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Rough Mixes, Buss and Mix Compression

Published by Willie Green on June 24, 2010 at 10:15 am

Rough Mixes

I hope it’s apparent by now that I’m going in a logical progression of the tracking process. Once vocals are recorded, and you’re ready to call the tracking session a wrap there’s one more step – the rough mix.

If you’re thinking that this is something to just slap together consider this: albums often take a year or more to complete, with mixing obviously toward the end of the process. You’ll be living with rough mixes for a long time, making judgments on whether songs make the album or not; you want these to sound as good as possible.

LupeFiasco-Daydreamin Also, good roughs can often lead to more work. An example, a good friend of mine tracked vocals for Lupe Fiasco’s “Daydreamin‘” off the Food and Liquor album. He did a great rough mix of it, great enough that the label chose his mix to go on the album and he now has a Grammy for that song. That’s an extreme example, but good work gets noticed. As a professional engineer, you never want poor quality work floating around with your name on it.

Once I have a good, working vocal sound and the artist has begun doing takes, my mind turns to the rough mix. (This applies for bands too, but we’re mostly dealing with vocalists here). I start early, because when the artist stops to listen to playback, it’s much more inspiring for them to hear their work sounding like a record than just a bunch of faders up.

As long as it doesn’t interrupt the recording process (like sudden drastic compression or EQ changes in the artist’s headphones), start tweaking. Keep in mind that adding plugins while the song is running may cause a brief dropout in playback — this will ruin a take, so add your plugins between takes. Also keep in mind that adding plugins may increase latency in your rig, creating a delay in the talent’s headphones and making it very difficult to record.

Mixes are clearly subjective, but a few tips may help:

- I never, ever use a limiter on my mix buss when doing a final mix. That limiting is best left to mastering. However, when doing rough mix I will. While the artists are living with the rough throughout the life of the project, it will be more comparable in level to whatever else is in their iPod.

- There probably won’t be time for detailed vocal level rides, so compression will certainly be helpful here. But don’t be afraid to take a second and write a little volume automation for extreme changes in volume. You don’t want any of the vocal performance getting buried in the beat, since this rough will be used to determine is any vocals need to be redone.

- There are any special vocal effects that are highly important to the song (distorted lines, specific delays, etc.) take the time to put them in. This is a good time to use plugin presets, just to quickly get in the ball park of the final product.

- Finally always remember that your rough mixes are the reference point for the final mix, whether you or someone else is mixing it. Many mix engineers, myself included, ask for a copy of the rough to have direction when they start the final mix.

Compression Pt. 2 – Buss and Mix Compression

Your kick drum is knocking, your snare is squashed to shit and sounding great, and your vocals have a nice squeeze on them. So, why does your mix sound like nothing’s connected?

Enter the magic of buss and mix compression. Buss compression involves sending multiple instruments (such as drums) through one compressor, and mix compression, well, that’s pretty self-explanatory — you’re compressing the entire mix.

Compressor There are a couple ways to do your buss compression; in-line and parallel or “New York Compression.” (That’s no Brooklyn bias, that’s what it’s known as).

In-line involves — instead of having the output of your drums tracks (for instance) going right to the mix buss — they go to another buss (or group or whatever your software calls it) first. This will allow you to process these tracks together; EQ, compression, whatever you like. In the case of compression, this is a great way to glue aspects of your mix together. Have a doubled guitar part that you’ve hard panned? A bass that’s doubled with a synth? This might be the move. Each element going to the buss is going to affect the compressor differently, and therefore affecting the other instruments going through the same comp. A loud kick and snare for instance will make hi-hats going through the same compressor pump and breathe, and will give different life to your drum groove.

Parallel compression is a similar idea, but instead or running tracks straight into a compressor, put the compressor on an Aux Send, and dial in a certain amount of the desired instruments. What this accomplishes is blending a heavily compressed signal back in to the uncompressed. (You’ll most likely want to use more aggressive settings on the compressor). This gives you the power of a compressed sound with the dynamic range and subtleties of the uncompressed. Experiment with the balance between the two.

