If the title of title of this article has you a little puzzled, don’t worry. By the time you’re done reading it, you’ll have a very clear picture of what I’m talking about and how to handle the problems I’m going to cover. So let’s begin.
There is a reason why many recording engineers say to keep it simple when making an arrangement. See, the more stuff you throw into the mix, the harder it is to get everything to come out just right. Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about.
We’re going to piece a song together one instrument at a time. As we progress through this process you’re going to see how and why we start to have problems.
Our song begins with our main instrument, the grand piano. We lay down the track and it sounds really good out there by itself. It better. It’s the only thing playing at this point.
Next we lay down the vocals. When we play the song back, we notice that the vocals are a little bit too soft. Not a problem. We just raise the volume slider of the vocal so we can hear it over the piano. Now everything is great two tracks in.
After that, we decide to lay down the drum tracks. We keep this simple by pulling up a drum kit and programming a rhythm track simply keeping a steady beat. Nothing fancy here. On playback the drums are a little soft but that’s okay as we want them in the background but audible, so we leave them as they are, for now.
Next, we lay down the bass. Upon play back we notice that the bass is drowning out the kick drum. We don’t hear the kick beating anymore. The snare is fine because it’s a higher frequency, but the kick is gone. So we raise the kick up slightly. Fortunately, we put the kick, snare, high hat, and cymbal on separate tracks so we can raise the kick up without touching the other parts of our drum set. So here we are 7 tracks in and so far so good. Of course we don’t really have a lot going on at this point either.
We move on to track 8, the rhythm guitar and lay that track down. We notice that the guitar is getting in the way of the piano and the vocals so we turn it down a bit. We can still hear it slightly, but it’s not as pronounced as we would have liked it to be. So we decide to pan it hard left so that it sticks out a little bit more in the mix. That problem is solved.
Up next we have a low synth pad to kind of lay a foundation for the song. We don’t want this too loud but we do want it noticeable. We use a saw tooth wave with resonance around C1 so that it really cuts through the mix even at low volume. We also play single notes and not chords so it supports the bass. Sounds good. Track 9 was easy. Everything sounds good so far.
After the pad, we lay down a violins line to kind of support the vocals. We turn it down just enough so that the vocals are still over the top but the violins can be heard. Except we find we can’t get the right balance. The piano is too loud. So we turn it down. Except now it’s not cutting through the pad, so we turn that down, except now the pad can’t be heard over the bass so we turn that down. Now the violins can be heard but they’re too prominent with everything else having been buried. So we start raising things back up again.
Stop the madness. And so it begins. And mind you, we’re only 10 tracks into this mix. What kind of a nightmare do you think we’re going to have once we’re 24 tracks in and we’ve got synth leads, horns, sequencer riffs and on and on. Something is going to get buried. Not every instrument can be heard. If you continue to duke it out like this, somebody is going to die. That somebody is ultimately going to be the whole mix. So what’s the answer?
There are essentially two answers to this question. The one has to do with priority and the other has to do with frequency range. Let’s take priority first.
I don’t care what kind of song you’re doing. In that song, there is going to be one or maybe two tracks that are more important than all the others. I think it’s safe to say that the vocals are probably your first priority. If the vocals aren’t heard over everything else, then your mix is a failure. It’s that simple. After the vocals comes your main lead instrument, whether that be the piano comp, the guitar or whatever. You then go down the list of items and mix them in according to priority. Therefore, and as much as it kills me to say this, the high hat on your drums is just not important enough to worry about if it’s a little buried in the mix. Not every instrument is going to be a star. Set your priorities and stick to them. Otherwise you end up with a mess.
Next we have frequency range. The biggest problem that mixers have with frequency range is the vocals. The important frequencies of your vocals are your upper frequencies. The lower frequencies are the ones that muddy up the vocals because they clash other instruments taking up that same frequency range. Remove the lower frequencies of the vocals and you’ll find they fit better in the mix. Also by removing the frequencies that are in the other instruments that occupy the same range as the vocals, that will also make the vocals sit better in the mix. To do this, we use EQ. That’s a topic we’ll get into in another article.
If you do these two simple things, set priority and remove clashing frequencies, you’ll find that your mixes are a lot cleaner.
Because if you try to duke it out, your mix WILL die.
Count on it.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim