Mixing preparation

PREPARING MIXING

Reminder: we are working on the song Life, an original composition:

What software and hardware do we need to produce this song? What is the instrumentation? How is the project organized?

Here is the list of everything I used to record and mix Life:

- A reasonably powerful computer
- An audio interface
- A preamp (optional if the audio interface already has decent built-in preamps)
- A vocal microphone
- A mic stand
- A pop filter
- Monitoring speakers
- Headphones
- A MIDI controller (master keyboard)
- A guitar
- A bass guitar
- All necessary cables

- A sequencer (DAW)
- Effect plugins (EQ, reverb, compression, saturation, etc.)
- Amp simulation plugins
- Impulse loaders (IR loaders)
- Impulses (IRs)
- Software synths (VSTi)
- Drum software

THE TRACKS

- 4 synth tracks
- 2 clean rhythm electric guitar tracks
- 2 distorted lead electric guitar tracks
- 1 bass track
- 1 vocal track
- 2 backing vocal tracks
- 2 sampled choir tracks (orchestral and choral sound plugin)
- Drums

Each instrument track contains its own plugins. Previously, I used to create buses for every track and place the plugins on those buses, but despite the organizational logic, it made tasks more complicated and significantly slowed down the projects. I now opt for a simpler method.

Don't hesitate to create a blank template containing all the tracks and buses you need; this saves you from rebuilding everything for every new project. I describe the template I use on this page.

One last point: the song has a tempo of 75 BPM.

THE BUSES

For the drums
- Each element will have its own bus (kick, snare, hi-hat, ride, etc.), on which various sound processing plugins will be placed (EQ, compression).
- These buses will be routed to a main drum bus.

Drums

Main group buses
- Each type of instrument is routed to a main bus: the rhythm guitars (2 in this case) are routed to a "Rhythm Guitars" main bus, all synths to a "Synths" main bus, etc.
- Each of these main buses is then routed to the Master bus.

Main buses

The Master Bus
- The "main" buses for each instrument group are routed here: the rhythm guitar bus, the lead guitar bus, the synth bus, the vocal bus, the bass bus, and the drum bus.
- The mastering plugins are placed on the Master bus: a multi-band EQ and a limiter to achieve the final sound.

Master bus

Don't worry if this all seems a bit messy or complicated at first; we'll go through the details step by step—it’s not rocket science at all.

MESSAGES

tidave
le 10/02/2017 à 22h25

Bonjour
Il faut préciser que le mastering ce n'est pas aussi simple a realiser
De plus en utilisant juste un compresseur multibande et un limiteur on aura pas un bon son
ton audio final a plein de fréquences genante tu pourrait améliorer en commençant avec un Eq en tete , ensuite tu met un truc pour elargir la stereo, ensuite un compresseur stereo...
Ce serait un bon début
Je vais télécharger le mix final et te le renvoyer apres ajout de ces éléments et tu verras
En tout cas bravo pour le tuto , c'est un bon début
par contre je n'utilise plus de compresseur multibande car c'est trop dragstique, un EQ fait tres bien le job suivit d'un compresseur stereo
blessings

oxbig69
le 04/02/2017 à 21h54

Thank you very much!!!

d'jé
le 31/01/2017 à 16h42

Hi Grebz,
Je voulais te remercier pour ton attention sur Audiofanzine Poste 111 pour le troisième vote.
Par contre tu n'as pas de compte SoundCloud ?
Bonne Zic et A+

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

<em>De rien ! J'ai un compte SoundCloud dont je ne me sers quasiment jamais. Mon propre site m'occupe déjà bien assez :-)
Grebz</em>

Lostin70s
le 21/01/2017 à 10h10

Hi grebz, all ! Did you try Tonedeluxe ? its also free it New and i got nice feedbacks from users. You can found it here : www.lostin70s.com

Guitariste06
le 17/01/2017 à 13h24

Salut,
Est ce que tu pourrais essayer de rajouter sur ta page le plugin Amplistortion ? (www.rcvprod.com) ça simule tout le matériel guitare (et ça simule les hauts parleurs aussi) avec un son de dingue.
Merci