Getting The Best Quality Without Mixing!

A lot of rappers and singers are under the misconception that you can record a song with the worst equipment and it doesn't matter cause they will fix it in mixing and mastering. That is the complete opposite of the truth and I don't want you to fall in that trap.

I have mixed dozens of artist's tracks and the hardest ones (the ones that won't come out sounding good anyway) are the one's that have the worst quality to begin with. The reason is because music is not alchemy, you cannot turn something already bad into a masterpiece. If you were a chef with the worst quality beef you are not going to throw seasonings and the trimmings on it and make a decent hamburger. The starting product must be fresh or else the whole song is ruined.

Of course there are people who cite Soulja Boy's rise when he was making Crank Dat and it was all distorted. Soulja Boy was a unique case but don't expect the same results for you. Most likely no one will take you seriously if your quality it bad. To them you will just be another want to-be who spams their page with "NEW HOT MUSIC" and it turns out it just gives them a headache.

Now I know you guys have great material and it's important that you express it with the world. You must have authority for people to want to listen to you though. That's why getting the best quality before hand is starting out on the right foot and it will be much easier to gain a fan base like that. It will also be easier to sell more of your music and merchandise.

1. Microphone & Cable

These 2 items are crucial in recording audio of any kind. If you want great quality before you mix you need to invest in a great low cost microphone (I have a post on my home site that has a great list from you to choose from) and a great microphone cable. Artist's usually think of the microphone cable as the least thing they need to worry about but in more ways than one it's more important than the actual microphone. Do yourself a favor - invest in a Monster cable and make sure people are not stepping on it!

2. Preamp/Interface

This will connect your microphone to the computer. Your recording tends to be better when there are less connections from the audio source (ex: The microphone to cable) to the recorder (ex: Pro Tools on your computer). That means invest in one that has USB or Firewire capabilities - not only is it fast loading but will give you a powerful edge quality wise.

Don't overlook the quality of the beat either, if the beat quality is bad it will drag down the whole song. Buy exclusive rights to the beat from the producer and get the mix handled by a professional. If that's not possible do not use that beat at all!

Before I close this out I just want to mention that if your on a tight budget you can get great quality at a low cost. I have a post on my site about the best cheap microphones I advise you to check out. After that you will need the best microphone cable and preamp you can afford. If you do all those 3 things correctly there should be no issue with the quality of vocal after that.

Travis G Schave aka ShottyGunz Beatz is a Hip Hop and R&B producer based out of Indiana. He is also CEO and Webmaster of ShottyGunzBeatz.com. With over 8 years experience in his field he has worked with many artists. His main goal is to provide artists the opportunity to buy beats from one of the coldest producers online and to establish a professional relationship with those artists

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FL Studio VST Plugins for Mixing and Mastering

FL Studio VST plugins for mixing and mastering are not hard to come across with the exception of 1 mastering plugin being an out of pocket expense. The mastering suite I'm speaking about is a VST called Izotope Ozone 4. M-Audio does have an upgrade to version 5 but version 4 still works wonders, but before I go into detail on how I implement it let me explain my set up.

The first thing I do is find an instrumental either I've created or that has been produced from someone else. Then I create a folder titled whatever the name of the track is. Drop the name of the track into folder and open FL Studio. I drag and drop the beat into the digital canvas then I go to File, Save As, find the directory of the folder that was made, name it, and click Save. Now it's time to set up all the processes for mixing and mastering in a simultaneous environment.

The next thing I do is put the instrumental on its own mixer track and in the FX chain these are the effects I put in order, chain number 1 I drop in a Fruity Parametric EQ 2, chain number 7 I drop Ozone Izotope 4, and on chain number 8 a Fruity Limiter. I leave a gap in the effects to make room for additional VSTs if the mix calls for it.

I set up my vocal processes in 2 mixer tracks that work together. In the FX chain of the vocal processes I use 3 plugins. I use a Gate first, a compressor second, and a stereo imager or phazer in the third and in turn reroute it off the master and route it to the other mixer track that works as the recording agent.

