the technique described is not one you would typically do. Not like that. I could see how one might use M/S EQ but actually panning left or right is rare.

How many mixes have you finished ?
You need to read, both the practical and science stuff
and you need to just do it.

it isn't really that hard. Almost every advanced technique is just simple technique but used in another way. The core comes down to knowing how to listen, spotting the problems and knowing how to fix it .

you learn this by mixing and listening. Reading gives you the language to describe some issues and some general context and tips.

As far as how you get 100 tracks.

The orchestra was not real. So right there,

about 60 tracks. 30 tracks of percussion. misc stuff like synths guitars drum kit bass.....


it adds up quick. The only way to get a realistic sound from samples is to blend. So violin 1 can have 6 stereo tracks. Now if you account for all the instruments of an orchestra roughly 35. It adds up. 100 is actually rather light.

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Last edited by Looney4Clooney on Nov-14-2011 at 07:51

quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney he was able to have sounds fit without cutting everything all the time.

A good engineer once said that an awful lot of mixing is about using the levelling faders correctly. I sorta took no notice and thought to myself that what he said was obvious surely, so I didn't take on board the critical importance of his comment.

I've only recently begun to recognise the role of correct levelling and as such am now trying to put a lot more care into the volume of each instrument.

I tended to subconsciously maximise the level of everything and ended up with that brittle wall of sound mush, in fact I made just this mistake on a recent track (Endtimes).

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I remember reading the same thing about the importance of the volume fader a while ago and it's really so obvious when you think about it.

When I started making music with a DAW again a few years back I probably spent 20 hours a week just reading stuff, and then created perhaps 5-10 practise projects every week, most of which were little more than 8-16 bar loops just to investigate what i'd been reading.

The importance of the fader hit me when I redid a small project that I thought sounded ok at the time. I set every channel back to zero and relevelled it from scratch, keeping every sound as quiet as I could get away with. When I finished I thought it sounded pretty close to what I had originally done. I lol'zd when I compared them.

I'm probably just starting to get to the stage where I feel I can realistically call some of the stuff I do as good (technically at least) but L4C is correct when he talks about numbers of projects and just getting on with it. There really is no secret to it, in fact it's really very simple. Just takes time and experience.

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quote:

Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.

Can you guys remember where you read this about the volume faders? Would be an interesting read I'm sure! Really happy if any of you can find it!

quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney ps: was curious so i just did a pure tone at 3000 hz. added a delay to the right speaker of 30 ms, couldn't tell the difference. But as you lower it , at about 1500 you start to be able to notice the emerging tone. Did the same for 10 ms, at 3000 no change in localization, as you lower , the sound in the left speaker seems to get louder. I imagine it gets a little more complicated for complex noises.

Ah interesting! I will do some testing myself when I get home! But I think it gets more complicated myself yes with complex noises, cause I often a time delay one channel i.e. to get my snares (highend above 3000hz) more stereo, and always have to lower one channel in volume to compensate for Haas..

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox I wish we had a dedicated thread on here where we talked about nothing but engineering or mixing techniques. Its threads like this that make me realize how absurdly small my "engineering toolbox" is. I mean fuck I discovered Von Doorns 5 tuts only of yesterday and about 90% of the shit he did were things I've never even thought of doing before. Are there books that specifically discuss engineering tactics? I really need to start thinking outside the box but when you don't even actually have a box thats a hard thing to do. I mean its people like me that would read shit like this and abuse it terribly. If you pan a sound exponentially would it be smarter to use more than 3 regions of the spectrum? Like instead of low/mid/hi doing low low/mid low/hi low/low mid/mid mid/mid hi/low hi/mid hi/hi? Should produce a more dramatic image right? I have a hard enough time mixing 10-15 tracks never mind anything over 100. I don't even get how that is possible unless they aren't even real sounds but just blips of sounds. It took me 9 years just to learn something as stupid as putting tremolo on noise I can't keep learning at this slow a pace I feel like I'm wasting tons of time.

Don't get disheartened Robby - we've all had (or have) those moments where we just seem so out of our depths you think "what's the fucking point".

I remember when I first moved out to LA, I thought I was a pretty decent engineer, had about 10 years of working audio experience, having graduated a good engineering school and had worked with some pretty big name studios in London.

The last studio job was a complete eye-opener and I probably learned more in the first few month there than I had in the preceding 10 years. What L4C said about watching and working with real pros is absolutely true. Sitting there by yourself will be way slower than discussing with, or watching other people better than you.

Another point: you may want threads just about enigeering, but honestly this place echos studio life quite well: the sharp humor, the acidic wit and even harsh handling of noobs/dumb questions is like a pale version of studio life. If you can't hack it here, then lifespan in a real studio would be less than a tse tse fly.

Why? because the intense pressure and monotony, combined with brains overflowing with knowledge (not that I'm accusing this place of those attributes) need a release and a punchbag.

Back on topic, I would not use this technique until you've got just simple level balancing and frequency separation via EQ truly down.

I'm going to post a bunch of shit about this theroy and technique but I'm knackered so I'll post is tomorrow.