Mixing for loud masters!

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 6:15 am

I have a good friend who is a mix engineer. I do all of his mastering. His mixes coming in sound really good and when I finish with them they sound GREAT! His mixes are alway very well balanced. There is nothing that sticks out. He does not use any buss compression but does use compressors on most of the tracks. He does not add any overall eq to the two track mix but eq's the individual tracks in mix-down. He does not use any effects on the two track mix and I add any reverb that is needed when I do the mastering. It is always a pleasure to do his mastering.

Recently I got to do a mastering job for the Dirty Rooks, a Chicago band. I am sorry I do not know who the mix engineer was but he was a genius and the tracks coming in were amazing. I was able to master them and get the tracks very loud but never a hint of distortion or edginess. They were well mixed and sounded very balanced but I could do anything to them and they held up. It was a very ear opening experience. A couple of years ago I did Bob Gatewood who also brought in tracks that were amazing and were mixed by a top mix engineer in Nashville and they sounded incredible. The tracks came in on 1/2 inch tape at 15 ips and were some of the cleanest tracks I have ever had the pleasure to work on.

Unfortunately these are highlights in the day to day mastering I do.

Most of the tracks that come in from inexperienced mix engineers are already squashed. They have been played with in Pro Tools and 39 effects have been added to each and every track and then a compressor limiter has been hung across the two track mix to squash the living he!! out of them. There are all kinds of wild EQs and flanging and phasing effects also added to the two track mix and in one recent case the whole mess was put though a convolution reverb that was going in and out of phase and was such a mess I suggested that the mix engineer re mix the whole album.

A good incoming mix should sound great. I should be balanced. It should be free of a lot of effects and should be almost dull sounding in a good way and not have a lot of reverb, eq or compression added to it. if you can provide that kind of mix to a mastering engineer your chances of getting a good job have gone up exponentially.

Best of luck in your mixing.

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 8:52 am

Thanks for the insight.

I don't use any buss compression or eq. But I do use quite a lot of compression and eqs on the tracks, if needed. Is also use much reverb, but only slight amounts to add some space to a track, unless I want to use it as an effect. On heavy rhythm guitars I never use any fx or compression. I try to give each instrument it's own space by panning and cutting frequencies that are not needed.

Well, I think I'll just forget this article I read. I guess some things should never be known! Wink

If anybody would like to comment the sample I've uploaded, please do so. I'm still interested in any opinion about it.

Thanks again.

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 9:57 am

A couple of articles on line

http://www.tweakheadz.com/perfect_mix.html

http://www.getsigned.com/ruthless45.html

http://gearslutz.com/board/expert-question-answer-archives/1413-how-do-you-prepare-your-mix-mastering.html

http://secure.keyfax.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=DMD_MM&Category_Code=OV&Store_Code=stu

http://www.masteringcentral.com/?p=11

There are tons of other sites that deal with your question and a simple "mixing for mastering" provided PAGES of discussions and articles on the subject.

Best of luck!

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