Before I start to record I turn the volume down on the beat by about -10 dB give or take. This allows me to have some head room for the mastering process. Now back to the vocal process. On the Gate I set the threshold to about -40 which can vary depending on how you have your interface set up. The attack and release of the Gate I leave alone. On the compressor I set the threshold to -20dB, the ratio to a 2 to 1 ratio, and the gain to about 15dB which can also very depending on your mic and/or interface.

This allows for all real time vocal recording to be balanced with the compressor set up that way. The descriptions I've explained on the set ups are on the concept of borrowing the CPU to alleviate having to purchase any expensive external equipment.

To see more in depth VIDEO tutorials of how I use FL Studio VST plugins for mixing and mastering visit http://www.autopilotbeats.webs.com/.

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Music Mixing Process 3 - Automation

What is Automation? Automation is manually adjusting volume, EQ parameters or effect parameters to achieve a multitude of goals.

These goals can be used to add a little more mid-range punch to a vocal at certain areas (listen to Nickleback, you'll hear this one everywhere) which allows the vocal to "pop" a little more.

You also might use automation to add more reverb decay at a specific point in the song for creative purposes or you might decide to add just a little more feedback on the delay at a particular solo or vocal part.

Automation can also be used as manual compression which is what we will focus on. Manually going in and taming peaks for a more natural, smoother response from the particular instrument that is being automated. The most common use for automation though happens to be vocal tracks. I don't care if you're Lara Fabian, Fergie or Sebastian Bach, chances are you got some automation, nearly every vocal gets it.

Of course a vocal can be tamed with 6dB reduction on a compressor and the explosive peaks reduced with a limiter but this method takes away from dynamics; for instance you have a lyric that says something like:

"Today is the day I fight BACK!"

Using the method described above, this can take away excitement from the word "BACK!" and doesn't help give it that push needed to really emphasize the word, so in place of heavy compression we would use automation to completely control the response of that word by manually reducing and boosting audio in specific points.

The initial plosive from the "Buh" in back would most likely get a .5-2dB reduction to reduce the plosive content yet allow it to come through in a smoother manner. The rest of the word would then be adjusted to be even in volume.

The second goal of vocal automation is to make sure that every single word, syllable and phrase is heard clearly. The vocalist is the star, they're the face of the group, thus they should be heard quite well. That thought process is not one everyone agrees on though.

Most rap artists like to have the beat slightly above and around them (as if they're surrounded) rock/country artists typically want their voices to be heard either slightly above the music or a nice, even blend. If you want your vocals buried in a mix you should not be a vocalist or rapper though. Burying vocals doesn't sound good, the beat can still be focused on while you are clearly heard. You don't hear Snoop or Dre burying their vocals do you? Didn't think so.

In essence, you can do a LOT with just one word. With automation you could reduce the initial impact of "B" and boost the "A" in back to sound like bAck! or emphasize the "ck" for a percussive timbre to the word.

I could get very in-depth on this subject but I don't feel that is necessary.

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Josh Hayward is a recording/mixing engineer currently located in Sacramento, CA, trained in Austin, TX at Arlyn Studios by those who have worked with Willie Nelson, Prince, The Black Crowes and more.

Paired with a recording arts degree from Mediatech Institute and extensive studio experience, your sonic sculpture is in the right hands and the information provided is 100% genuine.

To learn more about the author and hear examples or have any questions vist Astral Plane Studios

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Music Editing and Mixing Explained

I get a lot of questions asked about auto-tune, quantization, etc and I feel that there is a general confusion by musicians about what part of work is actually what part.

I will explain the differences so when you contact a studio or engineer you can communicate easier with our lingo and understand exactly what it is we do, without further ado, let's get started!

Music Editing: Contrary to popular belief, editing tracks and such is NOT, I repeat, NOT mixing. Editing is just that: Editing. What areas does editing concern itself with in regards to album/studio production?

1. Pitch Correction- Be it vocals or sections of an out of tune instrument, all tuning happens during the editing stage, not the mixing stage.

