Old 07-14-2020, 08:12 AM   #1
TheLastUsernameInIdaho
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Apr 2020
Posts: 45
Default Looking for mixing instruction

Hello. I'm pretty new to recording and mixing, and I'd like to learn the basics of mixing. I've gone through numerous tutorials and I just finished The Mixing Engineer's Handbook by Bobby Owsinski. I am looking for something more comprehensive and far more in depth than what I have seen so far.

What I don't want is a how-to instructional video. What I do want is enough education that I can make informed decisions about what effects to use, in what order, and what they do to the signal. I want detailed information.

The problem I have found is that there are so many people claiming to be experts, I cannot figure out where to begin. I don't care if I have to pay someone for good instruction. I just don't want to pay for and waste time on bad instruction.

Does anyone know of either a set of books or classes that I can invest in that will move me towards a good education in this subject?

Thanks
TheLastUsernameInIdaho is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-15-2020, 07:55 AM   #2
toleolu
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Posts: 2,423
Default

Don't know of any courses, books and such, lots of good stuff on You Tube, but I have found the Music/Collaboration Discussion section of this forum to be a great resource. Post samples of what you are working on there, and you'll get a lot of great advice and help from the forum. Some really talented people here who are always happy to help. Additionally, you can listen to what others post, and if you have questions about what they did, they will gladly answer as well.

If I might ask, what is your goal with recording? Are you looking for something along the lines of professional commercial quality recordings, or are you more like me, a home hobbyist user?

Last edited by toleolu; 07-15-2020 at 08:09 AM.
toleolu is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-15-2020, 08:24 AM   #3
karbomusic
Human being with feelings
 
karbomusic's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 29,260
Default

Mike Senior's book is highly regarded:

"Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio"

Bobby's book is good IIRC, he also has or had a course on Lynda.com but it was more about techniques than base learning if I remember correctly. I would learn the concepts and apply the concepts. Stay away from mixing recipes which really doesn't help someone become a good mixer.

One of the best pieces of advice I can give, is record as much and often as you can learn from those recordings - meaning don't just wait for an important project - record and mix faux projects just for practice. Doing so caused me to take up additional instruments, so I could record full songs (by myself) which forced me to learn orchestration and so on which really opened my eyes to far more than just reading a book.

IIRC you've been playing guitar for 40 years? Same here but I've also recorded for about that long and what made the difference was learning how things work and just constantly recording and mixing which presented problems I had to solve and so on. One thing to always remember is the source always matters, whether that be the quality of the recorded tracks, or how good the performance is, and even the arrangement and orchestrations. Screwing those up sounds like mix issues but they are not and it's amazing how good properly recorded and arranged tracks sound out of the gate vs the opposite.

Embrace failure along the way as that's the only way to learn.
__________________
Music is what feelings sound like.
karbomusic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-15-2020, 10:11 AM   #4
toleolu
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Posts: 2,423
Default

To add to what Karb said regarding performance, that's the biggest benefit I've gotten out of recording. It really forced me to pay closer attention to how I was playing, I had gotten very lazy.

I'm an old knobs and switches guy, the plugins and stuff are great, but I found what worked best for me was using using my guitar, pedal, amp setting, and performance to get things as good as I can, then just use a few effects as needed to kind of tweak things. But then again, a lot of my stuff is just backing tracks on steroids, so back to the question about your goals and expectations.

Also to Karb's point about experience. One thing I've noticed about all the people here that are really good at this stuff is they've been doing this for a long time.
toleolu is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-15-2020, 11:39 AM   #5
karbomusic
Human being with feelings
 
karbomusic's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 29,260
Default

I meant to include this earlier: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=29283
__________________
Music is what feelings sound like.
karbomusic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-15-2020, 09:53 PM   #6
TheLastUsernameInIdaho
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Apr 2020
Posts: 45
Default

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. What am trying to do is to educate myself so that I know what I am doing. I don't intend to do this professionally, I'm just trying to record my songs.

Yes, I can and will continue to record a lot, and as much as practice helps, what I don't want is an education by trial and error. I won't live long enough to get good. Try learning electrical engineering by just practicing.
TheLastUsernameInIdaho is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-15-2020, 10:35 PM   #7
numberthirty
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 674
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLastUsernameInIdaho View Post
Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. What am trying to do is to educate myself so that I know what I am doing. I don't intend to do this professionally, I'm just trying to record my songs.

