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.

aMare Pre Mix Session

I've been getting a lot of posts regarding the studio process, so I thought I would post some thoughts on what I'm currently doing.

In case you didn't know, my "day job" (if you can call it that) is a studio engineer. I love recording other people and I have a respectable home project studio. Over the past summer, I've recorded an EP for John Gillespie (Nikki Meets The Hibatchi) and done some basic songwriting sessions with Kyler England and Jenna Vi. Recently, I've been working with the Kentucky based band aMare.

I'm moving into the final couple of weeks with the aMare project. It's been going well. Last weekend Chip Roop, the lead singer, came down to my studio to cut lead vocals.

The vocal recording process I use is fairly standard, in as far as I can tell. What I like to do is have the vocalist warm up with a few passes of the song. During this time, I adjust the levels (eq, limiting, and pre amp) to get the best sounding signal. As with anything, you should never "compress" in the first stage of vocal recording. A lot of people do this and ruin the dynamics of their performances. "Compression" is usually the result of setting a compressor in the 2:1 - 8:1 ranges. "Limiting" is commonly the result of 10:1 or greater. If you don't know what those numbers mean, don't worry about it. Once the vocalist is prepared, I usually request just three or four takes of the song. From there, I take an ear break for a few days (if possible) and then return to "comp" the vocal lines.

"Comp" is a term for composite take. With digital technology, one can get as picky as one chooses. From four takes, I can usually find the best pitched and best delivered lines in such a way that I don't need to apply pitch correction plug-in's. I only use pitch correction in a graphical mode where I can go in an surgically make a tone up to a semi-tone sharper or flatter. If you are wondering what pitch correction is, it was taken to it's extreme with Cher's "Life After Love" song where she sounded like a robot. A lot of singers who lack talent rely on this technology. Most people use it in some capacity; even me. Chip really impressed me with his capacity for pitch. He had quite a deal of training with choirs over the years. Practice is a good thing.

As I write this, I'm bouncing aMare's "Vox Comps" for Chip to hear. "Bouncing" is the process of reducing many tracks to one or two tracks. Usually, two tracks is normal for stereo listening. That is, unless you're doing the mono thing. Hey, don't knock it. No one's recorded a better album than Pet Sounds yet. That was in mono. Anyway, Chip's going to finish his background vocals in Kentucky and mail them to me. Oh, yeah. People don't really have to even ever be in the same room with each other to make an album these days. That kind of stinks on some levels, but on others, it's great. Maybe that's why I'm so attracted to jazz lately. Those guys would go in and cut records in 45 minutes.

The next phase is the mixing session, which is, by all measures, my absolute favorite phase of the recording process.