aMare Mix Session #1: "Fairy Tale"

The most relevant mixing advice anyone ever gave me was from a guy name Kinky. He was playing pedal steel with Johnny Irion one night at Jack's Sugar Shack in Los Angeles. I was out there contributing to the mixes of Dirty Wake. I asked him for sound advice (literally) after his set that night. He simply said, "Trust your ears."

Mixing audio can be daunting when it comes to all those knobs and faders...most of which are in the computer now-a-days. What it really comes down to is trusting your ears. I mean, if you are a fan of music, you know what a good mix sounds like. Just do what they do, right?

As I learn more and more about this craft, it really is that simple. It's just not simplistic. Having a home based rig, I have the luxury of time. But really, if you spend more than a day and a half on a mix, you probably won't improve on it much. That's true, most mixers would agree to that.

What I've found effective is to start with the drums (if there are drums) and then work in the bass guitar. Then, the most important element, vocals find their home.

When it comes to drums, if you're dealing with raw tracks, it's a good idea to apply some EQ. I have a few samples of good kicks and snares in my iTunes catalog. It's easy to A/B "good" kick and snare sounds with what you have. Then, you can make necessary adjustments. Also, when it comes to drums, there are a lot of elements going on at once. It's a good idea to apply a gate before a drum hits a compressor. Otherwise, you'll be compressing everything that the microphone is picking up. With Pro Tools, it's easy to just mute the drum until it's struck. Then, when you are dealing with the snare, you aren't adding in a lot of garbage. I like to imagine the drummer at play in the track when I'm getting the drums dialed in. It's important that the tracks have some life to them at this point. If not, you should really think about retracking the drums so they are exciting. There's nothing that can help a lame drum performance.

I spent about a day and a half on aMare's song "Fairy Tale." The drumming was solid for the most part. I had to replace a few hits here and there, but it was fairy good right out of the box. Alex McKinney came over to play bass on this song a few months ago. Chip was really excited about that. And, the acoustic guitar and vocals were tracked at my place. I knew how to mix those elements fairly easily.

As I got the mix going, I felt it was necessary to add a few instruments. I played a Hammond B3 patch during a few spots of the song...just to add some more dynamics. Also, I added some percussion.

Chip really liked what he heard, so far. Most of the time was spent getting a feel for what kind of mix was possible for this particular session. I spent a lot of time just messing with the EQ knobs until things sounded legit.