Yes, I can and will continue to record a lot, and as much as practice helps, what I don't want is an education by trial and error. I won't live long enough to get good. Try learning electrical engineering by just practicing.
Just one person's point of view...

Coming from an electrical engineering angle?

I'm not really sure that there is an "Apple..."/"Apple..." comparison between something like a design that works or does not based on "Engineering..." realities versus all of the possible artistic choices that could go into a reasonably "Standard..." sort of a mix.

Quite a few times when I have seen someone say that a call made by one recording engineer is something that never even would have come to mind if they were working on the mix.

Don't mean to be a downer. Just seemed worth a mention.
numberthirty is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-15-2020, 10:38 PM   #8
numberthirty
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 674
Default

As for what you actually asked about, could you tolerate an overall situation if mixing was a part of the total package?

It seems like Jackpot! and Electrical Audio have held those sorts of workshops. The obvious hitch being that you would have to go to them.
numberthirty is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 05:28 AM   #9
TheLastUsernameInIdaho
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Apr 2020
Posts: 45
Default

My interest is more to understand than to achieve some outcome. I can take a few tracks, pepper them with a little reverb and eq, send them off to LANDR, and for $2.99 and I end up with a very good sounding track. For a few bucks I can already get a good outcome. It's actually amazing what their software can do. I would like to know what it's doing.

If I were to teach someone how to play guitar, they would first understand how music works. They would understand how to play chords, how to spell chords, what a key is, how the scales were formed, why there are 7 primary triads in a key and how to find them, why chord voicing matters, how the fret board is arranged, how to play each chord in multiple positions on the neck, how harmonizing is related to chord spelling, what scale modes are, blah, blah, blah. They would learn all this, assuming they didn't quit, even if all that information is not needed to play Smoke On The Water

This is the level of detail I'm looking for in mixing. But I sense from this thread that the majority of people doing mixing have learned by just playing at it long enough until they like what they hear. I don't think there's anything wrong with that method. I've certainly done it before. I know I can learn that way, I know it will take a long time, and I know I'll pick up a bunch of bad habits along the way.

I will try the Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio book, recommended earlier in this thread.
TheLastUsernameInIdaho is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 05:31 AM   #10
TheLastUsernameInIdaho
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Apr 2020
Posts: 45
Default

NumberThirty -- Those workshops are exactly what I'm looking for. Thank you for posting that.
TheLastUsernameInIdaho is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 07:25 AM   #11
vdubreeze
Human being with feelings
 
vdubreeze's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Brooklyn
Posts: 2,613
Default

I'll add that while overall knowledge is great, for now try to use material that is at least fairly well aimed at the kind of music you'll be mixing. So much of what's out there on instruction videos uses, for example, techniques for deep or punchy kick drum samples or smacking clappy snare samples that wouldn't advance my technique a bit, since I don't work in that realm 90% of the time. It's kind of funny how nearly any Reaper tutorial out there uses a track that sounds like someone hit the start button on a Casio keyboard. Learning routing is good but if you're not wanting to make your Casio sequencer tracks pop it's not as helpful as far as learning to mix.

Too many educational audio materials I've seen have a lot that applies to doing things in a studio, and 15 years ago, and not as much for things directly related to a minimal home studio DAW today. And what I've seen for the latter it's mostly for getting started, tracking, and if mixing it's how to set it up, not how to develop your mixing chops. It's a funny gap.

If your music is singer/songwriter-ish, with acoustic guitars and acoustic piano VSTi's, try to find something close to that, as showing how to make acoustics work around a vocal and different ways to set a vocal into the music will be relevant to you. If it's Rolling Stones-ish rock, you might never use sampled drums on the grid or kicks or basses that slam instead of play like a drummer and bassist. Obviously, you probably do a wider range than just one type, but I would say don't spend time with a course or book where the author is obviously not on your page.

Actually, what kind of music will you be doing? Someone can come up with a good one if we know.
__________________
The reason rain dances work is because they don't stop dancing until it rains.
vdubreeze is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 08:02 AM   #12
TheLastUsernameInIdaho
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Apr 2020
Posts: 45
Default

VDUBreeze,
I play mostly what I'd consider pop/rock/country/blues. I honestly have no idea how to categorize it. But it's electric and acoustic guitars, electric drums, electric or stand-up bass, various percussion, sometimes harmonica, and vocals with a fair bit of harmony.

https://soundcloud.com/user-70208160...per-and-my-gun

I would attach one I'm fighting with right now for the mix, but I don't think this forum allows MP3s
TheLastUsernameInIdaho is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 08:33 AM   #13
toleolu
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Posts: 2,423
Default

If you've only been using Reaper since April of this year, that's pretty good. Much better than anything I ever came up with after using Reaper for a few months.

