The Mixing Thread

[The Phat Conductor]

go watch the andivax video i linked

[Freekster]

Two Stage compression explained well in this video:
Part 1
Part 2

Here's a my secret trick called: Take it to the 11!

When you have a track that has clearly separate sections like verse and chorus and you want the chorus sound a One Louder try this:

Separate the sections with silence when bouncing so that all reverb tails, delay feedbacks and compressor releases die off. That you have complete silence when next section starts.

After bouncing cut the sections back together either with straight cut or mix the tails to the cut. With this you get the next section to FEEL like it's One Louder than the previous one. The RMS might actually be higher for a millisecond or so, but it's mainly a psychoacoustic effect that fools the listener.

The effect works even better if the rejoining of the parts is done after the final mastering, so that the is no master compressor/limiter eating out your effect.

Nice trick that can be tried when rejoining is put a flanger, phaser or filter to the tail section and mix that in the cut. Sometimes it gives freaky results.

[Freekster]

And one more trick:

Mix a track so that you don't touch the SOLO button

It's hard not to do it, but if you learn to do all prosessing with everything on, you will get better results.

[The Phat Conductor]

whoah!

full marks for that tip. nice one!

<3

d

[friend_kami]

this take it to 11 tip seems like the bomb. i just have to try it.
just have to learn to made a chorus type climax for my songs first then

[Freekster]

Just watched the Logic 404 Mixing Electronica by Olav Basoski

Nice video about mixing electronic music, but the first tip in the video is: Put a compressor into the master track Not something that i would suggest for the beginners.

[kberanek]

nice!

[The Phat Conductor]

i can't believe nobody's called me on my mapractises yet.i gotta be doing something wrong here! come on guys...

[lauschepper]

OR i do it with an eq8 with all 8 poles on.

i may be the only one but my "eq eight" only goes down to 40Hz, how can i create a 20Hz cut off? any other possibilities in live? or does someone know a decent eq free on the web?

[The Phat Conductor]

i may be the only one but my "eq eight" only goes down to 40Hz, how can i create a 20Hz cut off? any other possibilities in live? or does someone know a decent eq free on the web?

i just do it at 30Hz with the eq8...

the wavearts track plug has a nice 90 degree -infinity slope that works pretty well tho. most of the time i use that. it's a nice plugin in other ways too...

[Sibanger]

@phat: can you explain "make an offset-panner" a bit more. do you use ableton's auto-pan-plug for that?

my problem is to place the instruments in the stereo-field. when i use the auto-pan-plug my feelin' is, that i lose a lot of dynamics. what i need is something like wave's imager to spread the instrument-parts in the stereo-field. maybe you have other suggestions...........

making an offset panner:

-make a rack with two chains, one hard left, and one hard right. use utility plugins to isolate each side (ie, no summing to mono and then panning, you want proper isolation of each the left and right side).

-on the chain for the right side, i used a filter delay with the wet turned off, the sync turned off, the filter and two delays turned off, and then feedback all the way down on the one unfiltered delay which remains.

-you get a dry signal which is slightly delayed and you just have to set the number of ms.

Thanks Phat. I'm loving the offset panner, and I know you have spelled it out,
but I don't understand the use of the utilities on each chain. Do I change the Panorama setting or the
Stereo setting to make them isolate in the way you have explained?
Thanks (great post).

[The Phat Conductor]

there's a box where you can select the feed. it's not a knob. select left and right respectively...

[Angstrom]

With your 'panner', applying a short delay time to one side - there's something to watch out for : if you ever run that 'widened' audio back through a mono output it will sound like a stuck flanger and can be pretty annoying.

I have found is that every time I use this trick and say " ah well this will never be going to mono anyway", I soon find myself listening to that very thing in mono with a big stuck flange on it.

I still use that trick a lot, but never on anything important to the song and never on anything below about 250 hz either!
it's great to put on something that needs to be made present without being louder, rather than turning up the hi EQ I do that trick.

[The Phat Conductor]

With your 'panner', applying a short delay time to one side - there's something to watch out for : if you ever run that 'widened' audio back through a mono output it will sound like a stuck flanger and can be pretty annoying.

I have found is that every time I use this trick and say " ah well this will never be going to mono anyway", I soon find myself listening to that very thing in mono with a big stuck flange on it.

I still use that trick a lot, but never on anything important to the song and never on anything below about 250 hz either!
it's great to put on something that needs to be made present without being louder, rather than turning up the hi EQ I do that trick.

all excellent points. you have to be real careful where you do it. i normally do it on short percussive sounds, so it comes out as a flam in mono, or else on the ear candy sounds like whooshes and zaps and whatnot.

[Sibanger]

there's a box where you can select the feed. it's not a knob. select left and right respectively...

Oh, I had that already. Thought you meant something else.

Thanks.