Sharp Practise
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1/27/2009 9:35:35 AM
Dead centre, then loop the loop!
I’ve been told that it should take about as long to mix a record as it does to get the material down on the hard drive so I’ve budgeted for that in this process. If you think about it, all what goes in has to come out, so a 50:50 time split seems logical.
The first thing I like to do with any song is to check that I have what I need before I start the mixing process. I don’t mean things like a notebook, cup of coffee etc although those sort of things always help – what I mean is that I have all the parts and instruments that the song needs and that the bits and pieces all fit together.
So, I start off by panning everything back to dead centre, setting all the faders to about the same level so I can hear all the parts and playing back a reference mix of what’s on the hard drive.
That usually tells me if there are any flat spots where additional parts, or different parts or instruments, are needed. If the song isn’t alive by this stage then there’s a problem and this needs to be fixed before I go any further.
I’ll also at this point decide which sounds need extra attention. I’ve got four effects loops on my desk and this will be assigned to the appropriate parts – quite often backing vocals will take one loop and the lead guitar sound in a solo will take another. This gives me a bit of flexibility with the other half of my effects capacity.
You’ll have to wait until next time to read what I do next. Bye for now.
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