I'm an old guy myself, I understand you wanting to get good before it's too late. Sometimes though, it's a good idea to embrace the journey rather than focusing on the destination.

I like your style of music, I'm an old rocker, blues, and outlaw country fan. I'd be interested in collaborating on something with you down the road. Can't sing for crap but I'm a pretty fair guitar player.
toleolu is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 09:13 AM   #14
TheLastUsernameInIdaho
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Apr 2020
Posts: 45
Default

Toleolu,
I started with Reaper last year, but it was mostly as a scratchpad. But this spring I actually started trying to create good recordings. That song is my first attempt at a good recording. I want to also point out that I sent my final mix over to LANDR, and they cleaned it up, for free. I can't get that level of clarity or volume yet.

About the journey/destination...I have almost no interest in the destination right now. The journey is all that I'm interested in. I just don't want to wander around forever.

Well, I write a lot, at least a song a month, sometimes two. I would up for collaborating. But the biggest thing I need is vocals. I play all my own parts right now, but that's just because the virus has everyone afraid to interact in person.
TheLastUsernameInIdaho is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 09:19 AM   #15
toleolu
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Posts: 2,423
Default

No worries my friend.

Unfortunately, the state of the art in plug ins, effects, etc. hasn't gotten to the point to where it can do anything about my voice.

Best of luck to you.
toleolu is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 09:36 AM   #16
Fex
Human being with feelings
 
Fex's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Portsmouth, UK
Posts: 4,376
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLastUsernameInIdaho View Post
Good song. Made me chuckle....

Was that rendered in Reaper with LAME? One thing that stands out is that the cymbals are mush; I usually hear that with substandard MP3 encoding - I've never heard it from Reaper, even at 128kbps. I guess it's probably Soundcloud messing up your music for you.
Fex is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 09:58 AM   #17
TheLastUsernameInIdaho
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Apr 2020
Posts: 45
Default

The final mix was done on the LANDR site. They offer a free mastering for the low quality MP3
TheLastUsernameInIdaho is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 03:52 PM   #18
numberthirty
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 674
Default

Since Jackpot Recording Studio was one of the possibilities that I mentioned earlier, I'll link to the options. Just as an aside, Larry has worked on a lot of really brilliant records(Elliot Smith/Richmond Fontaine/Lots Of Other Solid Stuff...), and always been willing to lend a hand to the "Hobbyist..." corner of music recording. I would not hesitate for a second to put money in the guy's pocket.

Anyways...

Workshops -

http://jackpotrecording.com/workshops/

What Seems To Be More "One On One..." Situation -

http://jackpotrecording.com/one-on-ones/
numberthirty is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 03:58 PM   #19
numberthirty
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 674
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLastUsernameInIdaho View Post
Toleolu,
I started with Reaper last year, but it was mostly as a scratchpad. But this spring I actually started trying to create good recordings. That song is my first attempt at a good recording. I want to also point out that I sent my final mix over to LANDR, and they cleaned it up, for free. I can't get that level of clarity or volume yet.

About the journey/destination...I have almost no interest in the destination right now. The journey is all that I'm interested in. I just don't want to wander around forever.

Well, I write a lot, at least a song a month, sometimes two. I would up for collaborating. But the biggest thing I need is vocals. I play all my own parts right now, but that's just because the virus has everyone afraid to interact in person.
Just as an aside...

The "Volume..." component of a finished recording is almost a separate discussion in this day and age.

A lot of the stuff you hear is just "Stupid" loud for no real reason. It's not like the Thin Lizzy albums are that loud if you go back and listen.
numberthirty is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 05:26 PM   #20
JohnnyMusic
Human being with feelings
 
JohnnyMusic's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: Twin Cities, Mn
Posts: 384
Default

To the OP,
I have a similar learning approach:
I like to read some explanations and theory, techniques, then go practice it, rinse and repeat. It has helped me get better at mixing much faster and I don't think I would have gotten anywhere with trial and error.

I think the Mike Senor book is pretty good.
Also I would read books by a few different authors as you learn something a little different and from a different perspective with each one.