2. Pocketing and drum quantization- Aligning drum tracks to a grid and adjusting the overall feel of the track/creating "pockets" or sections.

3. Comping tracks- This is the process of editing multiple takes together, be it 5 vocal takes and taking the best sections from those 5 different tracks or comping guitar parts. The word "Comp" stands for Compiled or master track.

4. Drum Replacement- This is the process of replacing poorly recorded drum tracks with samples using a plug-in such as Slate Digital Trigger or Drumagog. (This step can be completely skipped if started in the recording venture as the MIDI/sample information is already there and the tracks will sound great and nearly ready to be mixed.)

Now let's move on to Mixing. Mixing is the process of completing the painted picture known as a recording. Imagine mixing audio as photoshopping a picture. The goal is to make that picture as beautiful as possible with the given production values and sounds. Some recordings can't be worked with because of too much noise in a recording or other various factors so if a mix engineer turns your project down, don't take it personally, if you can, re-record, if not, it means the track most likely won't have a pleasing outcome in the end.

Mixing involves the following:

1. Gain staging/track volumes- This is one of the most critical parts of the entire production process as having proper gain (level in Decibels) is pertinent to a pristine, clean mix. Too many people record their tracks way too hot in the digital world when they don't need to. There is no reason to be hitting in the red with recordings in a 24-bit environment. Typical calibration is -18dBFS which means most tracks have an average level of -18 per instrument with peaks around -10 to -7 and this offers an optimal dynamic range and crest factor for use in mastering.

2. Equalization- This process is the most important part of mixing next to gain staging as this is the part where carving out bad frequencies and good frequencies in a track. If an engineer does not know his frequencies, expect horrible sounding mixes. Without an ear for frequency, mixing can't properly be done.

3. Panoramic Placement- The setting of Left/Right/Center placement in the sound field which creates further separation between instruments and gives the overall stereo balance which can wide or narrow.

4. Dynamic control- The third most important aspect of mixing is dynamic control which refers to using compressors and limiters during a mix. I use the word "squashed" a lot when suggesting to keep a mix open and dynamic in regards to mixing/mastering. Refer to the post/video on compression for more information on this subject. A Squashed mix/master basically means that the dynamic range of the track is small and sounds do not have much room to breathe and move. Improper limiting and compression causes artifacts such as a snare with all snap and no body.

5. Effects- This stage of mixing involved time based effects (delay, reverberation, flanging, etc) to push an instrument back or to beef it up. A common way of beefing up a vocal is to add a short delay and a small amount of reverb to make it "pop" more. Dynamic control also plays into this. This is also where overall ambiance may be added, for example a haunting keyboard melody or guitar riff likes to be slathered in a nice big reverb at a certain section or throughout the entire track.

6. Automation- Automation is the longest part of the mixing process because it involves such minute level changes and is generally always needed on vocals. Some mix engineers let the compressor/limiter do this job for them, however a great vocal is always automated. In other words us mix engineers take the vocal track after the mix is near completion and use our ears, eyes and mouse to make sure every syllable and word is thoroughly heard and understood. Automation can also be done on individual instruments as well, for example a bass note that's just too loud at a certain point in the song and needs to be tamed. Automation is also known as manual compression.

Hopefully this has helped clear up some confusion for everyone out there and you now have a much better understanding of the production processes. Don't be surprised when you find an engineer (like myself) who does not edit. It is not my nor their specialty. I specialize in recording tracks and mixing music, nothing in between. My skill set does not allow me to do such things, this does not make one a bad engineer, in fact it's quite welcome as it's generally beneficial to have more than one set of ears on an album production.

One last thing on the word "Track" a Track is an individual instrument in the session. Kick, Snare top, Snare bottom, tom1, tom2, tom3, FL tom, so on and so forth down the line.

