By Sujain Thomas
Mixing sound can be fun, but can be daunting as well if you are not on the right track. An aspiring audio engineer or music producer must know some basic mix-down techniques for getting better outcome from an audio mix.
Begin, Listen And Set Up With Effective Sound Engineering Courses:
- Begin Mixing Session: You may have received a particular sound track from the tracking engineer, just start listening to them with some audio mixing sessions. You can import the stems and set up the faders at zero decibels to let it play. As soon as the song is involved in the mixing, you will not require arranging, editing, vocal tuning, drum replacing or re-amping. All these processes must be completed before the actual mixing sessions begin.
- Listen: Yes, listening to the reference songs is very important before you start the mix down session with your sound track. If you already possess a predetermined idea regarding the sonic characters of the mix, you can start without the supplied references. Make sure that your client is satisfied before you customize with drastic changes to the original music.
- Set Up: You must set up groups so that your workflow takes place efficiently and quickly. Every group must contain their individual track and you must understand their work process clearly. In the groups, you can set fader, bypass, solo, mute independently. Your sessions will start growing as you start growing as an experienced audio engineer. Start simplifying the large sessions within few minutes so that you can keep the stress level to a minimum limit. Even experienced audio mixers can face a difficult situation when the clients are waiting for them just for a simple track.
Neon Music Sign credit: vhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Music_01754.jpg
Understand, Route and Limit with Sound Engineering Courses:
- Understand: If no pan is present, you are required to understand that pan cannot be combined with hard right or hard left through sound engineering courses. This process may be required during double tracked backing vocals, choir recording, piano recording and double tracked guitar performances. An entire audio mix can fail if your panning is very wide in nature. So you should not make it a habit by default that you will pan whenever you are opening a mix.
- Route Track: Try routing your buses with a single master level control for the whole instrument. For example, if you possess 15 guitar tracks, 18 drum tracks and 3 bass tracks, you can use all of them to combine with a number of vocal tracks so that you can have a single control for each and every instrument. Moreover, you can send all your tracks to your own buses and can then bus the tracks for master fader.
- Limit Properly: You must limit yourself with the proper balance of the signals and apply without adding effects. This process will provide you training for listening to your track more intensely. Though the balance need not be perfect always, you must have a proper idea of the mix in different instruments you are using in the single track. You can ask yourself and observe well so that you can obtain that perfect balance of the instruments.
You must possess a clear perspective regarding your audio mix and ensure that it sounds well in the speakers of the laptop, studio headphones, boom boxes, stereo system in car, component stereo system and also in your own studio. You should possess a clear vision that how the rough sounds of your mixes will appear to your audiences. Try possessing different perspectives of basic stuff like panning, equalization and overall levels, mostly in the ranges of low frequencies.
Sujain Thomas
Author Bio: Sujain Thomas is a qualified career counselor. She has helped aspiring students to identify the right career as per their skills and aptitude. She enjoys blogging in her spare time.
