Getting Ready To Mix

Recently I’ve been working on some songs that were recorded by another engineer. I’ve been hired to mix the songs but before I can mix I need to spend some time getting the songs ready to mix.

Mixing is a creative process, but there are any aspects of a multi-track recording that are more technical in nature and it can be very difficult to jump back and forth between technical editing and creative mixing actions.

A song that is ready to mix will have much of the technical concerns already taken care of, there’s nothing worse than having to stop mixing to tighten up percussion parts or line up backing vocals.

Some of these technical things would be: correcting the timing of instruments, trimming the audio, vocal comping and tuning, removing extra tracks and unused takes, organizing the session, and creating buses and groups.
Before you start, make a copy of the session and name it “songname_mix_prep”

Correcting Timing– Ideally this is all done way before you start thinking of mixing. The drum performance should be made as tight as required before adding any additional instruments. If you’re not quantizing the performance completely, at least make sure the start of each section has all the instruments hitting at the same time. I like beat detective for correcting drums, and elastic audio for everything else.

Trimming The Audio – This is a really simple editing task that makes a big difference. Go through all the tracks and chop out all the bits of the regions where the instrument isn’t played and put in fades in and out.

Vocal Comping And Tuning – Vocal comping is going through all the vocal takes and choosing the best parts to combine into a best of the best composite vocal . . . [read]

Top 3 Most Annoying Pro Tools 8 Bugs

Kevin Becka October 30th, 2009

Pro Tools: Love it or hate it? You be the judge after reading about these Pro Tools 8 bugs begging for a fix in the pending 8.0.3 update. Leave a comment with your own experiences.

• Performing any of the following tasks WILL ERASE YOUR UNDO HISTORY.

1. Duplicating a track
2. Removing a send
3. Using either select unused regions command
4. Splitting a stereo track to mono
5. Deleting a track (even an empty track)

[read: MixBlog]

112dB Redline Equalizer from MusicRadar – Reviews

We’re big fans of 112dB’s Redline Reverb, as it brings a lush, musical sound to a saturated market. Now the 112dB has released an EQ, Redline Equalizer, and most impressively, it lives up to the high standard that the company has set for itself.

The centre panel is dominated by a large graphical interface, which also has a useful spectrum analyser option (albeit with a nearly invisible pale grey colour scheme). Below this are the main EQ controls, with a high- and low-cut at either end and five parametric bands in the middle, each offering a more than ample 24dB of cut or boost, with frequency ranging from 10Hz to 28kHz.

You can also set the gain character – ranging from soft to surgical – which affects the interaction between the Q setting and the gain level. This can be handy for gentle sound-altering duties, as opposed to, say, cutting a specific frequency. [read]

Native Instruments Announces TRAKTOR KONTROL X1

Berlin, Germany /Music Industry Newswire/ — Native Instruments today announced TRAKTOR KONTROL X1, a highly functional performance controller that gives DJs immediate hands-on control over vital aspects of their performance. Designed by the team behind the groundbreaking TRAKTOR DJ platform, the compact KONTROL X1 offers an unprecedented level of integration with the latest TRAKTOR generation for maximum performance and ease-of-use, and can also efficiently control any MIDI-compatible DJ software on the market. [read]

New GrooveMaker Electro And Drums ’n’ Bass Released For iPhone/iPod Touch

IK Multimedia has released two new applications for the iPhone/iPod touch: GrooveMaker Electro and Drum ’n’ Bass (D’n’B). These complete the range of available GrooveMaker applications with two new style-based apps that allow anyone to create and share non-stop Electro and D’n’B tracks for DJing, remixing, multimedia and movie soundtrack compositions on the go, in real-time.

With over 350,000 downloads since its August release, GrooveMaker has quickly become the top loop remixing application for the iPhone and iPod touch, allowing any user to create professional, full-length songs in minutes, with its unique combination of advanced remixing software and high-quality included loops’ sound content.

GrooveMaker allows for instantaneous control over 8 stereo loop tracks, making it possible to remix the included massive loop library of drums, bass, bass drums, lines, pads, percussion and effects. Its unique and patented randomization feature allows musicians to generate a vast number of remixes on the fly, with one touch, to produce millions of possible groove combinations. [read]

Report: Universal Music CEO Morris To Step Aside

Universal Music Group’s Doug Morris will step aside next year and international chief Lucian Grainge will assume the role of CEO, according to BusinessWeek. Morris, who is 71 this month, will remain as Chairman and reportedly has no plans to retire.