A lot of people in the hip hop community refer to a track in the means of a stereo WAV file of pre-mixed and most likely and unfortunately mastered tracks. Require multi-track sessions from whoever you buy your beats from if possible as a stereo beat with vocals recorded over them is not exactly mixing considering all you're doing is volume matching and putting a limiter across vocals to match the loudness of the mastered track. It's essentially a pointless task. It's great for practicing vocals but for a real mix, it's very impractical. If you can't get the multi-tracks for whatever reason, ask that they send an unmastered version and you will always get a better sounding mix in the end.

I also hope that you'll begin to realize why album production costs money. You can't spend $600 total for all of this sort of work and expect a great album, it will sound like a $600 album. If an engineer quotes you $1,500+ JUST for mixing don't be shocked, go elsewhere and find out the truth!

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me,

Josh

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Josh Hayward is a recording/mixing engineer currently located in Sacramento, CA, trained in Austin, TX at Arlyn Studios by those who have worked with Willie Nelson, Prince, The Black Crowes and more.

Paired with a recording arts degree from Mediatech Institute and extensive studio experience, your sonic sculpture is in the right hands.

To learn more about the author and hear examples or have any questions visit http://astralplanestudios.com/

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Music Mixing Process 1 - Levels

I will split this explanation up as I believe it will be easier to tell you about everything involved, so let's get started!

Mixing: The process of creating sonic balance and harmony by:
Gain Staging (levels)Compression (taming instruments)Equalization (shaping instruments to live in their own space)Automation (used for automatic, real-time changes)Effects (creating spaces and more)

Gain staging is the first process involved with mixing after cleaning up any silence on tracks. What this accomplishes is two things:
Establishes proper headroom in this digital domainStarts the mix

Headroom is significant in mixing due to the fact that there is so much room dynamically that you do not need to record or mix very hot as one might do using tape machines and big consoles for pleasing saturation. If levels are too hot in the digital realm, you risk clipping and destroying the integrity of the audio. You really only want to reach clipping with older consoles that saturate nicely, otherwise, avoid clipping at all costs unless for specific creative purposes.

Here, you can see the levels of all the tracks which are hovering around -18dB, this particular level offers the most benefit while mixing as it leaves plenty of headroom for the mastering stage and establishes proper gains for the instruments to avoid clipping and distorting.

Essentially, the goal of gain staging is to begin the "rough mix" which is just a term for general mix balance. Once established, compression and EQ come into play to really begin shaping the sound field. Mixing is truly the art of balance because as engineers we are constantly going back and forth between various EQ plug-ins, fine tuning levels and effects to achieve the best spectral balance we possibly can with the material given to us.

There isn't too much more to say with gain staging except that it is necessary in a lot of cases, especially in those cases involving tracks that come in around -5dB all over. That's just way too hot and completely unnecessary in today's production world. That being said, all of us engineers mix completely different from one another and have different views, a lot of audio is subjective but a lot is also generally agreed upon.

In short, compression simply tames loud spikes to get a more even and smooth level response. It can also be used to bring lower information UP as well.

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Josh Hayward is a recording/mixing engineer currently located in Sacramento, CA, trained in Austin, TX at Arlyn Studios by those who have worked with Willie Nelson, Prince, The Black Crowes and more.

Paired with a recording arts degree from Mediatech Institute and extensive studio experience, your sonic sculpture is in the right hands.

To learn more about the author and hear examples or have any questions vist http://astralplanestudios.com/

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Learn About Recording, Mixing and Mastering

I believe there are many reasons for people to record their music. The legacy of one's talent will live on long beyond the composer or performer. My own father passed away nearly 20 years ago and I only have a few recordings of his music and no recordings of his voice, which I wish I had to listen to and pass along to my children.

It is the purpose of this article to help you capture the sound and quality that you've probably been striving towards for perhaps a very long time. There're so many facets involved in a good recording, it'll be the purpose of this article to help you discover ways and techniques to greatly improve your recordings overall. This article will primarily cover room acoustics. The importance of a good sounding room cannot be over emphasized. This is one area most overlooked in 95% of all homes studio recordings and is one of the very first things I hear when evaluating home studio recordings.

