Another mixing question

[HAWG_TRAIN]

ok, mixing nightmare, inconsistent drummer , and ive got compressors, its taking me like 2 hours just to get the drums level, or close. besides all that, it got me thinking. how long do you take to mix a normal song, 17 tracks or so. thanks

[Drumsound]

You might consider some distortion on the problematic drums. A cheap tube pre or even a guitar pedal. Then blend that tone into mix, not to the point of sounding like the Soft Bulletin (unless that's your goal). It can sometimes focus the drum-set nicely.

For me mixing is usually 4-6 a song. Every records seems to also have one song that goes really fans and another that seems to take forever.

[HAWG_TRAIN]

4 to 6 hours, anyone else, im trying for about 2 hours , anyone else

[lowfreq33]

If it's kick and snare inconsistency you could do some sample replacement. Sometimes with inconsistent drummers I'll find a good clean hit from the track and use that to replace the weaker hits. Of course it's better if you have the chance to take samples before the session, but it's a little late for that now.

Of course if the cymbal are wildly inconsistent this won't help much.

[HAWG_TRAIN]

yeah, i like to mix sometimes starting with the overheads, but his cymbals are so loud then to soft.

[Empire Prod]

Is he inconsistent in that he will play loud on certain sections and quiet in others? If this is the case, that is just something that is lost in modern music. It is called dynamics. The band should play to the dynamics together. Rather than view it as a problem in the mix, you can ride faders and place a real emphasis on the dynamic changes to bring out the emotion in the music. And yeah samples are not that great for organic, natural and dynamic music.

[5down1up]

Originally Posted by HAWG_TRAIN

im trying for about 2 hours , anyone else

trying means your not really sure what you need to do, so i would say :

2 hours is NOTHING ... what about 2000

its to hard to say without knowing what your doing. finishing a song in 6-8 hours is pro league. you really need to know what your going for.

just my opinion of course,

good luck

[3rd world order]

Originally Posted by HAWG_TRAIN

ok, mixing nightmare, inconsistent drummer , and ive got compressors, its taking me like 2 hours just to get the drums level, or close. besides all that, it got me thinking. how long do you take to mix a normal song, 17 tracks or so. thanks

how long have you got?

it really depends on how much screwdriver and salvage work i have to do... i get all the screwdriver work done first before i even think about mixing. they're 2 completely different processes and should be treated as such. get all the left brain stuff done before you start creatively mixing...

for something like this i recommend fader rides to even out the nasty volume jumps before you even get to compression... i generally gate my close mics pretty ruthlessly and get most of the sound with the OHs & room... so fixing the close mics (if it's just volume problems) shouldn't be that big of a deal.

don't make the compressor work so hard, use your faders first then take it over the top with compression.

the other thing to do is mix it in sections.. get a chorus happening before you try to get sounds working for the whole song.

[TheMIXIMAL]

Originally Posted by HAWG_TRAIN

how long do you take to mix a normal song, 17 tracks or so

depends on the amount of 'surgery' needed.
17 tracks can take a few hours or a few days, depending on what needs to be done with it.

[RCM - Ronan]

Originally Posted by HAWG_TRAIN

how long do you take to mix a normal song, 17 tracks or so. thanks

As long as the guitars are done with real amps and the snare is not too ringy, I can usually get a mix like that sounding pretty good in about 30 minutes. It could take the rest of the day to try and get it to great.

[HAWG_TRAIN]

good stuff guys, as far as the dynamics, its more than that. lol, more like off and on lol

[robot gigante]

A lot of times I only have two hours to mix a 80 to 100+ track pop production. You can do it in two hours. I like to have 5-6 hours but I don't always have that luxury. People will book you more if you work fast a lot of times.

The answer to the inconsistent drummer is gonna be volume rides and maybe sample replacement. Doing a lot of rides seems intimidating but you can get through it faster than you think.

[thethrillfactor]

Pass on this gig.

Shoot to work with the best artists,songs,performances & productions. The hatchet/surgery mix jobs are just not worth it in the end and take years off your engineering life.

[robot gigante]

Originally Posted by thethrillfactor

Pass on this gig.

Shoot to work with the best artists,songs,performances & productions. The hatchet/surgery mix jobs are just not worth it in the end and take years off your engineering life.

Best advice yet..

[u b k]

if you decide to do it in 2 hours, here's your best bet: get a timer, and don't cut yourself any fµcking slack. do not work in sections, work in whole passes. do not second guess; make a decision with your gut, act on it, move on to the next idea. pan things hard left, center, or hard right only, no in-between crap.

ready? set your timer for 30 minutes. spend these 30 minutes getting the drums as cool as you can get them. not pretty, not good sounding, not balanced... 'cool'. as in vibe, energy, emotion. they are what they are, you don't have the time or the divine wherewithal to change reality at this level, so maximize the flavor and move on. bring up a parallel compressor smashing the bejeebus out of everything, run a parallel of that and distort the living piss out of it, low pass the distortion, and play around with various blends of the 3 flavors until you get something that hits.

timer up? move on.

reset for 30 minutes, bring up the bass, make it loud, bring up the guitars, make them not as loud. spend these 30 minutes getting all the instruments to behave and do interesting things from start to finish.

timer up? move on.

spend 30 minutes with the vocal, and you're gonna do 1 of 2 things: you're gonna bury it, or you're gonna make it so loud it can't be ignored. try both and see which is right, you'll know in less than 2 minutes. either way, there's probably gonna be heavy fx in use, either delays or distortions or both. again, whole passes, all instruments in, do not eq or do anything while in solo; learn to use the 'touch' mode of automation, it is the greatest weapon in a fast mixer's arsenal.

reset the timer for 15 minutes. take a break. step outside, or at least into another space where the air pressure and room tone are different. be quiet for 10 minutes. then listen to a song that's as close as you got to what you're working on.

re-enter the studio, set timer for 15 minutes. listen to the whole song start to finish, touch nothing, do nothing. make notes of the 2 or 3 things that offend you most. fix them. print the mix, call it a day, smoke 'em if you got 'em.


gregory scott - ubk
.

[beginagain]

Thanks for keeping it real UBK....

Good words for all of us....

Michael V

Tassie

[robot gigante]

You can still mix fast in sections instead of keeping it to one pass/track.

The way you do it is to have automation ready to go for all the tracks that need it and mix the sections down in blocks. A lot of times this can be quicker than doing it track by track in one long pass each. The advantage to doing things this way is that you can focus closely on the volume relationships of everything to each other, which gets super important when you're working with big vocal stacks for example.

Also doing your rides into compressors can help speed things up.

Other than that, all good advice. I like to start with the vocals since an inconsistent vocal messes with my flow when I'm working with everything else.

I would say that prepping your session so that it is meticulously clean and organized is another key to working quickly. Get so you can prep your session in a very short time, using templates in Pro Tools for example, and get to know the session, what everything does, when it comes in etc. as you prep it.

[MarkRB]

Originally Posted by u b k

re-enter the studio, set timer for 15 minutes. listen to the whole song start to finish, touch nothing, do nothing. make notes of the 2 or 3 things that offend you most. fix them. print the mix, call it a day, smoke 'em if you got 'em.

gregory scott - ubk
.

Great post UBK.
You pretty much transported me back to my old "mix 10 tracks a day" days then.

I still get the best buzz from working quick and dirty.