A book that have read recently that is a very thorough academic approach is:

Mixing Audio: Concepts, Practices, and Tools 3rd Edition
by Roey Izhaki

It has really detailed discussions of subjects like compression, gating and EQ, that, once you have a firm technical foundation in, you can use more skillfully to get the results you want. You'll know the technical "why" of what you are doing.

Mixing and Mastering in the Box by Steve Savage is a less technical but good overview of mixing as well.

More philosophical is "Zen and the Art of Mixing"
and the unique: "The Art of Mixing: A Visual Guide to Recording, Engineering, and Production ": This uses an approach of imagining sounds in space based on their frequency, ambience and of course panning. There is a pretty cheesy video on youtube that goes through a lot of the concepts, that would be free.

If you want a more no nonsense technical approach, I would start with the Izhaki Book. It would give a real solid technical foundation.

John
JohnnyMusic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 05:49 PM   #21
bucca
Human being with feelings
 
bucca's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: near my POB
Posts: 388
Default

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEjOdqZFvhY
__________________
who's gonna water my plants ... if not you
bucca is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 06:22 PM   #22
JohnnyMusic
Human being with feelings
 
JohnnyMusic's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: Twin Cities, Mn
Posts: 384
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by bucca View Post
That's the one! It's so cheesy that it is kind of entertaining.
JohnnyMusic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-16-2020, 07:45 PM   #23
TheLastUsernameInIdaho
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Apr 2020
Posts: 45
Default

Bucca,
That's a great video. And cheesy!
TheLastUsernameInIdaho is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-22-2020, 07:12 PM   #24
DeathByGuitar
Human being with feelings
 
DeathByGuitar's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Greensboro, NC
Posts: 507
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLastUsernameInIdaho View Post
Bucca,
That's a great video. And cheesy!
If you're into rock or metal, this book is my bible.

https://www.systematicproductions.com/mixing-guide.htm

Ermin Hamidovic really knows his stuff. He's mastered albums for so many of the popular, up-and-coming metal bands in the last few years
DeathByGuitar is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-25-2020, 08:16 AM   #25
Philbo King
Human being with feelings
 
Philbo King's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2017
Posts: 3,201
Default

The only good way to learn mixing or mastering is to do it. A lot. Make mistakes you don't hear until it's been released (after a certain point of getting good at it you'll be the only one who hears them). Then do a little better on the next one.

Trying to learning mixing by watching videos or reading books is like trying to learn oil painting by watching Bob Ross. Until you do it, you won't learn. You might find some cool FX and routing tricks to use, but without the context of experience you won't remember them when they could be useful.
__________________
Tangent Studio - Philbo King
www.soundclick.com/philboking - Audio streams
Philbo King is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-01-2020, 05:55 PM   #26
TheLastUsernameInIdaho
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Apr 2020
Posts: 45
Default

There have been many good recommendations on this thread. Johnny music recommended a book, Mixing Audio: Concepts, Practices, and Tools 3rd Edition by Roey Izhaki. This, so far, is an excellent book.

Although I agree that a person can make considerable progress by just playing with the software, I think having a basis for what you are doing will save a ton of time over mixing by trial and error.
TheLastUsernameInIdaho is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-01-2020, 06:50 PM   #27
JohnnyMusic
Human being with feelings
 
JohnnyMusic's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: Twin Cities, Mn
Posts: 384
Default

Glad you're enjoying that book so far. Although practicing and repetition is definitely required to get better, having a decent theoretical foundation will get you there faster, IMHO. It gives you sort of a base to work from, some confidence that have have the basics, so you don't feel like your just randomly floundering or may be missing something.

The chapter on compression is very thorough. It goes over all the technical aspects, but also the many different mixing tasks you may want to tackle with it. I have reviewed it a couple times and I still don't have it all down. However, I now have a much better grasp of how to use the compressor, including what all the parameters do, and how to set them to achieve what i want. I think you'll really like it, but be prepared to read it a couple times to really let it sink in!
JohnnyMusic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-04-2020, 09:32 AM   #28
xackley
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Kitchen table, next to frig
Posts: 1,179
Default

The biggest problem I had with mixing is the availability of fx and the urge to use them.
If a track doesn't have a problem, don't mess with it.
An Item volume envelop is your friend before a compressor on a dynamic track.
Don't pan anything (or mix with master set to mono) until you like the volumes and frequencies you are hearing.
Turn down your monitors to a level your ears can take for a long time. Test the mix cranked and low volume.
Don
__________________
^^^^^^^^^^
https://soundcloud.com/user-463176271
xackley is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 04:44 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.