Carving space in your mix

[Whoopysnorp]

My main problem seems to be getting a well-defined bass sound that lets you clearly hear what's going on in the bassline while still retaining some balls in the guitar sound and the kick drum. It's weird, because sometimes I'll record a bass track and it will just mesh up beautifully with what's going on in the rest of the mix, and sometimes not. I guess it's all in finding the perfect setting on the bass amp.

[johnS]

Originally Posted by lukedavo

I really do not agree with John S on this one, maybe I'm not understanding what hes trying to get across, but it doesnt make sense from an engineers perspective.

"Or will mixing tools always stay brutish and stupid?"
What, what, what? Well if thats the stuff that sounds good, I'm all for it! Brutish or stupid, I deffintley dont want some machine doing the mixing for me, does anyones else think that once this is perfected, the mixing engineer will be extinct? NOT GOOD! I say mixing engineers unite, destroy the tyranical programmers.

"Like a spectrum analyzer across the stereo bus that would show which tracks are hogging which parts of the 20-20K spectrum relative to each other, and what sorts of cuts or boosts would get you to a musical result."
I think we were all born with one of these on either side of our head. We have them to use them, if they're trained, thats what sets you aside from a machine, and therefore pays your bills.

"grunt work basically"
Thats about 90% of what I do, very little has to do with finesse from my experience.

just my opinion, sorry about the rant.

I think there will always be a place for "brutish and stupid" mixing tools, like the compressors, eqs and the like that we have today. But I'm also suggesting it would be cool if somebody made some plugins that had some smarts. I mean, there are TONS of common elements to a good mix, so why not try to build some of that knowledge into the tools we use? One common thing we all do when we mix a modern pop/rock/metal/funk song (as Whoopysnorp points out) is to try to get a good separation between the kick drum and the bass guitar. Today, we do that manually, but couldn't a "smart" eq/compressor plug-in make some suggestions for us? I would much rather click through five or six realistic, "starting point" options--auditioning them in the context of the rest of the mix--than tweak, listen, tweak, listen, tweak, listen, tweak, listen, tweak, listen, tweak, listen, tweak, listen, until I'm half crazed with ear fatigue and I'm no closer to getting a good sound than when I started. (In fact, I often end up FURTHER AWAY than when I started--urrgh!). And in reality, there are only a few approaches that will work in any given context, so why not teach a plugin to do the "ball park" tweaking for us? I'm not saying that the machines should take over or make aesthetic decisions--any such function could always just be turned off, anyway. But a lot of the time while I'm struggling with the more mundane aspects of mixing, I'm thinking, "Why isn't this &(*&)^ machine doing this?"

[Bellringer]

I prefer to spend my time writing, recording, and playing music. I guess the things that I don't have up to speed irritate me so I would be happy to work with a program that would give me some ideas to make it easier to get a cleaner mix. Of course this is asking for a robot mixer/producer which bothers people who enjoy doing this for a living.
We all like for difficult things to get easier. The more tasks we allocate to computers and robots are eventually going to make us all OBSOLETE! Here's to our human lazyness. I see our future now and I believe it has something to do with The Terminator, or AI, or The Matrix, or Futurama or the easy life.

[johnS]

Originally Posted by Bellringer

I prefer to spend my time writing, recording, and playing music. I guess the things that I don't have up to speed irritate me so I would be happy to work with a program that would give me some ideas to make it easier to get a cleaner mix. Of course this is asking for a robot mixer/producer which bothers people who enjoy doing this for a living.
We all like for difficult things to get easier. The more tasks we allocate to computers and robots are eventually going to make us all OBSOLETE! Here's to our human lazyness. I see our future now and I believe it has something to do with The Terminator, or AI, or The Matrix, or Futurama or the easy life.

The way I see it, having "smart" plugs would free you to spend more time doing more musical things. Like AutoCAD didn't destroy drafting--it freed designers to create cool new stuff because the program was smart enough to do things like draw complex curves--which previously required extra time and effort to calculate. I'm just wondering how far sequencers can be pushed in this direction.

[Nubus]

It could almost go as far as running a program that listens to a band playing the live room. The program analyzes the sounds and physical locations of all sound sources using lasers. The program would then determine ideal microphone selection and placement.
This seems like a familiar idea. Wasn't there a program developed that took measurement of hit song similarites and wrote a hit song?

[dagosto]

Originally Posted by Nubus

Wasn't there a program developed that took measurement of hit song similarites and wrote a hit song?

I remember hearing about something like that (I thought I may have dreamed it). I remember the song sucking.

[johnS]

Somebody just needs to write software that writes songs that software written to appreciate songs written by software would appreciate.

[johnS]

Steinberg's WaveLab 6 editor comes with a smart mastering "level controller" that analyzes the waveform, then boosts/limits to get a good overall level.

http://www.gearwire.com/steinberg-wavelab6.html

Of course, the proof will be in how it sounds, but this is a good example of an area where a smart plugin would be preferable to a dumb one (e.g., a limiter that only knows to chop off peaks). Riding gain through a whole song by hand (or tediously setting automation points) is silly once the machine gets smart enough to do it for you. Just my opinion!

[Bellringer]

Originally Posted by johnS

The way I see it, having "smart" plugs would free you to spend more time doing more musical things. Like AutoCAD didn't destroy drafting--it freed designers to create cool new stuff because the program was smart enough to do things like draw complex curves--which previously required extra time and effort to calculate. I'm just wondering how far sequencers can be pushed in this direction.

I do agree with you. Anything that will save time in the recording process by tweaking EQ, etc. will let me focus more on the songwriting creativity and getting better performances. One of the most annoying things I deal with is trying to recreate what I hear in my head before it fades away. So if a sequencer can be programmed to understand personal code to emulate what you would possibly do (maybe with infinite options), you might be able to retain the original idea due to speed. Arrangers are a decent tool for demos at this point but the charm of mistakes of personality can make things too sterile.
I guess that's all part of the game. Finding the balance between perfection and human personality (which can be far from perfect and still be great!).

[dagosto]

To comment on the fader riding I would highly reccomend a control surface. There is nothing like getting a fader underneath your fingertips. Point and click automation is useful but I feel it removes me from the mixing process. And yes, it is tedious.