Melody makers

Posted on 4 Dec 2007 at 17:14

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Tooling Up

How do you turn complex criteria into mix settings? Again, there are no right and wrong answers, but there are common techniques that can help to get you started. First, though, let's take a look at the tools you'll be using.

Most music-production software comes with a wide range of effects, and there are hundreds more to choose from in the form of VST plug-ins. However, the most important efffects are EQ, compression and reverb. Along with the volume and stereo pan controls, these may be all you really need to create a first-class mix. EQ allows you to cut and boost certain frequencies. Compression squashes the volume range, making louder parts of a recording quieter, and vice versa. Reverb simulates the multitude of echoes that give concert halls, stairwells and toilets their distinctive acoustic ambience.

Getting a firm grasp on how to use these effects can be tricky, but you'll find more detailed information in the 'Mixing Music' feature on the cover disc.

Concepts into Sounds

Let's consider how we might mix our example of a cosy, intimate, vulnerable song. Cosy means warm and soft. Boosting lower-mid frequencies (around 300-600Hz) can increase the warmth of a sound, while cutting higher frequencies (1-2kHz) can smooth out any harshness. This may work for vocals, but cutting at 1-2kHz can reduce intelligibility and female voices often don't go low enough to provide any warmth to boost. Therefore, it may be preferable to add warmth to the guitar rather than the vocal.

Creating intimacy is actually easy. Vocals are often mixes with a fair amount of reverb applied to them to simulate an acoustic space for them to exist in. Using a very short reverb (to simulate a small room) or none at all gives a sense of intimacy. Using heavy compression on the vocal helps, too, as it boosts all the quieter sounds and breaths to give the impression that the singer is very close.

Making a mix sound vulnerable is less obvious, but you might achieve it by choosing certain vocal takes where the performance is a little cracked and imperfect, and perhaps even a little out of tune in an evocatively satisfying way. You could try boosting the very high frequencies (12kHz and upwards) of the vocal for an airy, glass-like quality. Mixing the vocal louder and the other instruments quieter than you normally would can make the vocal seem more exposed and vulnerable, perhaps with plenty of reverb on the instruments so they seem distant from the vocal. This also helps focus the attention clearly on the vocal, with the instruments playing a purely supportive role.

If your objectives are the exact opposite of our example, reverse some of the procedures to get the desired effects. Cutting lower to middle frequencies and boosting higher frequencies gives a colder, more aggressive tone. Applying plenty of reverb to a vocal will give a more epic, spacious sound. Another way to make music sound big and epic is to use double-tracked instruments, where two different performances of the same vocal, guitar or other instrument part are played at the same time. This fills out the sound. Panning the two tracks to the left and right speakers gives a huge, attention-grabbing effect. Adding more recordings makes it even bigger, although the clarity of one or two takes may be affected. This can be useful for backing vocals or strings where you want a sound that is larger than life but not necessarily upfront. If you didn't record enough strong performances to use two simultaneously, or if they are so varied they don't meld together well, you can fake the effect by adding a delay effect with a 50ms delay time and no feedback (so it's just a single repeat). Lengthen the delay time slightly for a 'slapback' effect, which has delightfully retro connotations when applied to vocals.