- a Great Mixer Makes a Mix that is Detailed so even when Customers Listen at a Quiet Volume the Details are Presented (Although we Know that at Low Volume Everything Gets Smaller)
- a Great Mixer Knows that No Instrument can Take the Same Room as Another Instrument, i.e. Skill to Know Room / Reverbs Plugins and Create a Room Behind the Speakers to Avoid Placing Everything in the Phantom Line
– a Great Mixer Adds / Enhances Emotion of a Songs, i.e. Even if a Listener Does Not Know How the Drummer Played or What Chord that is etc., the Mix Engineer Tries to Make it Feel
– Let a Reverb be Mono but Pan it to the Other Side of the Instruments Position, e.g. Mono Guitar Panned Right but Mono Guitar Reverb Panned Right
– Overtones in the Mid Frequencies are Very Important, in General Most Problems and thus Fixes are in the Mids from 200Hz to 5000Hz (or 100Hz to 8000Hz) and when you Get these Right then the Lows and High Speak for Themselves
- Know What Processor is Good for What Process
– Digital Plugins are Much More Precise but Require You to to Dial Them In as Precisely (while e.g. Analog EQ Works in More Broad Strokes)
– also Digital Compressor Works Precisely but Attack / Release Need to be Adjusted for Verse Different than for Chorus Because of the Different Information (while e.g. Analog Compressor can Handle More Volume)
- High Frequencies in the Reverb are Very Important to Enhance the Depth
– Depth of Field is All About Being Able to Put Something Close while Still having Reverb and are You Able to Put Something at the Back, this is Done Mostly with “Shape (Attack)”, “Pre Delay” and “Size”
– if you Already Created a Room Reverb and then Add Another After it (e.g. 1st Convolution IR -> Algorithmic), Always Set the Pre Delay for the 2nd One so High that it Does Not Interfere with the 1st
- Use Chamber Reverb for Strings and Add the Same Delay as the Vocal has (Delay in this Case After the Reverb)
– Choses the Reverb or Delay Algorithm that Sounds the Biggest
- Use a Neve 73 for Guitar Presence and Body, also for Compensating Lost High end Due to Compression
- Use a Lexicon for Vocal and Bricasti for Snare
- Create a VCA Channel for All the Reverbs in Order to Optimise Overall FX Levels at Once
- for Every Special FX Use a Duplicated Track to be Free, i.e. this Way you can Put Original Vocal to Front and Create Huge Walls of Sounds in the Back or Add a Special Effect to Single Snare Hits
- Another Good Way to Create Special Effects is Play with the Material and Save Reverbed / Delay Patterns as Own Files then Bring Them In as Separate Tracks or via Sampler
- Judge Every Process in Context of the Mix, Never in Solo
- Never Ever Bring Down the Volume of the Reverb as that Creates Small Mixes, Instead Program the Reverb in a Way that the Source and the Reverb are Different (as Described Later on with Mainly Shape, Pre Delay and Size)
– Play Your Mix or Elements and Start Talking, if you can Follow the Content while you are Talking that is Good
- Use Fairchild for Dum Buss Compression
- Always Do a Little in Different Plugins (Instead Big Changes in 1 Plugin) as the Plugins Sounds Closer to Hardware that Way
- When you Do Corrections in Solo, e.g. Compress / Saturate / EQ a Snare then have No Fear “Over-Process” it a Bit, because in the Whole Mix it will Likely Rather Still be “Under-Processed”
- be Careful with Oversampling Options, OS is a Very Difficult Thing to Do in a Plugin with Often More Negative Results
– Tape = Makes Things that are Close Even a Little Closer and Puts Things that are More in the Back Even a Little More into the Back, also Takes Aways Sharpness
- Use Bricasti to Keep Things in the Front (i.e. Bricasti Does that) and the Quantum to Put Things in the Back (i.e. Quantum Does that)
- Plate to Keep Source in the Front Whereas Lexicon Chamber to Put Things in the Back
- in General Compress After the Reverb, i,.e. you Want to have a Reverb and then Make the Reverb Bigger with Compression
- if You Plan to Add Multiple Reverbs for a Sound, it is Usually Better to Start with the Room and then a Large Verb
- if you However Combine the Reverbs with Delays it is a Matter of Choice, i.e. you can have the Delays Before or After the Reverb but Dettwiler Prefers Before Reverbs
– Do the Big Lush Reverb by Putting a Delay in Front of the Reverb, i.e. on a Snare First the Delay (e.g. Classic 1/8 Repetitions) so the Sound is Already More Epic and then Inserts a Reverb and Tweaks Spread and Shape (Attack) in the Reverb, or if the Reverb has No Shape (Attack) Setting you Compress it so the Reverb Quasi Fades In and Gets Bigger Over Time, then After the Reverb He Inserts Another Delay Unit so the Reverb Tail is Delayed Too
– Each Element of a Multi Drum is Sent to a Room Reverb for a Larger Space (Including the Kick), Snare More Reverb Send than Kick while Room Mics can Even have More Reverb Send than Snare, then Snare and Tom are Sent to a Character Reverb to Make it Bigger (but Not the Kick and Overheads)
- Plates on Saxophone, Vocals, Snare, Guitar
– EQ Before Reverb and Cut Out What You Don’t Like in the Original Sound, i.e. EQ What Goes into the Reverb (Not to be Confused by EQ the Original Sound), e.g. when a Sax is Muddy then Cut the Mid Before the Reverb but Do Not Make the Same Cut in the Original Sound, or if you Got Something Very High then Dip the High Before the Reverb but Leave the High in the Original Sound
- Use Several Reverb and Delay Sends, i.e. Certainly a Room Reverb for Putting Stuff in the Back, a Large Sounding Reverb for a Generous Sound, a Plate, a Delay
– Create a Peak Band with a Q of 1 and then Sweeps Up /Down the Frequency Spectrum with a Boost to Hear What Different Qualities a Sound has Before he Actually EQs the Element, i.e. Boost Around 9dB in Lowest Range and Go Back to Zero -> then Boost Around 9dB in Low Mids Range and Go Back to Zero -> then Boost Around 9dB in Higher Mids Range and Go Back to Zero and so On
– Compress Most Things with a 1176, a Bit Faster Release for Snare, Do Not Compress Kick
– Compresses Elements so the GR is Hardly More than 3dB
– to Bring Vocals to the Front, Push 5dB Between 400Hz + 500Hz with a Q Around 2, then also Push 5dB Around 3000Hz with a Q Around 1, then also Push 2dB Around 5000Hz with a Q Around 1.6
– to Make Claps Sound Out of Speakers Boost at 1 kHz (e.g. + 8dB at 1kHz) and Between 10kHz + 20kHz with a Q Around 3 (e.g. + 12dB at 12kHz), i.e. Put this on a Clap Group After the Main EQ, You Could also Apply this EQ to the Reverb
– Use Automation in the Box to Get Variations and Life that Analog Units can Give (i.e. Create those Imperfections)
– a Trick to Make Sure Quiet Sounds and / or Quiet Parts of a Performance be Heard (e.g. Make Every Brush Stroke of a Drummers Recording Heard) is to Listen at Low Volume and Talk at the Same Time, then Check if the Connection between the Musical Instruments is Still Given or if the Connection is Gone, thus if the Details are Gone (e.g. Brush Stroked of the Drummers are Going Under) while you Talk then You Need to Bring Them Up in Volume, he also Uses Automation to Bring Up in Volume Less Important Things During Passages Where the Vocal or Lead Instrument etc. is Not Playing and then Back Again in Volume when the Mix is More Busy
- Mix so Everything Seems to be the Loudest, but in Fact it is the Art of Mixing, e.g. Find a Way to Make the Vocal at a Not Too Loud Level but Well Integrated in the Mix (but the Listener Thinks the Vocals are the Loudest), this can be Achieved with Saturation and Drive
- Pan Hard Left / Right but Always in Combo, e.g. You have to have a Counterpart but it can be Acoustic Guitar L and Electric Guitar R or a Acoustic Guitar L and a Piano R
– Set the Pre Delay Always by Taste, i.e. Never Adapt the Pre Delay Based on Tempo or Treats It as a Groove Thing, the Pre Delay has Simply a Function to Additionally Create Space and Give a Great Dimension, in Fact Do Not Change the Pre Delay on a Entire CD in Order to Preserve the Depth and Space Over the Entire CD, Maybe Bring the Level of the Pre Delay Down if it is a Ballad
– if You Want the Reverb to be Coupled with the Instrument then Use a Short Pre Delay (or Even No Pre Delay), or if You Want the Instrument De-Coupled from the Reverb then Use a Longer Pre Delay
– if you have a Short Pre Delay it will Melt with the Dry Source and the Dry Source will Go More to the Back, thus if you Want a Source Go to the Back Use a Short Pre Delay (or Even No Pre Delay)
– if You Want to Hear the Performance More Directly (Closer) Try Set Pre Delay as Large as Possible, i.e. Preserve the Vocals Placement on the Speaker but have the Reverb Far Away
– e.g. a Singer Placed in the Middle that Sings in a Big Concert Hall the Vocals are Very Dry Until the Waves Hit the Walls in the Concert Hall and this is a Long Pre Delay
– thus if you Want a Source to Stay Closer to the Front Use a Longer Pre Delay (can be 60ms or Even 100ms)
– it is Very Important to Check a Reverb Unit of How it Treats the Pre Delay, e.g. if a Units Pre Delay Function can Only Move the Early Reflections? Is it Only Moving the Tail (Late Parts) of the Reflections? Is it Moving Both at the Same Time? Or is there a Dedicated Pre Delay for Both?
- in a Lexicon 480L the Clock Changes via the Analog In/Out Ports, i.e. it Creates a Jittering and that Jitter Creates More Lush Reverb Sound, the Lexicon 960 is Pure Digital and thus Creates No Jitter
- Adding Saturation After the Reverb is as if You were Capturing Reflections of a Wall with e.g. a Tube Mic, i.e. Not Really Distorting the Reverb but a Little Saturation then You can Even Bring Down the Reverb in the Mix but Still Hear it
- also Adding Micro Shifting / Auto Pan After the Reverb to Set the Reverb Sound Apart from the Source
- Use “Blauert” Trick to Enhance the Width by Boosting Side Signal by 1dB at 352Hz, Try this also between 500Hz and 600Hz (Benefits Guitars) or also between 1000Hz and 2000Hz (Benefits Upper Mids) or also between 4000Hz and 5000Hz (Benefits Overheads), in Any Case Check the Q Factor to Not Spread the Entire Side Signal but Selected Elements
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