Quote:
|
Originally Posted by guid0 I think there's an inverse relation between the quality of the arrangement/performance and the time you have to spend "optimizing" the tracks for a mix.
If everything sits right during the actual recorded performance, it will sit right in the final mix.
If there's no performance to speak of as in the case of recording track by track, or recording a bunch of talentless fruitbats, then I agree you have to spend some time "optimizing" to create your mix. Wether this means soloing/tweaking every track or putting up a decent mono mix of the recorded program before going stereo all depends on one's personal production values.
In the end, you have to make it sound good one way or another. Put them faders up and use your ears!  |
New perspectives, thanks a lot! So you think the optimization process should be skipped and instead the tracking phase should make everything right from the start. I have read about this approach before, I guess this is a pretty common view on the process. It's a pretty well known fact that as much as possible should be as correct as possible as early as possible, so for instance instead of using EQs in the mixing process one should choose microphone, microphone position and preamp instead. This is because it results in a less processed signal path and a better kept signal-to-noise ratio and better mixing material. I agree to a certain degree about your opinion, in that of the two processes tracking is the more important process in my opinion, because there are so many more important decisions made in the tracking phase and the sum of them makes the whole process more important. Is tracking enough? Not necessarily I think. Some things should be kept controllable and simply can't be made right in the tracking phase. One such thing is when the tracking phase doesn't include optimization of elements (a group of tracks) and element groups (a group of elements, most often the whole arrangement). As we all know tracks within the same element easily cause frequency fighting and elements within a group can cause frequency fighting as well. Depending on what the tracking phase looks like (many instruments are recorded simoultaneously or one instrument is tracked at a time) it might be pretty hard in practise to get everything right in the tracking phase, especially if the song is mixed at a different studio than it is tracked at. Sometimes different things like for instance compression has to be kept moderately in order to be controllable for the mixing engineer, a situation when frequency fighting of tracks within elements and elements within a group might be impossible to prevent completely as early as in the tracking phase. In these kinds of situations a lot of those important decisions are transfered into the mixing process, which easily makes the decisions never made since so many other decisions have a much higher priority in that process or the decisions are made in the wrong order without knowing it.
