badgering me over YouTube to answer questions about basic usage (i.e. not "advanced pointers") of Tracktion. I keep telling him what page it's on. Come on, dude, it's not even expensive…