The order in which you mix tunes?

[alphajerk]

alphabetical order

[Jules]

Yarzzzzzzz!

[Jay Kahrs]

Usually the order they were tracked in on the reel. I might swap it around depending on my mood. Also, sometimes it depends on what's going on in each song. If all the songs have acoustic guitar and five part vocals and there's one with one electric guitar, hammond and once vocal I'll do that last to make patching easier.

[mdvirtual]

When doing band stuff, I usually start with a tune that has a minimum of overdubs/background vox, etc. That way I can really hone in on the drums & other core elements of the rhythm section. Then I'll use that mix as a baseline for the rest of the tunes (assuming they were all tracked with the same rhythm section)

I'm mixing "inside the box" in PT, so I use the first tune as a template, and import the rhythm section tracks from the template session into each new song. I then select all the regions in the imported tracks, remove them from the session, and select/drag the regions from the new mix's rhythm section into the imported tracks. This way I get all my plugins/sends/balances without having to save everything individually.

I'd be interested to find out if folks are using a similar method, or saving plugin settings (or just starting from scratch for each tune)

Of course, some days when I'm feeling particuarly anal I just mix things in alphabetical order. rollz

[alphajerk]

i have yet been able to mix from a template for all the songs... even when a band runs through all the songs in a day tracking the rough tracks. i find that some will carry the same plugins from song to song... BUT i always have to tweak them for each song.

i will make effect clippings [DP] and insert those from song to song. make similar aux sends and so forth, but they almost always are different by the time i am done. even with songs that are very similar.

seriously, i set up the whole album. get a rough mix of the entire thing and then pop from one song to another and mix the whole album now that i can mix totally within the box. i jump from song to song in no particular order... just going on which one i feel like working on for a while. gotta love instant recall.

[mdvirtual]

Yeah, I always end up tweaking plugin parameters & levels, but it gets me in the ballpark. Also seems to help with mix consistency from tune to tune.

Harks back to my former life as a freelancer, when I did a lot of 2" projects on a Neotek with no automation. If the rhythm tracks were from the same day, I'd often start a new mix without resetting the board from the previous tune, and see where that got me. If it didn't float my boat, I'd tear down the mix and start over. If it did, I was ahead of the game and could focus on other mix elements.

Have to watch out though, it's easy to fall into a cookie-cutter mentality this way.

spin

[C.Lambrechts]

I don't have a specific structure or order in mixing songs for the same album / project. It can be about anything. If it is for a client ... he chooses ... for myself .... whatever I feel like doing at that point .... sure ... the best or easiest songs get often picked first but that doesn't bother me ... once the good ones are done and only bad ones are left over I can still find the enthousiasm to mix them just as good as the good ones .... with the same effort put into them. But then again ... if it is my own stuff .... there arent' any bad songs .... smokin yell yell

[alphajerk]

i sometimes tackle the hardest songs first... or at least the hardest. then maybe an easy one after that to give my brain a break.

[Steve Smith]

I will usually do an eaiser one, then hardest, then I just pick em, one at a time. I burn refs as I go to compare the sound of the record quicky to make sure I am in the same park if the producer or artist wants that... maybe I will go alfabetical ( if I can learn to spell)next time, sounds like fun..

[mwagener]

if there is a running order established, I mix in that order, unless there are songs that stick out from the instrumentation.

[Fibes]

No system, just what makes sense. I do like to mix in running order but that hasn't been decided very often before the mix. Some nights I'll do the quieter tracks first.

[littledog]

Originally posted by mdvirtual
When doing band stuff, I usually start with a tune that has a minimum of overdubs/background vox, etc. That way I can really hone in on the drums & other core elements of the rhythm section. Then I'll use that mix as a baseline for the rest of the tunes (assuming they were all tracked with the same rhythm section)

I'm mixing "inside the box" in PT, so I use the first tune as a template, and import the rhythm section tracks from the template session into each new song. I then select all the regions in the imported tracks, remove them from the session, and select/drag the regions from the new mix's rhythm section into the imported tracks. This way I get all my plugins/sends/balances without having to save everything individually.