You can now also choose how much one instrument affects the others. Maybe you want to dial some bass into the drum comp to make the drums pump at times. The possibilities are endless. *Important note* This only works with software that has plugin latency compensation. (If you have a hardware mixing setup, you don’t need to worry). If you don’t have latency compensation, this may result in phasing and a washy sound, because the compressed signal will be delayed a number of samples. If it doesn’t sound right, this is why.

Mix compression is also similar, except now everything in your mix affects everything else. This can definitely lead to trouble, so keep an ear out. My first and most important piece of advice is this — if you are going to use mix compression, put it on at the START of your mix, and mix into it the entire time. As you go along, you will adjust the settings, but if you try to just put it on in the middle or at the end of your mix, you’ll lose all perspective of what you’ve been doing.*

Here is where the misleading adage of “It’s hip-hop just turn up the bass” gets exposed for the garbage it is. As I mentioned in a previous column, it’s important to have CLEAR bass, not just more bass. Extreme amounts of low end will wreak havoc with your mix compressor and compromise the rest of your mix. It will cause your entire mix to pump every time the 808 hits or the bass line drops in. There are exceptions to this rule, one of the most famous being J Dilla’s “Donuts”, but before Dilla stans go wild, THIS IS AN EXCEPTION, NOT THE RULE. If not done correctly, like in that case, this will cause an undesirable effect for the listener, and make mastering extremely difficult. It makes keeping vocals and other instruments balanced near impossible.

A few quick tips on Mix Buss Compressing:

- This isn’t the time to squeeze the life out of you song. A couple dB of gain reduction will do the trick, this is just a little glue to blend everything.

- Try different compressors, as the sound of the comp will obviously seriously affect your mix. Some sound more aggressive, some are naturally smoother. Choose carefully.

- If you notice your compressor not responding like you think it should, specifically if it looks like it’s compressing much more than what you hear going through it, there may be stray extremely low frequencies below the threshold of human hearing. This is especially true for vinyl users, there may be rumble from your turntable or the record itself. If you think this may be the case, or if you just want to play it safe place a high pass filter before your compressor.** I recommend putting it at 20 Hz, the very low end of human hearing. There’s nothing useful below this, only unwanted low frequency energy.

- Attack and release speeds are important here. With the attack, in most cases you’ll want to make sure it’s slow enough to let plenty of transients (the attack of a sound) through. Take care with the release time. If the track is pumping, make it longer. If the song isn’t knocking enough, it could mean your compressor isn’t recovering fast enough to let the next kick or snare through, so you’ll want a faster release time.

- Keep an eye on your output level. Remember, the ideal level for your mixes to sit at is about -6 dB

*A note along the same line is EQ on your mix buss. Unless you are extremely familiar with your monitors and have a great sounding control room, I DO NOT recommend this. As your ears adjust to the mix you’re working on, you won’t have a reference point for the EQ, and you can wind up with some weird stuff. When in doubt, leave this for mastering.

**This is the one case I do recommend putting some kind of frequency-dependent effect on your mix buss. Do not disregard my previous statement.

Purchase Willie Green’s latest project, Dirty Jordans, from his Bandcamp page.

Willie Green
www.WillieGreenMusic.com

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Willie Green is an in-house producer for the Brooklyn-based Backwoodz Studioz record label, and a freelance mixing and mastering engineer. The Berklee College of Music graduate has also managed a number of recording studios throughout the Northeast.

Read more about recording and engineering:

Recording and Mixing: Part 1

Mic Choice & Placement, Mixing Levels & Panning

Mic Pre-Amps, Staging and EQ

Vocal Tracking and the Art of Compression

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Pro-Logic with Willie Green

Willie Green is a Producer/Engineer from Hartford, CT and currently residing in Brooklyn.

Green is an in-house producer for the Backwoodz Studioz record label, and has produced for the likes of Cannibal Ox, Reks, Super Chron Flight Brothers and Naledge of Kidz In The Hall. He has also managed a number of studios throughout the Northeast.

In this regular column he will provide expert insight into the behind-the-scenes facets of making music.