Mixdown
22
Tutorial
Step 5. Completing the mix and
making automation settings
The basic mix is now nearly complete. Effects have
been added, and now it’s time to listen carefully to the
entire song and make final adjustments. As you listen
to the mix, you may decide that you are not satisfied
with having a single “average” mix throughout the
entire song. That’s where automation comes in. In the
days before automation was available, a recording
engineer had to make this type of adjustment manu-
ally while the actual master recording was being
made. If the changes involved multiple faders or con-
trols, it was sometimes necessary to obtain the help of
other people. Of course, timing is vital, so if the
changes were not made at the right time, the mixing
process had to be repeated over and over until it was
perfect. On the AW2816, the faders, channel on/off,
pan, and EQ can all be automated, so it’s easy to cre-
ate a perfect automix.
The automix in the demo song uses a combination of
automated fader operations, channel on/off, and pan.
For details on recording and editing automation, you
can refer to the Operation Guide. Here we will pro-
vide a brief explanation of the changes we made to
the presets, and the reasons for the change. Turn auto-
mix on, and watch how the faders and channel [ON]
keys change as the song progresses.
Use the following procedure to turn automix on.
1
In the AUTOMATION section, press the
[AUTOMIX] key. If necessary, press the [F1]
key to display the Main page.
2
Move the cursor to AUTOMIX, and press
the [ENTER] key to select ENABLE.
3
As explained earlier in this tutorial, return
to the VIEW screen or another desired
screen.
• Automix
We will be explaining the progress of automix accord-
ing to the absolute time counter. Please be aware that
the times are approximate.
Listen to the recorded automix
This automix is stored with a title of “Can you feel it,”
so press the “AUTOMIX” button to access the “AUTO-
MIX” screen. Then press the “AUTOMIX” key several
times to access the “MEMORY” screen, and recall
“Can you feel it.”
Next, turn the “AUTOMIX” setting to “ENABLE” so the
automix will be reflected in the playback.
About the contents of the “Can
you feel it?” automix
At each point in the demo song, the automix pushes
forward “the sound that is most important at that
point” by adjusting the level of each part (the faders
will move).
During the electric guitar solo, automix will also
adjust the depth of the effect (Reverb PLATE).
The automix is recorded according to the following
time-line. Listen to the actual sound as you read
through this, and use it as a source of ideas for your
own automixes.