The following can be really easy exercise and very enlightening procedure for you to try. Take a microphone and speak or sing with levels set properly at the distance of approximately 2 inches from your mouth. Read (or sing) and then step back from the microphone approximately 1 foot and continue reading or singing. Continue to step further away from the microphone until you're at a distance of 10 feet or more as your room allows. Listen to the sound of not just your voice, but really listen to the reflective room sound as your voice is bouncing off of the floors walls and ceiling. It is these reflections of sound into your microphone which is the very beginnings of potentially a poor sounding recording.

One of the easiest and least expensive ways to correct the small room sound is to find a quiet space within your home and completely cover all surfaces with absorbent audio acoustic foam. It is much easier later on to add digital delay and reverb then it is to remove the tone of early reflections within a bad sounding room!

Over the years I've had the option of recording in a number of different spaces, the smallest of which was a walk-in closet where I covered every surface with foam. I then used inexpensive but good sounding digital reverbs to add some natural quality ambience into the recordings. In another situation I had a larger space to work in and in that case, built a room approximately 5' x 6' which allowed more room for more vocalists and for playing guitar without feeling claustrophobic. In that room I was able to run a remote control device back to a tape deck which is really no longer required now with wireless mouse and keyboard's being the way to go.

The importance of following this step of recording within a quiet room and one free of small reflective, improper room acoustics (other than recording in a controlled environment within a real studio) will be the best, easiest and least expensive way to improve your recordings by a large margin.

For more information and to view our studio, please visit http://www.aspenleafrecording.com/

My name is Ken Dravis and enjoy my work as an audio engineer and producer in western Colorado. I work with many clients on various projects from complete production in our studio to editing, mixing and mastering work from musicians recordings in their home studios. More information can be found at: http://www.aspenleafrecording.com/

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How to Create More Depth When Mixing Music

When you are recording and mixing music it is a good idea to have a vision before you start, whether it is acoustic music or electronic music. This means having a fairly clear idea of how you want the music you are mixing to sound. And rather than making a mix where all elements are loud or all elements are competing for the listener's attention, there are a few things you can do to make the mix more pleasing to the ear, complimentary of the parts therein and maybe even three dimensional.

When you are starting out in the recording process it is worth considering how you want the finished product to sound. Are you seeking a live performance feel to the recording or a more creative music studio version of a piece of music. Some artists actually sound better live and it may be better to capture a band's live performance energy to make for their best recording. If you are aiming more for a live feel to the recording then just a few microphones placed optimally in a nice room space can be enough to capture the magic of an artist or band. And allowing some distance between instruments and the microphones can create a nice depth of field. Perhaps if you have a lead instrument or vocal then you can keep the microphone closer to that one part to enhance its central role in the music. Producer Bones Howe did this quite often when recording unique blues artist Tom Waits.

For more creative music mixing techniques, you can employ reverb, delays and pan settings in varying degrees. Vary the amounts of reverb for each part or section of the musical composition, and the closer you want something to seem, the less reverb and delay it will require. Decay times and diffusion settings can also make a difference when placing sounds in the foreground, mid or background. A short stereo delay (around ten to fifteen seconds) can give a part more prominence in a mix without it dominating. Apparently Trevor Horn used this technique a lot with Sting's vocals when he was recording pop band The Police in the 80's.

Of course, volume levels can also increase depth and form to a mix. Again, be aware of the focal parts of the mix - perhaps the vocal or an instrumental melody line - and experiment and play with the other parts so that they complement and support that central part instead of competing with it or even distracting the listener away from what is most important in the mix.

I have only touched on some techniques that can add depth and form to a mix. Try them out and you may find an expanded and more colourful mix as a result. With more experimental and electronic music, it is worth taking the time to explore and experiment. And you may find that less is more and going for a more live feel may make for the best studio recording.

Caro is an independent electronic music producer and performer. She also works as a freelance studio engineer, recording and mixing other people's music to translate their creative visions into a professional product.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Caro_Churchill

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