Recording - October 2012 - 60

ics. But before the mix I always take care of some practicalities, noting for you readers that while I work in Pro Tools, the basic ideas will apply to almost any DAW.

I consider mixing an exercise in space, time and dynam-

Organize it I like to start my mixes by first organizing my tracks—a somewhat obvious step, but it really helps to lay things out in a logical order. I started working on physical consoles and tape and my practice stems from that experience. I still lay out my Pro Tools sessions the way I would if I was working with tape. I generally group my rhythm section tracks first—drums, bass, rhythm guitars, piano, etc.. Then focus tracks—lead vocal, solo instruments, etc.. And finally color elements—backing vocals, strings, additonal keyboards, you get the idea. My last area of my “console” is for my global effects, reverbs (generally two or three), delays, and any other processing I might decide on that will be used on multiple tracks.

Clean it up For the next part I will make the assumption that your tracks have been checked for timing and tuning and other fixes before starting your mix. You don’t want or need the distraction of dealing with those things at mix time. You will always find a problem or two along the way; you just want to minimize them with proper work beforehand. Before I start the mix, I also clean up unused parts and remove or send them to the back of the mix so again I have the most concise and orderly layout. To clean up my tracks I generally work in a methodical order. I check the drums for any problems with phase, extraneous noises, overs, and to really understand what part of the kit is playing what. If the toms are not used or used sparingly I will lower their gain until they are played. I usually do not eliminate them completely because I use them to create an overall drum sound. Also—how is the image of the kit from the overheads or room mics? Make sure to follow the stereo image of the drums.

By Scott Petito

Note that if I decide to use, say, a specific effect like an amp simulator or delay on a guitar, I place that aux next to the relevant input track, so once again I have clarity as to what is going on in my mix. The same is true for groups and grouping—I place drum subgroups for parallel compression right after the individual drum tracks, so it’s clean and easy to find. I would do the same for any grouped elements, for example backing vocals. On some complex mixes I also add a group of VCA-type faders so I can have a small number, 8 to 10 faders, that can control my entire mix for final small level adjustments and so I can sit comfortably in the sweet spot of my mixer. This type of mixer layout works for me on anything from a large pop mix to a jazz quartet to a classical ensemble. The instrumentation may change but my general layout does not. This also makes moving from song to song much easier. Most DAWs allow you to save templates so you could easily recall a favorite mixer layout and adjust it for your specific workflow. My layouts include my favorite eqs for various instruments, and bus plug-ins that I go to a lot. Also, the less time you spend hunting for tracks, the more you can concentrate on the mix, so as you can see in the screenshot, in Pro Tools I use color coding to find the appropiate tracks at a glance, as shown in Figure 1 (see page 62).
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RECORDING October 2012

I’m not eq-ing or even setting any specific level yet, but I will start to set my panning. I move through each track in this way. I like to get the faders close to unity gain so I have a good start for the gain structure of my mix. Today, with things like clip-by-clip gain adjustment and adding a trim plug-in to individual channels, you should be able to get a good level at this point in the process. Mixer headroom when working with 32-bit floating point data in your DAW is huge compared to even the best analog console, but nevertheless, good gain structure is very important to a great mix. After moving though each track or group of tracks you should have a mix in place that you can start listening to. I like to just play all the way through the song several times. Don’t worry about moving faders—just listen to get a good overview of the song and the arrangement; take time doing this, on each pass make some notes, things you like, things you hate, things you are not sure about. As each pass goes by you can start to bring elements into place; back the drums off, perhaps, or bring the lead vocal up to a comfortable place, maybe pan those two rhythm guitars etc.. No hard rules and no automation yet! No small rides, just raw adjustments. You want the song to tell you what it needs. The goal here is to try to get a good balance of the elements without any fader moves or even eq... as if you were a member

Recording - October 2012

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