Strangely enough, I work in ProTools almost exactly this same way, but with a bit of a variation that avoids the importation process. I'll often track a whole CD as one long single session. Like mdv, I'll usually mix a simpler song first to get a good basic rhythm section sound. As I mix each song, I save them as seperate files, but all the mix settings I create become the starting point for the next song. Obviously, a ton of stuff changes from song to song, but at least I have a starting point which gives the whole project some coherency of sound as well as speeding up the ensuing mixes. As I proceed through the project, the drum sound (or whatever) may evolve to the point where I want to revisit the earliest tunes, or it may not be necessary.

[mdvirtual]

Littledog,

Doesn't that get unmanageable at some point? It's gotta make for one huge honkin' session once you get a ways into the project! The reason I jump through the importation hoops is so I can remove the audio that doesn't belong to the song I'm working on. Plus once I start overdubbing things tend to go in very different directions as far as track layout.

Your post DID get me thinking about tracking the rhythm section as one big session though, then saving seperate sessions for each song prior to overdubs. I think this would streamline things and keep sessions moving along better.

Thanks! okk

[alphajerk]

damn fibes, youre a hottie.

[littledog]

Originally posted by mdvirtual
Littledog,

Doesn't that get unmanageable at some point?

Yeah, it really depends on the project. Something like a jazz trio is especially convenient to do this way, but a pop album maybe less practical.

Once each song has an intial mix and is saved to a seperate file, you can still get rid of all the extraneous audio.

But on some massive projects, I would either do the "import to template" trick that you suggested, or the brute force method of saving all the plug-ins as presets, and writing down which plug-ins go on which tracks and then just sticking them in one at a time. Not very elegant, i admit.

[alphajerk]

does PT not allow for seperate "sequences" [songs] per session [project]? thats the way i track in DP. one sequence per song during rought tracking. after each song played, i create a new sequence and everything i just did on the last song gets copied to the next [aside from the audio tracks]... sure it makes a big project [but DVD-R's are big enough to back up to, 2 per album... and/or a firewire drive] for same songs but different takes, i just make a new take down the line in each sequence... i might have 2-6 of those depending on the band, usually 2-3 tops though. as soon as 3.1 is out, i can easily put the soundbites in seperate folders for easy organization.


although next week, i got a 3 piece band coming in to do one song.... thats 45 or so minutes long woo hoo, never done something like that before. plus is going to be full bleed, all in one room, no cans. pressure is going to be ON. should be a blast.

[littledog]

Originally posted by alphajerk
does PT not allow for seperate "sequences" [songs] per session [project]? thats the way i track in DP. one sequence per song during rought tracking. after each song played, i create a new sequence and everything i just did on the last song gets copied to the next [aside from the audio tracks]... sure it makes a big project [but DVD-R's are big enough to back up to, 2 per album... and/or a firewire drive] for same songs but different takes, i just make a new take down the line in each sequence... i might have 2-6 of those depending on the band, usually 2-3 tops though. as soon as 3.1 is out, i can easily put the soundbites in seperate folders for easy organization.


although next week, i got a 3 piece band coming in to do one song.... thats 45 or so minutes long woo hoo, never done something like that before. plus is going to be full bleed, all in one room, no cans. pressure is going to be ON. should be a blast.

In Pro Tools, you can track all your songs starting from the same given template, but that wouldn't solve the mixing "en masse" problem. That is, once you track the different songs and save them as seperate files, tweaking the kick on one song wouldn't tweak the kick on all the rest unless they were still in the same file.

Your session sounds interesting, Alpha. Just a few months ago I did a session of free jazz where some of the individual songs were over 70 minutes long! About 4 hours worth of music was eventually distilled into one CD consisting of about 8 "songs". My challenge was to make each excerpted segment sound like it had a real beginning and ending. (Fade-ins and Fade-outs was cheating!) It was really creative, challenging, and fun!

[mdvirtual]

Originally posted by littledog


Yeah, it really depends on the project. Something like a jazz trio is especially convenient to do this way, but a pop album maybe less practical.

