So the other day I wrote a song for a songwriting class that I’m taking. You’re probably wondering why a 35 year veteran of songwriting is taking a songwriting class. Later on that. Anyway, I finish up the final assignment and post it for the class to comment on. One person says it was very good but there was too much echo at the very beginning.
Too much echo? Really?
What the #%^$ does that have to do with songwriting?
And for the record, there was not too much echo at the beginning. It was a little delay on the vocal and more than appropriate for the song. But I digress.
Okay, there is a point to this rant and I’m going to get to it now so that you don’t have to wait another 900 or so words to read it.
No matter what you do, and I don’t care what it is, people are going to nit pick about the stupidest things that may not even have anything to do with the main point of what you’re doing and there is nothing you can do about this.
If this was a course on music production then the comment on the echo would have been more than valid, even if I didn’t agree with it. But at least it applies to music production. Songwriting has to do with the song, not the production.
What surprises me is that this person didn’t comment on my lousy singing voice. No, I can’t sing. Let me just put that out there right now. That’s why I have a royalty free music site with all instrumentals. I can’t sing. That this person says nothing about. But the echo at the beginning, that bothered them.
Un freaking believable.
Okay, there is a bigger point here and yes, it does apply to your music production. So here goes.
As you do a project, the more complex it becomes the more you begin to look at the project as a whole and stop looking at the individual little parts. The reason we do this is because seeing one tree in that huge forest becomes very difficult. Sometimes it’s almost impossible.
That’s when we start running into trouble as far as getting that mix just right. Our ears are overwhelmed with sound. Too much going on.
So, how do you combat this problem? I mean what do you do if you have 67 tracks to have to deal with? Do you just randomly move sliders and hope for the best? Somehow I don’t think that’s going to work. And what works for one person may not work for another. So please take my “solution” with a grain of salt. It’s what works for me but you may need to try something else. However, I think you may want to give this a try.
When confronted with a monster mix and I’m at the point in the process where I’m ready to mix everything down into two tracks, this is what I do.
I start from scratch.
That’s right. I start from scratch. I take all 67 volume sliders (if that’s how many tracks I have) and turn them all down to zero. Naturally, I have everything marked so I know what track is where.
I then start turning the volume up one slider at a time. Now I don’t compose every song the same way. Some will start with drums, others with a bass riff and still others with a piano solo. Whatever instrument starts my song, that’s the track I turn up first. If there is more than one track (say I start a song off with piano, bass, drums and guitar) I’ll turn those 4 up together but one at a time. I’ll try to get just the right level between those 4 instruments.
After I’ve done that, I’ll turn up the next channel in the mix. Maybe it’s a lead guitar that needs to be heard over the main band. I’ll turn it up so that it’s just above the other levels. I don’t want anything to stand out too far from the mix, at least not at first. Why? Because I still don’t know what’s coming next. If I have levels turned up too far, I might not have enough head room for anything that’s coming afterwards.
When I’ve finally gotten everything on, I’ll go back and listen to the whole mix and see if there is anything that stands out too much or is too soft. By having raised sliders one at a time, this is going to be pretty unlikely as I’m adjusting levels as I’m going. I should hear if something is too loud or too soft before I ever get to the final slider.
Now, sometimes I may find that I have to carve out some mid range with a little EQ because one or two tracks are sucking up the bandwidth between 2k and 5k. That’s always a problem area in a lot of mixes and a lot of beginners end up boosting these frequencies too much and you end up with a lot of mud.
Just the other day, I noticed how my vocals were taking up too much bass. I never imagined it, but there it was. So I had to take the EQ to my vocals to thin them out a little so they sat in the mix a little better.
As I said, this isn’t the only way to go about mixing your song. I’m sure there are others. Maybe even ones that are more effective. But this is what works for me. My brain can’t deal with 67 tracks all at one time.
You can also use this method for reverb, echo or any other effect. Turn the effect mix all the way down to dry and then slowly move it up until you get just the dry/wet mix that you’re looking for.
Anyway, I hope you have found my little procedure helpful. By all means, see what works best for you.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim