Mixing Criteria, Tips and Definitions
by Tony Murphy


Figure out the direction of the song
Develop the groove and build it piece by piece
Find the most important element and emphasize it

Tall, deep and wide

Tall is the frequency range of the music
Compare your mix to commercial mixes in the same genre
Deep is the amount of ambient material in the mix (reverb, delay etc)
Wide is the art of placing sounds in a sound field in stereo. So that clarity and spa-ciousness is achieved.

The five elements of a mix

Balance - the volume level relationship between musical elements
Panorama - placing a musical element in the sound field
Dimension - adding ambience to musical elements
Dynamics - controlling the volume envelops of tracks or instruments
Interest - making the mix special—the elements of a “hit” mix
Balance
Balance is achieved initially by the arrangement.
Mixing is essentially subtractive in nature.
Find the foreground and background elements.
Minimize the fight for the listener’s attention.
No two elements should occupy the same frequency range because there will be inher-ent masking and the loss of clarity. Good arrangements avoid this.

ELEMENTS OF AN ARRANGEMENT
•    Foundation - the rhythm instruments. Usually the bass and drums but can include guitar and keys if they are playing the same rhythmic figure as the rhythm section
•    Pad - pads are long sustained chords or notes. Synths and organs or rhodes piano. Guitar power chords and real strings etc
•    Rhythm - any instrument that plays counter to the foundation elements. double time shaker, tambourine, guitar strumming, congas. Adds motion to the music
•    Lead - lead vocal, lead instrument
•    Fills - fills are normally seen in the spaces between lead lines or a “hook” functions as an “answer” to the lead parts.

Rules for arrangements:

1. Limit the number of elements
2. Every instrument should have its own frequency range

WAYS TO PREVENT INSTRUMENTS FIGHTING FOR ATTENTION
•    Change the arrangement and rerecord the track
•    Use mutes so the two similar instruments don’t play at the same time
•    Lower the level of the offending instrument
•    Set EQ so that each instrument has its own frequency band
•    Use panning to separate the instruments


TYPICAL MIX STARTING PLACES
•    Bass
•    Kick
•    Snare
•    Overheads
•    Lead vocal or main instrument
•    When mixing a string section, mix from the highest string (violin) to the lowest (bass)


Panorama

Mixing in stereo can add clarity and room to a mix. excitement can be generates by in-troducing movement
Does the sound-stage fit the instrumentation?
Are the elements of the music clear to the listener?
ELEMENTS OF STEREO ARE:

Phantom centre
Centre
Hard left and right
Panning in Mono
Check your mix by listening in mono and panning instruments around until the “tonal balance” sounds right

Frequency ranges - EQ

3 goals to EQ
1 Make an instrument sound clearer and more defines
2 Make the mix or instrument bigger and larger than life
3 Make all of the elements of a mix fit together by juggling frequencies so that every thing has its own predominant frequency range

Frequency ranges

Sub-Bass - 16 - 60 Hz - felt more than heard. too much makes the sound muddy
Bass - 60 - 250 Hz - fundamental freq of the rhythm section. Makes the sound fat or thin - too much makes the music boomy.
Low Mid - 250 - 2000 Hz contains the low order harmonics of most instruments. Boost-ing 600-1k sounds hornlike (honky) and 1-2k sounds tinny
High Mid 2000 - 4000 Hz - contains mid range sounds like “m” “b” and “v”- too much causes listener fatigue
Presence - 4000 - 6000 Hz - clarity and definition of voices and instruments - boosting makes music seem “closer”
Brillance - 6000 - 16,000 Hz - controls brilliance and clarity - too much causes vocal sibilance

Some other descriptive words for 1 octave ranges
63Hz = rumble
125Hz = boom, thump, warmth
250Hz = fullness or mud if too much
500Hz = honk (car horn)
1kHz = whack
2kHz = crunch
4kHz = edge
8kHz = sibilance, definition, “ouch ”factor
16kHz = air

1. Make an instrument sound clearer and more defined

Set the boost cut knob to -8 -10.
Sweep through the frequencies to find the place where the sound has the least amount of “boxiness” and the most definition.
Now adjust the cut to taste. be carefull not to take out all of the energy of the track
2. EQ to make instruments larger than life

Set the boost cut to +8. +10
Sweep through the frequencies until you find the spot that is full
Readjust the boost to taste. watch out that you do not overdo this as it can make the sound “muddy” and “opaque”
Go to the frequency that is either half or twice the frequency of the last point and add a little of this in. example, if your frequency was 100, go to 200 and add a dB or so at that point too.
Note that it is usually better to add a small amount at 2 frequencies than adding a lot of one freq.
Also, an instrument may sound great soloed, but may not work when inserted into the mix.
Rule of thumb is that the fewer instruments you have in the mix, the more you can make each one bigger with EQ. Busy mixes with lots of instruments will not work as well with this technique.

If required, add some presence to the instrument by adding a little 1-4kHz.
Also if required, add some sparkle by boosting a little at 5 - 10kHZ
last, add some air to the sound by boosting around 10 - 15kHz


PLEASE NOTE
All EQ causes phase distortion when you boost the signal. Cut is always preferable to boost

Here is an alternate method of making your track larger than life:
Set your EQ flat and then remove all the bottom end
Tune the mid-upper range until the sound is thick and defined
Reinforce it by adding a little lower mids to add body
Slowly bring back the bottom end but not too much as it makes songs muddy
Add some high freq for definition

EQ to make all elements fit together

Start with the rhythm section. The bass should be clear and present against the kick and snare
Each instrument should be heard distinctly
Make sure no two EQ’s are boosting at the same frequency
If one instrument is cut at a certain freq, boost another instrument at that freq.
For example , if the kick is cut at 500Hz, boost the bass at 500Hz
Add the next most predominant element, usually the vocal and proceed as above.
Add the rest of the elements to the mix one by one. as each is added, check it against everything else as above.
Remember that you need to hear each instrument/part clearly
Instruments may sound terrible when soloed but if it works together in the mix then that is OK!


Golden rules of EQ

1 if it sounds muddy - cut at 250Hz
2 if it sounds honky - cut some at 500Hz
3 cut if you are trying to make things sound better
4 boost if you are trying to make things sound different
5 you can’t boost something that is not there in the first place

bass guitar - bottom at 50-60 Hz. attack at 700Hz snap at 2.5kHZ
kick - bottom at 80 - 100Hz. hollowness at 400Hz. clarity beater at 3-5kHz
snare - fatness at 120 - 240 Hz, boing at 900Hz, crispness at 5kHz, snap at 10kHz
toms - fullness at 240 - 500Hz, attack at 5-7kHz
floor tom - fullness at 80 - 120 Hz, attack at 5kHz
high hat and cymbals - clang at 200Hz, sparkle at 8 - 10kHz
electric guitar - fullness at 240 -500Hz, presnce at 1.5-2.5kHz, reduce 1kHz when using 4x12 cabinet
acoustic guitar - fullness at 80 Hz, body at 240Hz, presence at 2-5kHz
organ - fullness at 80Hz, body at 240Hz, presence at 2-5kHz
piano - fullness at 80Hz, presence at 2.5 - 5kHz, Honky Tonk at 2.5kHz
horns - fullness at 120-240Hz, piercing at 5kHz
voice - fullness at 120Hz, boominess at 240Hz, presence at 5kHz, sibilance at 5kHz, air at 10-15kHz
strings - fullness at 240Hz, scratchiness at 7-10kHz
conga - ring at 200Hz, slap at 5kHz
EQ Tips

Generally use a narrow Q when cutting, use a wider Q when boosting
If you want something to stick out, roll off the bottom, if you want it to blend in, roll off the top

Dimension

Effects are used for
1. Creating an aural space
2. Add excitement to a mix
3. Make a track sound bigger wider or deeper
4. Move a track backward in a mix
Picture the mix performance in a real acoustic environment and then try to recreate this space in your mix
Smaller reverbs or short delays make things sound bigger

EQing Reverbs

•    to make an effect stick out, brighten it up
•    to make an effect blend in, filter out highs (darken)
•    if the part is busy (drums etc) roll off the low end of the reverb to remove boominess
•    if the part is open, add low end to the reverb to fill in the space
•    if the source is mono and panned hard left or right, make one side of the effect brighter and the other side darker



Sonic Layering of Effects

Layer reverbs by frequency with the longest reverb being brightest and the shortest be-ing darker
Pan reverb anyway but hard left and right
Use mono returns for layering reverbs. you don’t need stereo returns all the time!
Get bigness from reverbs and depth from delays (or vice versa)
Use a bit of the longest reverb on all major elements of the track to tie all the “acoustic environments” together
Long delays, reverb pre-delay, or reverb decay push a sound farther away if the level of the effect is loud enough
Timing delays to the track tempo adds depth without being really noticable
If a delay is not set to the tempo, it will stick out more in the mix
Reverb times can also be set to the tempo of a track
For fatter lead or background vocals apply a little chorusing panned hard left and right . use different eq and reverbs to duplicates of the original or use diffent short delays
For electronic keyboards, a nice small room can be achieved by setting a stereo delay to 211ms and 222ms
For fatter guitars:
1. Use a short delay panned hard left or right and the dry signal to the opposite side. try a 12ms setting or to the tempo of the track to achieve this
2. Pan the guitar track and the delay to centre then slowly increase the delay time until it sounds bigger. try 25-30ms
3. Try a stereo delay with 25ms on one side and 50ms on the opposite side
For “thunder drums:”
Make sure your beater sound can be clearly heard (refer to eq section) and apply a gate to all the drums timed to the tempo of the track. set a bit of big reverb (catherdral) panned so that it appears “behind” the kit.