Recording - October 2014 - 36

seem too loud when you are listening loud will suddenly jump out in the mix when you are listening softly. This is especially helpful when mixing vocals: I set
my vocal levels at softer volume and then check them
again at medium and loud volumes.
One of my final listening passes before printing the
mix is at super soft levels, so soft that anyone talking
in the room would be highly disruptive to the listening
experience. Your clients will usually want to listen to
everything loud and proud. Mine always ask me if I
can turn it up, or turn on the soffit-mounted big speakers in my studio! You can do that and get them excited, but you owe it to yourself and to your mix to also
listen to your work very softly to make sure that you
are not being too aggressive with any particular
instrument, EQ or automation move.
As I mentioned before, the ear is a natural compression device, which means that if you have something that is too loud in the mix at loud levels, you will
not necessarily notice it because the ear is reducing
the dynamic range of your entire perception. At lower
levels, however, you will hear these things right away!
Keep that in mind and don't get too excited with that
stove top knob... ahem, I mean volume knob!
Add the meat and potatoes: vocals and guitar
If we were cooking a stew, it would now be the
time to add the meat and the potatoes. Some would
argue that drums and bass are the meat and potatoes... I won't argue with that, they have a point. But
for the sake of the cooking analogy I've got going,
I'm going to assume that my guitars and my vocals
are the main ingredients here.
Guitars are relatively easy to mix. Finding the right
sonic space for them is the hardest part but, unless your
mix is too cluttered with a lot of overdubs, that should
really be a piece of cake (nope, it's not time for dessert
just yet!). Hopefully you will have two guitar tracks that
you can pan left and right to enhance your stereo imaging; if you have that, half the battle is won. The impact
that a carefully written two-part guitar arrangement, or
even a single double-tracked guitar part, can have on
your song is not to be underestimated!
The vocals always go in the center for me. I might
spread background vocals apart a bit, but the lead
vocal is in the middle in pretty much every mix I have
ever done. Compression is key to make sure that the
36

RECORDING October 2014

vocal is always up front and heard... and to stop myself from falling into
the trap of obsessively riding the volume automation syllable by syllable-
another thing I used to do in the beginning and have taught myself not to,
unless strictly necessary.
With vocals, I like my compression to be as transparent as possible.
When I track vocals, I either track without compression or I track with some
very light compression through a real Urei 1176 or a Teletronix LA-2A.
However, when it comes to mixdown, I err on the side of digital compression. The reason is simple: if I want to compress a vocal more aggressively,
the sonic properties of a vintage analog limiter or compressors often become
less desirable to me than they are on, say, drums or bass or guitars.
My personal preference for vocal compression is in the digital domain and
specifically my go-to compression plugin is a McDSP Channel G, because its
compression is less audible. Most of the times (not always!) I want to be able
to hear the vocals without hearing the compression, and I feel that with that
particular plug-in I can do just that-along with a lot more stuff!
Beside compression, reverb and EQ will help you seat vocals in the mix so
that they fit. You don't want them to sound like they are in a completely different space, because that might create a disconnect. You don't want them to
be buried, but you also don't want them to overpower everything else. I usually highpass-filter the vocals: sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on
the singer, the formant structure of the voice, and its other tonal qualities. If
the singer has too many plosives, I might filter a bit more aggressively, or just
automate a highpass filter to only intervene on the plosives. If a singer has
too many sibilants, I will employ the services of a de-esser.
I usually do most of my EQ on the console if I am mixing analog, or
with a McDSP Channel G plug-in if I am in the box. As far as reverbs go,
my go-to analog reverb is an old vintage spring reverb tank unit called a
Master Room II. I also often use the Lexicon 480. When mixing digitally I
use the McDSP Revolver convolution reverb, which is very powerful and
has great presets, and the IK Multimedia CSR Classik Studio Reverb,
which offers Plate, Hall, Room and Inverse. I could write a whole other



Recording - October 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - October 2014

Contents
Recording - October 2014 - Intro
Recording - October 2014 - Cover1
Recording - October 2014 - Cover2
Recording - October 2014 - 1
Recording - October 2014 - 2
Recording - October 2014 - 3
Recording - October 2014 - 4
Recording - October 2014 - 5
Recording - October 2014 - Contents
Recording - October 2014 - 7
Recording - October 2014 - 8
Recording - October 2014 - 9
Recording - October 2014 - 10
Recording - October 2014 - 11
Recording - October 2014 - 12
Recording - October 2014 - 13
Recording - October 2014 - 14
Recording - October 2014 - 15
Recording - October 2014 - 16
Recording - October 2014 - 17
Recording - October 2014 - 18
Recording - October 2014 - 19
Recording - October 2014 - 20
Recording - October 2014 - 21
Recording - October 2014 - 22
Recording - October 2014 - 23
Recording - October 2014 - 24
Recording - October 2014 - 25
Recording - October 2014 - 26
Recording - October 2014 - 27
Recording - October 2014 - 28
Recording - October 2014 - 29
Recording - October 2014 - 30
Recording - October 2014 - 31
Recording - October 2014 - 32
Recording - October 2014 - 33
Recording - October 2014 - 34
Recording - October 2014 - 35
Recording - October 2014 - 36
Recording - October 2014 - 37
Recording - October 2014 - 38
Recording - October 2014 - 39
Recording - October 2014 - 40
Recording - October 2014 - 41
Recording - October 2014 - 42
Recording - October 2014 - 43
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Recording - October 2014 - 45
Recording - October 2014 - 46
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Recording - October 2014 - 50
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Recording - October 2014 - 80
Recording - October 2014 - Cover3
Recording - October 2014 - Cover4
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