Once each song has an intial mix and is saved to a seperate file, you can still get rid of all the extraneous audio.

I see your point on the jazz stuff - for a record that had minimal/no overdubs your "one big session' method would work out great. I've just come off a couple of projects with all kinds of instrumental and vocal overdubs, plus some MIDI tracks, so my head is in that space right now.

[Jules]

I find the whole 'custom setup' per song in PT VERY tedious, I never seem clever enough to save good templates..

I really MUST make an effort too in the VERY near future

Anyhow I am treating each song as new... From time to time I import 'tracks' then lose the audio , then drag the correct audio in..

[C.Lambrechts]

Originally posted by Jules
I find the whole 'custom setup' per song in PT VERY tedious, I never seem clever enough to save good templates..

I really MUST make an effort too in the VERY near future

Anyhow I am treating each song as new... From time to time I import 'tracks' then lose the audio , then drag the correct audio in..

tut tut tss tss tss tut tut

templates save you a lot of time Jules .... especially guys like yourself ... tracking drums a lot to PT for example ... basically often the same setup right .....

[Jules]

Yes but the move from a simple tracking Template to a mix template is, to me far from 'obvious'...

Someone tell just one MORE time..... how it's done?

pissed

[MMazurek]

I've also been tracking in 'one big session' lately. It seems to really help with getting the rythym section right for 'most' songs. It also seems to sound more like a 'record' at the end.

Last band recorded NINETEEN songs!!!

A new session (or even template) for each song would have been a nightmare.

I think the longest song was 2 minutes. The shortest, 4 1/2 seconds.

[mdvirtual]

Originally posted by MMazurek
I've also been tracking in 'one big session' lately. It seems to really help with getting the rythym section right for 'most' songs. It also seems to sound more like a 'record' at the end.

Last band recorded NINETEEN songs!!!

A new session (or even template) for each song would have been a nightmare.

I think the longest song was 2 minutes. The shortest, 4 1/2 seconds.

4.5 sec - Yikes!!!

I recorded a punk band a few years back that had about a dozen 1 minute songs. They said that was all the material they had, so they filled the time at live gigs by juggling hatchets and slicing themselves with razorblades.
I passed on their next record

[mdvirtual]

Originally posted by Jules
Yes but the move from a simple tracking Template to a mix template is, to me far from 'obvious'...

Someone tell just one MORE time..... how it's done?

pissed

Jules,

I don't really have a mix template, although my tracking templates have some mix elements in them to get me started (sends/returns for reverb, delay, cue mix, etc.)

I've got a couple versions - one more stripped down for simpler sessions, and another that's laid out for a full kit with double kick, excessive amounts of toms, and such. Both include tracks for Bass amp and DI, 3-4 tracks for guitars, a couple of stereo keyboard tracks, and some vocal tracks. There aren't really any plugins except for the effects on the aux returns, and usually Amp Farm on the bass DI.

When the band arrives, I pick the template that's closest and make a custom version from that for their session. I've been starting each song from that custom template, but I think I'm going to start using Littledog's single session method.

When mix time comes, I use the first song as a template for the plugin/level config of the rhythm section tracks. Then I use "import tracks" from the file menu in each subsequent song to bring in the rhythm section tracks from the template song, delete all regions from the imported tracks, and drag my rhythm section regions onto the imported tracks (much easier to do than to describe)

[Fibes]

Originally posted by alphajerk
damn fibes, youre a hottie.

How do you like me now?

If I'm doing demos I do everything in one session with different sequences but for a real record everything gets it's own project folder. It helps keep my head straight.smokin

I haven't had a cig in four days, cold turkey. Alpha you will not return the favor...

[alphajerk]

even hotter.

thats what you think.... it might not be me but those corsendonks will smokin mmmmmmm, tasty. 4 days huh. i just went 7 hours but was asleep and just ruined that streak, ahhhhh. first full nights sleep in a week.

[C.Lambrechts]

Originally posted by alphajerk
... those corsendonks ...

AAHHHH .......; Belgian Beer



http://www.geocities.com/comenius_bi...orsendonck.htm