Doug Morris has seen Universal through some of the rockiest times in the history of the music industry retaining the company’s position as the world’s largest label group.  After making the same post-Napster missteps as others in the industry, he has pushed the company’s moves into digital while at the same time remaining an outspoken critic of iTune’s dominance.   A recent initiative under Morris’ reign is the VEVO partnership which sees Universal joining with Sony to retain more control of and revenue from online music video.

image via Wired
:: Source: Hypebot.com

Recording studios are being left out of the mix

Inexpensive software is shifting music-recording to the home. Industry experts estimate that up to half of the commercial studios in the L.A. area have closed or been sold to artists for private use.

Tom McCauley didn’t plan on making house calls when he started in the music business.

As a recording engineer, McCauley made a good living working out of the many commercial studios that had grown up throughout the Los Angeles area to serve the music, film and television industries.

But with the advent of software that allows high-end recording from a personal computer, the 53-year-old Sherman Oaks resident has traded the quasi-industrial atmosphere of the commercial studio for his customers’ garages or living rooms.

On a recent Monday afternoon McCauley opened a wooden gate to the backyard of a Valley Village house, walked past a pool and into a studio converted from a guest house. He sat in front of dual computer monitors, opened up Pro Tools recording software and tested microphones.

“The old days were big budgets, top-of-the-line equipment and ‘How do you want your espresso and can I get it for you?’ ” he said. “I do miss that a bit. And at the time, even just 10 years ago, it didn’t seem like that could ever end, ever go away.” [read: LA TImes]

Roland M-48 Live Personal Mixer

The practice of providing musicians a control surface with which to adjust their headphone mixes first became commonplace in the recording studio context. The first generation of personal mixing systems typically provided for the artist to have control of 4-8 channels of audio, which commonly derived their signal from sub mixes on the studio console. Such systems generally used analog signal distribution and proprietary cabling and connector schemes. They served their purpose in the studio setting but would have been cumbersome and of limited usefulness outside of that context.

Over the past few years, a small handful of manufacturers have brought purpose-built personal mixing products to the marketplace that use digital audio bus technology and twisted pair cabling to provide artists the capability to control their individual in-ear mixes. These systems, most of which appear in 8-16 channel configurations, have gained widespread acceptance, particularly in the house of worship market. I have, however, always considered the low channel counts to be a limiting factor as I mixed in-ears for a contemporary worship service for about three years, and it almost always seemed as though the drummer wanted to hear just a little more hi hat or the singer a little more reverb. This is understdandable given the degree of ambient attenuation inherent with in-ear monitors. By the time one considers individual drum channels, ambient mics, and effects, even a 16 channel system can be very limiting indeed.

As a V-mix user and reseller, my interest was piqued when I heard that Roland would be adding a personal mixing system to their product line. I became considerably more interested as I began to learn about the system’s capabilities. [read]

The tech behind U2’s record-smashing tour

PASADENA, Calif.–If you were one of the 96,000 people packed into the Rose Bowl Sunday night for the U2 concert–said to be the largest concert ever held here–you were sharing the experience with at least a few other fans off-site.

There’s no way to know yet how many exactly, but it’s safe to say millions of people around the world were also watching the concert live on YouTube, a potentially server-crashing Webcast that may have been the biggest live-stream yet.

For months, the band has been on tour with its U2 360 concerts. And to top off the grand claims, it has been called the biggest rock tour in history, at least as measured by the size and cost of its infrastructure–more than $750,000 per show, according to Rolling Stone.

Only days ago, the band announced that it would share the Rose Bowl concert live, with fans across the globe. Just before the band came on stage, a roadie calling himself Rocco got up in front of the crowd of 96,000 and said, “Tonight, you are the ones making history,” shouting out that those in attendance would be joined by viewers in “North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Antarctica.” [read]

Native Instruments Introduces SCARBEE MM-BASS and SCARBEE PRE-BASS Amped

Berlin, Germany /Music Industry Newswire/ — Native Instruments today introduced SCARBEE MM-BASS, a new software instrument that provides an authentic rendition of the distinctive Musicman Sterling electric bass. MM-BASS is based on the acclaimed Scarbee Black Bass library, and is the latest release in the partnership between Native Instruments and sampling expert Thomas Hansen Skarbye.

Powered by the industry-leading KONTAKT engine and playable both via the free KONTAKT PLAYER or the full KONTAKT sampler, SCARBEE MM-BASS recreates the full sonic spectrum of the Sterling bass guitar, a modern classic whose characteristic tone has become a mainstay for funk, hip-hop, disco and similar groove-oriented genres. The instrument was created with assistance from seminal producer Nile Rodgers, and is available in two separate versions that address different musical applications and production requirements. [read]