Keeping musicians as friends?

Mixing: should you keep musicians as friends? (Wednesday, 2 April 2022)

Recently, I recorded a band in Trypoul Recording Studios. See [here] for an impression. Recording is an art and requires consideration of many aspects including but not limited to (i) thinking about the position of the musicians, their amplifiers, and microphones in the different recording rooms to avoid crosstalk, (ii) selection of (types of) microphones (e.g., dynamic, ribbon, condenser), (iii) routing and patching all equipment to the control room and back for the headphone mixes (iv) line checks and setting up the mixing console, and (v) sufficient snacks. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without the great supervision and help of the studio owner (Dirk Joosten). The raw recording is found at SoundCloud and the recording itself determines, in part, the sound of the song.

The next step is to transform this recording into a good sounding (commercial) song that can be used as a demo by the band, or be released through Spotify, iTunes, social media, or otherwise. This transformation is part of the mixing and mastering phase. Today I will say a few words about mixing.

What is audio mixing?

Basically it is the translation of the individual components (i.e., the individual recorded tracks such as vocals, kick, snare,  and (bass)guitar) to a coherent song that has enough impact on the listener for him or her to listen to it again and again. It is not the same as making music although it is a creative process, and from one recording one may make different mixes that sound (very) different. Moreover, during the mixing process we may add or remove components in the mix, or we may (completely) change the way an instrument sounds. Adding, removing, and changing tracks is, generally, not what the recorded band prefers because it doesn’t reflect their live performances is often the argument. And, in the end, they pay for the mix. But then, is any commercially released song a reflection of a live performance? But, for a music producer, the sky is the limit and it is fun to be creative with a mix.

Three examples

1. A recording may result in two or more different mixes

Below are two mixes from the recording of the song Not Alone from Fredy V. If you compare the mixes produced by Franz and Danial Horta (copied from [here] and [here] respectively) then you’ll find they radiate a different atmosphere and groove (listen to the bass guitar, snare, and brightness of the vocal for example). Both jobs well-done. Fredy V might have a preference for one of the mixes but he would certainly appreciate both efforts.

2. Adding additional vocals and instruments to the mix

As another example consider my mix to of the well-known song River Deep Mountain High played by Recover, and one of the songs I recorded in Trypoul Studios (The second song is found [here]). The first mix was made for Recover and is based solely on the tracks that were recorded, and with feedback and specific wishes of the band (e.g., balance between vocals, and sound of the guitar). Subsequently, I made a second mix to which I added a Hammond organ (played by myself), background vocals, and guitars (performed by session musicians), and also changed some other aspects w.r.t. balance and (guitar) sound.

Which one do you like better? Which one, you think, did the band prefer? Adding tracks runs you into the risk of being beaten up by the band. For sure, they will not pay you. They will probably think that you think they didn’t a good job: were the initial background vocals not good enough? Why a Hammond, didn’t you like the piano? Etc.

3. Removing instruments from the mix

Last year I organized a tutorial ‘Mixing for dummies‘ with my research group at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers (if you are interested in a similar mixing tutorial then let me know). We mixed the song Long Way Home from David Tyo.  Surprisingly, Rodrigo Garcia Valiente came up with a mix completely different to the original one. The drummer, bass, and keyboard players will probably be less pleased with the result since they were largely left out; a scenario that a band even dislikes more than adding tracks to a song. as in the previous example. The band will  hate Rodrigo forever (but who cares?). The mix of Rodrigo is not perfect (e.g., you hear the vocals clipping) but it provides a very nice example of how you may end up with something completely different if you decide to be creative (something I still have to learn). Still, inspired by Rodrigo, I also made a speed mix based on vocals and guitar only (although I couldn’t resist to add the bass at the end of the song).

Marco vs Micro

These were just few examples of how decisions on a macroscale may affect the final mix. In addition, the mixing process involves many more but often much more subtle changes. Many of these are on a microscale compared to the differences you heard in the examples. Some of these changes are hardly audible to the untrained ear but many of them together can make a huge difference on the final sound. More about this in a next blog.