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Tutorial—Mixdown

 

10

 

        

— Tutorial

 

Mixdown

 

Although the term “mixdown” seems to imply a single action, it is really a pro-
cess that can involve many interrelated steps. As you become more experienced, 
the individual steps will sort of blend into one larger operation. This is important 
because at all times you’ll need to consider how each small action will affect the 
overall sound. A small change in equalization on one instrument, for example, 
can affect the way the others sound. The ability to anticipate cause-and-effect 
relationships like this can only come through experience. The more you mix, the 
better you’ll get!

 

Phase 1: Listen To the Tracks and Make a Plan

 

One of the most important steps in any mix is to make at least a mental plan 
before even starting the actual mix. Here are a few points to consider:

• First and foremost think about the music! What is the song saying? What kind 

of mood is the piece attempting to convey? How can you approach the mix in 
a way that will enhance the music itself?

• Does the piece depend mostly on the lyrics? The singer’s voice? The rhythm? A 

particular instrument or sound? You’ll probably want to emphasize whichever 
element(s) of the piece you determine to be the most important. If the lyrics 
are critical, for example, you won’t want the vocal track buried in the back-
ground or rendered unintelligible by an excessive wash of reverb.

• How do you want to place the instruments in the stereo soundstage? Are you 

trying to create a realistic “live performance” image, or just shooting for an 
overall effect?

• What kind of “space” do you want to place the music in? Open and dry? 

Large and reverberant? Small and tight? Distant? Intimate?

• What instruments are in similar frequency ranges and are likely to get in each 

other’s way? Distorted electric guitar and organ are perfect examples of instru-
ments that do this. You’ll need to think about panning such instruments to dif-
ferent areas of the soundstage and/or using equalization to give them separate 
“identities”.

• Will you need to make any mood or scene changes during the mix that might 

involve major changes in levels, EQ or effects? Here’s where automation 
might make the job a lot easier.

• Remember that the points given here are only a guide, and that every piece of 

music is different. In fact, planning the mix is probably the most creative part 
of the entire production process.

 

 

Do It

 

OK, the tracks are loaded, now let’s go ahead and listen to the raw tracks.

 

Make sure that AUTOMIX is disabled before proceeding! You can do this by pressing the 
AUTOMATION [AUTOMIX] key, moving the cursor to the AUTOMIX “ENABLE” parame-
ter, and pressing [ENTER] to switch this to “DISABLE”.

Содержание AW4416

Страница 1: ...PROFESSIONAL AUDIO WORKSTATION E Tutorial...

Страница 2: ...soles operating the AW4416 will not be a challenge But if you ve never had the pleasure the power and depth of the AW4416 translation lots of features and flexibility might be a little daunting at fir...

Страница 3: ...ctronic Drums Track 13 Add the Bass Track 13 Add the Guitar Tracks 13 Add the Organ Piano Tracks 13 Add the String Tracks 13 Add the Lead Vocal 14 Add the Chorus 14 Listen 14 Save the Song 14 Phase 3...

Страница 4: ...ocal 22 Save the Song 23 Phase 5 Finalize the Mix Set Up Automation 24 The Automix 25 Phase 6 Use the Virtual Tracks to Create an Alternate Mix 27 Mastering 28 Step 1 Set Up the Master EQ and Dynamics...

Страница 5: ...be recorded could simply be drums and or percussion alone drums and bass or drums plus bass and a rhythm keyboard or guitar part Separation Remember that the more instruments you record via microphon...

Страница 6: ...and or acoustic instruments in the home stu dio Quite a number of high quality large diaphragm condenser microphones have become available at very reasonable prices in the last few years Get one But i...

Страница 7: ...f the instru ment s sound would otherwise take up a large portion of the recording system s available dynamic range By reducing transient peaks you can effectively record the main body of the signal a...

Страница 8: ...SCSI drive number is SCSI 3 If you install a CD RW drive manufactured by Yamaha the SCSI ID will be set to 3 at the factory and we recommend that you leave it at this setting 4 Open the CD tray by pr...

Страница 9: ...e Will Save Current song ARE YOU SURE confirmation prompt appears move the cursor to YES or NO and press ENTER to begin the load operation 4 When the progress window disappears the demo song has been...

Страница 10: ...lyrics are critical for example you won t want the vocal track buried in the back ground or rendered unintelligible by an excessive wash of reverb How do you want to place the instruments in the ster...

Страница 11: ...ne tracks V Trk at the left side of the chart refers to the recorder s virtual tracks there are actually 8 virtual tracks for each recorder track Note that although we ll be using only the main tracks...

