mixing style, group tracks

[orbit]

I find myself (background is no formal education, mixing amateurly and just read forums/books) using group tracks as follows....for better or for worse, i think it developed out of convenience really...

for drums i tend to take the OH/room mics into one group track, 2 snare mics to another group track. from there i put on eq / comp and set up a send to reverb channel. kick/bass/guitar/keys usually i just put eq / comp /rev send on the channel itself.

my question is, can anyone point out any pros/cons for this method? it also saves cpu for less plugins than if i did plugs on each of the 4 OH/room mic tracks and for each snare etc.

also, what are people's thoughts about using one reverb channel and using different send levels for each part you send to that channel...which i find myself sending bass/guit/kick to rev at pretty low levels, snare group channel about mid on the send and the oh/room group channel a little more than the snares...all to the same reverb stereo channel and tweak the reverb from there.

can anyone point out any pros/cons for this reverb method? and the diff between that and like maybe several reverbs for different instrument types or what?

hopefully this isnt like some kind of no brainer topic that im shooting myself in my foot, being that i have no formal education :P

EDIT: i wish i knew how to delete this so i can repost in the proper forum! or if i could move the thread! :(

[ScumBum]

To mix properly I wouldn't rely on sending tracks to groups and then EQ , compress and add effects to the different groups .

I don't think any PRO mixer , maybe a few not sure , does this .

Do you use Pro Tools ?

You have the effect send method right . Not everything gets the same amount of effect . Overheads I don't send to reverb , sometimes but usually not .

You want to be able to EQ and compress each individual track to what it needs .

Sometimes you can send tracks that are similar like background vocals or rhythm guitars to a group eq and compress them .

I'd get a video like charles dye's "mix it like a record" to help with your mixing .

[close/far]

I always EQ and compress tracks separately, unless I'm doing something like two mics on one source (i.e. top and bottom snare or two close mics on a guitar cab), in which case I still EQ separately, but I generally compress them together via bussing. As for reverb(s), I end up using about three or sometimes four different reverbs per song, and they are almost always auxes (or sends): one for lead vocal, sometimes a different one for BGV, sometimes a dedicated tom-tom verb, sometimes a dedicated snare, sometimes a general drum verb, sometimes a general guitars verb. It all depends, as you can tell.

I use group/bus/aux delays all the time, too.

Regardless, I think you have a good working method for starting out. Just do whatever works best for you in whatever time-frame that you have.

[orbit]

in the case of drum overheads, you're trying to achieve a stereo image, and thus it seems like, to me, it would be detrimental NOT to send those 2 to a group track and eq/compress them in stereo? otherwise it seems like it would be hard to achieve balance??

also, i use cubase SX

[mattsearles]

Generally.. the more of an instrument you send to a reverb, the further back in space it will sound.. that and its volume level.. Its common, at least with algorithmic reverbs, to send to multiple reverbs. You really want a certain amount of one of the reverbs on everything, probably, to help it all sound coherent.

There's other stuff of course like attack time.. how long before a sound would hit the wall behind the instrument, and bounce back to your ear..

Usually with drums you start with the overheads.. add the other stuff to shape tone.

but yeah, def check out mix it like a record.. I hear very good things about that.. and he usually does a christmas time special... and while your at it, subscribe to the project studio network and download all there old episodes... they've faded but they are very very good for drilling into your head what you needed drilled