Post
by kensuguro » Sat Aug 25, 2012 8:57 pm
I think a tape emu is important in either mixing or mastering. I personally like Voxengo's tapebus, part of their analog flux pack. I'm not a reel to reel connoiseur, but I just like how this thing sounds. Not too much, but definitely not too little color.
Also, the recent console emu type stuff like Satson that does its own summing and some channel crosstalk is an interesting place to explore. It's also not an in your face difference, but the subtle nuances it introduces sound very nice.
On a more general scale (native/scope regardless), I'm a strong believer and overdriving just about everything. My solution to everything that sounds puny is straight up overdrive, or waveshaping. Comp giving you strange peaks? overdrive it. Your eq is too extreme and turning up the volume peaks out that track? Overdrive! You gotta do it just right though, or it'll just sound broken.
For mastering, I'm not a mastering specific engineer so I won't throw it out like the 10 commandments, but seeing that dudes with a bunch of plugins offer mastering services these days, my views might not be too far off.
For me, the playback context plays a big role.. For mp3 and web distribution, whatever. For clubs, I leave a healthy dynamic range. For theater or contexts where it's dead quiet when your stuff's not playing, I almost don't squash at all. It's not so much the playback sound system (provided it's decent) but more of how loud the playback is. If the playback is really loud, then you have that much range to use effectively. The point at which humans perceive "loud" may be well below what you can achieve when your material is peaking out all the time. That'll be too much in a theater, maybe okay in a club if you're just blasting short spurts. Also, an over squashed track played back really loud can also sound very incohesive. You need the dynamic range and contrast to keep sounds intelligible in loud situations. Anyway, just something I picked from having stuff played back in large halls and theaters. My first theater mix was really squashed with T-Racks or something, and it sounded like poop pureed with wood chips.
And for general style.. I wouldn't worry too much about being analog or fat or having to sound like the latest top 20.. There are some criterias though, like for me, it's body, intelligibility (separation), punch, and focus. Body's kind of like low end / mid end, plus the musical content (the right stuff has to happen in the right octaves). The stuff just needs to be substantial in terms of notes and timbre. Intelligibility is a big thing for me. It's sort of high end, but also writing the music so that each part doesn't smear out the other. Sort of like efficient use of the sound space. The mixing also needs to respect that, and keep different parts from eating each other's space. You can do that with very sensitive EQ and dynamics. Which relates to punch. Say your music is written in 4/4 time, and the smallest subdivision is a 16th note (which is most music). For each 16th note, every part that plays is sharing the space. If you want to feature a particular instrument's transient, the other guys need to back off. And it's not "slap on the sidechain and done" kind of thing, it's a smart musicianship sort of thing. This is closely tied to creating a good grove and a punchy mix. You can't make it punchy if it's always punchy (because everything is the same), you need to strategically allocate where the punch is and which part is featured. The featured part brings us to "focus". It can be a particular part, or a particular sound (a voice sample, etc), but if you want to feature it, then feature it. Don't have 15 strange sounds pulling the user's concentration apart. It's also related to intelligibility. If you have 1 sound that you want to feature, work on it, make it stand out in the mix, and go on to the next section where you'll feature something else. The shifting of focus creates drama, and the more subtle control you have, the easier it is to transport the user's attention from place to place. Same concept as orchestration/arrangement, I think applies very well to mixing.
But bottom line is, find a sound you like. I have a very particular sound I like. I sometimes achieve it in my mixes, I don't think I've heard it in anyone else's mixes... and over the years, it becomes more and more consistent. As for me, I think I've gotten to a consistency where many people will recognize stuff I worked on from just the mix itself. (and musical content, if I wrote it, of course) This is by no means saying that I've completed this journey, but it's nice because I worked really hard and long to get that sound I wanted, and people can identify it. Of course, if marketability is important, by all means do the now sound. You kinda have to. I'm just talking about personal growth and self actualization. (and maybe, to a large degree, my sound is just about saturating things, lol)
ah, anyway, there's too much to be said about mixing and mastering I don't even know how to put it together in one cohesive statement. I'm sure once the discussion gets rolling I'll remember thoughts and more explicit tricks/techniques.