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

Crowned Warrior
le 05/04/2021 à 22h25

Hi,

I wanted to thank you for these instructions!

I tried this today and did a few iterations of trying to capture my cab. It worked pretty well. The sound of the IR is pretty close to my cab.

If I spend some more effort to set things up better, I will get a better result.

But without your instructions, this wouldn't have even happened. So thanks again!

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Glad to be of help! Enjoy your IRs!
Grebz

Gratte26
le 05/04/2021 à 20h26

Ce site semble être une petite pépite tant il regorge de conseils et d'infos pratiques. Merci à son auteur.

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Et merci de votre visite !
Grebz

Mastercodeon
le 25/03/2021 à 08h07

First off id just like to say that this entire site is an absolute GEM for vst guitar amp sims, ive been using plugins like lepou's le456 and LeCab and many others you host here on this site since i was 13 way back in 2013, ive always used fl studio and as such i am using 12 64 bit with an i5 and 8gb of ram hp laptop. Here soon i will be upgrading to the latest version of fl, with an i7, 12gb of ram lenovo laptop, all my setups are running windows 10. im getting a usb interface for my guitar tomorrow so im finding all the plugins im going to need, and this site by far has literally everything i need for amp sims. I have never even found a copy of the Revolution Z plugin, the sites been dead since i was a kid. I wish you and this entire site the best of luck, wishes and prosperity, i would love to see this site last for the years to come, so much of this software is really hard to find, amazing archive :)

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Thanks a lot for your kind words, I'm glad the site allowed you to find what you were looking for. Cheers and keep on making music!
Grebz

Trainko
le 12/03/2021 à 19h30

Merci pour ce site que je viens tout juste de découvrir et qui regroupe pas mal de recherches que j'ai pu effectuer depuis un lonnnng moment…..
Je débute en MAO et je pense que je viens de trouver la perle qui va me faire progresser rapidement dans le domaine !
Des belles heures devant moi ;)
Un grand bravo et merci beaucoup :)

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Merci à vous de venir sur mon site ! Si les infos qui s'y trouvent permettent d'aider, je suis ravi !
Bonne continuation !
Grebz

Aleg
le 24/01/2021 à 23h46

Bonjour ;

Tout d'abord, merci pour cet excellent article. Il va me servir très prochainement.

J'aurais aimé savoir s'il est également possible de créer une impulsion d'un son en particulier (et non pas d'une enceinte ou d'un lieu) avec ses caractéristiques. Par exemple, le timbre de tel ou tel instrument de musique, ou de quoi que ce soit d'autre. Si oui, comment fait-on et quels outils sont nécessaires ?

Merci d'avance pour votre réponse et en attendant, je vais lire le reste de votre site. :)

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Bonjour Aleg,

Merci d'avoir visité mon site.

Malheureusement, je ne pense pas que ce soit possible, en tout cas pas avec la méthode permettant de créer des IR de lieux ou d'enceintes.

Les instruments virtuels qui reproduisent des instruments existants sont soit à base de samples (chaque note possible de l'instrument réel est enregistrée, avec ses variations), soit reproduits à l'aide d'algorithmes complexes, que je serais bien incapable d'expliquer.

Je ne suis pas assez calé techniquement pour répondre, mais je pense que si c'était possible, ça aurait déjà été fait. À ma connaissance (mais je peux me tromper) ce n'est pas le cas.

Désolé de ne pas pouvoir répondre plus précisément.

Grebz