[microsound] re: Help for the beginner and Hello's

[ãããããããã <ndkent@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> If anyone knows of a good book or magazine for mixing theory please  
> let
> me know. I know how do do things and what gear to use to do it, but I
> am curious about techniques for, say, highlighting a vocal or
> instrument and giving it "room" amongst all the other instruments so
> that things do not sound muddy.

http://www.soundonsound.com/
tends to have good articles, their last decade or so is online and  
searchable though you need a subscription to read any article  
published in the last 6 months (older requires no subscription or  
registration), it's excellent because they have one foot in the  
commercial music door yet their readership is all electronic music  
makers.

As to my take on your issue.

Compression isn't so hard to explain though learning how to best  
apply it is. It's compressing the dynamic range, in other words the  
relation from soft to loud, typically making things more uniformly  
loud. Often you are also doing some limiting, that's taking the  
occasional very loud sound and reducing it to merely as loud as a  
certain level.

Generally most vocal work on professional product has been mixed  
using a compressor. There are debates as to it being less "natural"  
sounding. In moderation it certainly improves things. In excess it  
can become a distortion... which might or might not be desirable.  
Someone mentioned distortion, which is a proper audio term but not  
necessarily what I'm talking about

  Same with acoustic instruments. Many electronic instruments are  
more or less good to go unless you desire a pumped up feeling. Too  
much and the sound will become annoying or unpleasant, then again  
some kinds of music want to be that way. I mention compressing first  
because just doing it may get you near your goal.

EQ then becomes the major tool. Most of the melody and vocal  
"information" is in the midrange frequencies so using a parametric EQ  
to cut the right amount of the right frequencies on the other tracks  
that have the most of those frequencies works best. It's something  
you need to listen and adjust by ear.

Finally there's something that's done a lot in commercial voiceover  
work though not so much in music, called ducking. You need to have an  
ability to sidechain in your software or hardware, it's not  
universally found. You would be applying the smoothed out dynamic  
info from your main track to inversely reduce the amplitude of other  
track(s). Generally the manual will tell you about it if you have it.

Remember that you are most likely doing your own arrangement. And for  
a bit of a lecture, something that separates a good arranger from a  
not so good one is the ability to put together sounds that work  
together. There is a tendency to want to fix things in the mix but if  
you can work your elements in the first place so you don't need any  
sort of "fix" later then it's so much the better. Certain sounds do  
wind up fighting or getting in the way. Maybe it's sometimes best to  
replace one or more.

nicholas d. kent
http://technopop.info/ndkent/

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