Surround Monitoring Before acquiring a multispeaker surround setup for a small studio, I’d advise thinking it through pretty carefully. Until you can reliably get a great stereo mix, I for one see little point in spending a lot of extra money complicating that learning process. In my experience, a limited budget is much better spent achieving commercial-quality stereo than second-rate surround, so I make no apologies for leaving the topic of surround mixing well alone and concentrating instead on issues that are more directly relevant to most small-studio denizens.

An equally valuable part of this section includes Chapter 11 “Equalizing for a Reason”, which provides much the same breakdown, as compression, for EQ processing.Panning decisions may be harder to make too, because you need to decide how you pan each instrument’s main mic signal in relation to the stereo location of prominent spill from other mics. In this respect, it makes good sense to create a stereo picture that mimics the physical layout of the recording session, because the strongest spill contributions from each instrument should then remain fairly close to the instrument’s main mic position in the stereo picture. Where an ensemble recording includes stereo files, matching the images of Correct any timing or tuning anomalies in your mix project, but take care not to compromise the musicality of the original recordings. n If you do a lot of pitch-correction work, then invest in specialized software to improve your work rate and sound quality. n Editing is unavoidably tedious work, so find keyboard commands to speed it up wherever possible. Killer Side Effects of Porting These porting anomalies, however, are only the tip of the iceberg, because frequency-response graphs only show how speakers respond to constant fullfrequency noise, a test signal that is nothing like the varied and fast-moving waveforms of music. Much more troublesome is the way that porting hinders First off, he proudly states in the beginning that this book is based on his research into the studios of over a 100 engineers. Yet, we only get occasional quotes from one or two of them on any given topic. As a huge fan of older Bryan Adams records, I’d kill to know, for example how R.J. Lange or Bob Clearmountain approach a mix. How do they handle guitars? Vocals? None of that is in here. If you’re looking for more meaty info specifically on how different producers handle these subjects, the book “The Mixing Engineers Handbook” has huge amounts of that. Full interviews with engineers/producers on these subjects.

If you encounter any studio-related technical term you don’t understand, you should find an explanation of it in one of the following well-maintained glossaries: Senior's book has a very logical flow and seems to consider absolutely every challenge mixers face. You will get the most from this book starting at the beginning and working your way through it, cover to cover. It's a very concise book and will require time to read because it never let's up giving you valuable information. F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C So, those weeny complaints aside, in pretty much every regard I found the book to be brilliantly structured, clearly written (with enough humour to raise a smile in some of the drier sections) and with an excellent progress from one chapter to the next. It is pretty much laid out like an all-purpose mixing session workflow sequence, starting with prepping the material, moving on through balancing, compression, EQ, and so on. It's crammed with useful tips from Mike and from respected producers and engineers.

Part 1: Hearing and Listening

Resistance to Acoustics and Comb-filtering Problems There are other practical advantages to the Auratone’s single-driver construction that are especially relevant to small studios. The first is that the restricted Part 1 Hearing and Listening comparatively inexpensive headphones will cover all these bases adequately, a top-of-the-range set is highly recommended, because it will usually increase both productivity and mix quality for most small-studio operators, especially for those unable to set up a respectable nearfield system as discussed in Chapter 1. n Cheap, low-quality “grotbox” speakers also deserve a place in the mixing studio, as they give you an idea of what to expect in worst-case listening scenarios. Use a pair of such speakers placed very close to each other (or a small all-in-one stereo boombox), and then listen off-axis from a reasonable distance to get the “best” results. Although grotbox monitoring is important, don’t obsess about it. You should only need one small system to do this job if you’re using your other monitors sensibly. Ok, one of the difficulties in reviewing this book is based on the title. I’ve learned, after buying many books with similar titles, that it is usually a marketing gimic. However, it’s also subjective. If you’re brand new to the mixing side of things, then indeed this whole book could contain hundreds of secrets. But if you’re already fairly versed, not so much. And, as an extra added bonus, he does so with humor. And some days, when it's just you and that recalcitrant song mix punching each other silly in the arena, you need that!

Figure 3.4 The effect of DC (0Hz) on a mix file’s waveform. Notice how the positive waveform peaks are clipping, even though the negative waveform peaks still have headroom to spare. This section also includes a handy chapter on “Supplementary Monitoring”, something which is of considerable importance to the home studio enthusiast. This chapter provides invaluable insight into the problems home studio owners have that concern stereo imaging and phantom stereo. Overcoming the majority of these issues is swiftly dealt with the introduction of mono monitoring without any loudspeaker crossover circuitry. The conclusion, of course, resulting in consideration of such speaker units as the Aurotone 5C Super Sound Cube. Using Nearfield Monitors Chapter 1 usually be as obviously apparent in their own right when you’re listening to a real-world mix, that doesn’t mean they aren’t there, and the ripples they put into the frequency response treacherously undermine your ability to judge both the tone and level balance of critical sounds in the midrange—things like lead vocals, snare drums, and guitars.

Table of contents

That said, on occasion you may wish to offset the whole stereo image to one side, narrow the spread, or reverse the sides. In these situations, some control over the panning of the leftchannel and right-channel audio streams can CHAPTER 5 Essential Groundwork.........................................................81 CHAPTER 6 Timing and Tuning Adjustments..........................................89 CHAPTER 7 Comping and Arrangement...............................................107 Get hold of a proper Auratone-substitute of some kind, and set up a convenient method of listening to it in mono so that you get into the habit of using it that way. n Buy a pair of good studio headphones, if possible something at the top of the range so that you can do meaningful mix work when speakers aren’t an option. n Find some suitable grotbox speakers.

The chapter on compression was quite good in a lot of ways. He really explains all the different controls and parameters of compression, but then gives you no real idea how to use it on individual instruments, aside from generalities.Part 2 Mix Preparation It’s often much less easy to line up the waveform in an external editor’s display with that of your main rhythmic reference instrument, so you can’t readily use a visual guide to your advantage in speeding up the editing process. n The keyboard shortcut support may be less comprehensive in a third-party application than within your DAW, so there’s more laborious mousing around to do. n Audio metering may be built in, visually displaying the signal levels for various channels as well as for the group, monitor, and master mix signals. Figure 8.5 High-pass filtering is occasionally provided as a dedicated plug-in (such as Brainworx’s Bx_cleansweep, right ), but it more commonly forms part of a fully featured equalizer (such as Universal Audio’s Cambridge Equalizer, left ).