Страница 12: ...in the same display Now to pan the stereo drum tracks left and right to create a stereo image There is a tendency to pan stereo drum tracks or any type of stereo track for that matter hard left and r...

Страница 13: ...d in relation to the drum tracks with their faders at nominal so move fader 4 down to reduce the bass track level by about 5 dB 5 0 on the fader display Add the Guitar Tracks Turn ON channel 5 and 6 T...

Страница 14: ...djust the chorus levels while listening to a section of the song during which the chorus parts appear with the lead vocal Turn channels 11 12 and 13 ON then set their fader levels to about 10 0 Pan th...

Страница 15: ...e the gain of the 10 kHz shelving EQ to 4 0 dB No need to change F frequency and Q bandwidth INSTANT GRATIFICATION Once again we ve provided a scene you can simply recall to automatically make all the...

Страница 16: ...bass track is a bit flabby and lacks punch We ll use EQ to tighten the sound up a little and compression to give the track a little more uniformity and power 1 Press the track 4 SEL key to select the...

Страница 17: ...rms of tone the lead guitar part sounds fine the way it is But perhaps we should apply a little compression to even it out a bit Here are the figures do the dialing yourself Lead Guitar Compression Tr...

Страница 18: ...iltering to remove rumble from the studio and other low frequency noise that can lead to unclear overall sound Some midrange has been removed to prevent the chorus from get ting in the way of the lead...

Страница 19: ...a subtle boost in punch and power Lead Vocal EQ Lead Vocal Compression Save the Song Once again now s a good time to save your work Press the WORK NAVIGATE SONG key to go to the SONG display if neces...

Страница 20: ...r 2 We ll only use the AUX 7 sends for this example 2 Press the F2 function key to select the Effect Library page The default Reverb Hall effect is a little too big and spacious for our needs The Reve...

Страница 21: ...sually a good idea to avoid adding reverb to bass because the resultant boomy wash of sound can severely compromise the clarity of the mix And that s precisely what we ll do with the So Fine bass trac...

Страница 22: ...rings Since the strings themselves are sort of used as a wash or pad type of sound some reverb is essential to fill out the image In short the right amount of reverb can give strings especially the sy...

Страница 23: ...tally unplugged or there s a power failure or your pet cat decides to do a mix of his own you ll have to go back and start again Ouch Press the WORK NAVIGATE SONG key to go to the SONG display if nece...

Страница 24: ...you record fader channel ON Off pan and EQ automation changes one at a time so you can put together the perfect automix with relative ease For the So Fine automix we ve used a combination of fader ch...

Страница 25: ...of unwanted noise can also be removed auto matically by gating a type of dynamics processing in which signals below a specified level are cut off the AW4416 dynamics processors can do this But since t...

Страница 26: ...om for the denser arrangement of the bridge section 00 02 36 The level of the lead vocal track is briefly lowered just a bit to soften the impact of the very high notes 00 02 47 Another brief dip in t...

Страница 27: ...as follows 1 Press the RECORDER TRACK key 2 Press the F2 function key to go to the V Track page 3 Move the cursor to virtual track buttons 9 2 10 2 and 14 2 and press ENTER each time so that the alter...

Страница 28: ...quired To enable the pre programmed mastered automix 1 Press the AUTOMATION AUTOMIX key and if necessary press the F4 key to select the Event List page 2 Move the cursor to the SCENE LIB button on the...

Страница 29: ...r EQ The trend these days in popular music is to squeeze as much level onto the final mas ter as possible without making the music sound unnatural sometimes on the other hand unnatural is a desirable...

Страница 30: ...h practice You have the tools the AW4416 is about the coolest little mixing and mastering toolkit you can lay your hands on now it s up to you to learn how to use them like a pro Don t be afraid to go...

Страница 31: ...gid diaphragm connected to a coil which moves in a magnetic field to transform acoustic sound into electric energy Dynamic microphones are generally rugged and provide consistent performance under a w...

Страница 32: ...d in studio recording or live sound but this type of microphone can be useful when you want to capture the main source as well as it s environment room ambience for example in one go Overheads Microph...

Страница 33: ...keyboards Karl Christmas Backing vocals Billie Godfrey Bass Finn Day Lewis Drums Andrew Small Recorded at Protocol Studios and Darren s Studios London Mixed at Transmedia Services Ltd Bedford UK Speci...

Страница 34: ...YAMAHA CORPORATION V678610 R1 1 IP 36 Pro Audio Digital Musical Instrument Division P O Box 3 Hamamatsu 430 8651 Japan 00 08 7000 AP Printed in Japan...

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