All language subtitles for 02, Module2 - Balances_Panning

Hi and welcome back from Module 2 of
Mixing breakthroughs.

We're going to talk about the most
fundamental foundational aspect of mixing

setting balances.

This is the mixing part of mixing, right?

Making sure that each element can be
heard, that your featured elements sound

featured, and that all the supporting
elements can be heard clearly without

detracting from the featured instrument
or masking each other.

At this stage, I'm going to walk you
through a stepbystep process that's going

to help you mix, I think, faster than you
ever have before, with even better

results. This is going to require you to force a

couple of limitations on yourself, but I
think you're going to be very glad that

you did, and I think you're going to end
up with a process for mixing that's

better than the approach that you've been
taking in the past.

In fact, a lot of mixers go into mixing
in the beginning without any real process

at all.

Instead, they're kind of floundering

around, you know, guessing at what they
should do next, what they should try next

oh, should I get a good drum sound i
think it's pretty good now I'll check out

the vocal, maybe it's the guitars without
really thinking through and having an

established process that seems to work
each time or at least a road map that'll

give you some direction in getting from
where the mix is now to where you know

you want to go.

I think you also start to discover a

couple of big secrets of mixing, and one
of them is that getting there is not the

hard part.
Knowing where to go and figuring out

where to go, that's the hard part.

And that's what this approach, this

technique, this strategy is going to help
you with the most.

Some great mixers are able to just throw
up the faders and start working from the

beginning and kind of make it up as they
go along and figure out the track as they

go along.

There are actually a couple or few great

mixers who take this very approach, but I
think they're in kind of the minority

from the mixers that I've talked to and
interviewed over the years.

I think that approach works best if
you're on an analog console and if you've

been doing this for a long time, ideally
in live settings where you've had to get

a lot of balances really fast.

But if you're really starting to develop

your approach and you want to go from
pretty good or OK to really great,

there's a different approach that I'm
going to recommend that I think works

much better.
These are not just techniques that I've

made-up myself it really comes from a
tradition of great mixers in the studio,

all often winding up with some similar
approaches that really seem to work for

mixing. So here are the big ideas.

The first is that we're going to start by
just adjusting level.

We're not going to dive into E Qing our
kick drum and E Qing this and E Qing that

and messing around with our compressors
and putting reverb on everything no,

we're just going to start by setting
levels.

We're not even going to use any panning
at this point.

If that sounds boring to you, the idea of
just messing around with levels for a

while, then I'll tell you what you're not
cut out for mixing.

Go home right now.

You're still with me, right?

All right, good.

We're just going to mess around with

mixing with setting levels.

And it's important to be able to get

excited by this part of the process.

And I think you can get excited by this

part of the process because this is the
foundation of your mix.

And I think that you can get 70 % of the
way there, 75 eighty, 85 % of the way

there with just your balance settings,
depending on how well the tracks were

recorded when you got them.

So to take this approach, here's one of

the first surprises.

You're not going to start at the

beginning. In fact, sometimes the worst place to

start a mix is at the beginning.

Many intros to songs will be fairly

sparse compared to the rest of the song
and if you're anything like me, you found

yourself in the situation where you're
mixing a fairly sparse intro you've just

got this acoustic guitar and a vocal or
maybe this nice lush keyboard sound

before all the other instruments come in
And you start, you know, developing these

really big, luxurious intro sounds.

And then by the time you get to your

verse or halfway through your verse, you
realize that you're starting to run out

of space already and you're starting to
run out of headroom and you're having

trouble fitting new instruments in around
this, you know, these beautiful, lush

intro sounds that you've established.

So then what happens you get to your

chorus, and when you get to your course,
my goodness, there's hardly any space

left it off or anything if you can
shoehorn another sound and you'd be

ecstatic, but you're starting to run out
of room and you're starting to chew

through your headroom and your mix is
getting worse as it goes along as the

song supposed to get bigger and more
dramatic, your sounds are getting smaller

and tighter and just generally less good.

Well, here's the great workaround for

this, and this is something that a lot of
top mixers do.

Instead of starting at the beginning,
dive right into one of your most dense

sections. This will usually be your second to last

chorus or your last chorus, when most of
the elements of the song have already

been introduced and you're going to start
mixing there.

This will allow you to make sure you're
in a great place with headroom, and that

you're also able to make things really
fit in the most dense section and to make

sure you're working on the hardest parts
of your mix while you're still the

freshest and the most creative.

Because I can just about promise you, if

you're focusing on a sparse intro and a
sparse verse, all the work that you've

just done there, you're going to
practically undo in the chorus.

All right, So here's the second surprise
and the second very important thing about

this approach and that is that you don't
want to just, you know, bring up your

kick drum and start Eqing it or bring up
whatever instrument you know you've heard

you always start with the drums it could
be the drums, but I want you to think

instead about what the most important
element is in this section, what the

focal point of this section is, What's
driving this section of the song.

90 % of the time, this will be either the
vocals or the drums.

And I want you to bring up that element
to a good level where maybe you're just

kind of tapping the threshold of your bus
compressor.

And remember, I'm recommending that if
you're going to mix through a bus

compressor, you turn it on early, maybe
even at the beginning, and you're going

to bring up this element until it's at a
fairly healthy level maybe you're just

starting to kind of tap your bus
compressor, and then you're going to

bring in each additional element kind of
in the order of their importance.

So your first most primary instrument
comes up first, and then maybe your most

important supporting element comes up
after that and then another, and then

another. And each time you bring a new instrument

in. The idea is just using balance.

No pant, no reverb, no EQ.

Make it sit well with these other

instruments. Every once in a while, you'll be

uncertain about exactly what level a new
instrument that you bring in should end

up at.
And that's OK.

Here's one of the other secrets of a
great mix, and that is that it's not

about finding one static fader position.

It's OK if that fader position changes

over time or from section to section, but
right now, remember we're just focusing

on one dense section and we're looking
for a good kind of default baseline fader

setting that's going to work pretty well
throughout that section.

If you are a bit uncertain about what
that exact fader setting should be,

here's a trick I really recommend think
about instead of finding the right fader

setting and landing on it, think about
honing in to the right fader setting.

If you're a musician, it's almost a
little bit like tuning a guitar or a

drum. I'm going to recommend that if you're

unsure where this fader should wind up,
overshoot the level a little bit.

Push this fader up until you know that
it's too loud and you'll know when it's

too loud.
Trust your gut.

Once you have the level too loud, then
bring it down to a place where it starts

to sound reasonable cool.

That's your hot level.

Now take that fader and bring it down
till the sound is too low.

All right, now push it up until it again
starts to sound reasonable.

Now you've kind of established a window,
a setting that's, you know, kind of on

the hottest end that you can get away
with and kind of the quietest end that

you can get away with and you know that
your fader setting should end up being

somewhere there in the middle.

If you end up with a very small window,

that's pretty cool.

You probably won't even have to do much

additional processing on that sound.

If you end up with a really big window.

Well, this instrument might be a prime
candidate later for some kind of e q or

compression, maybe to reduce this dynamic
range, or to help keep other instruments

from masking it, or to help it poke
through the mix a bit more.

But for now, we're not going to focus on
that.

We're just going to try to get it in a
good place in this window that seems to

work for that sound.

And here's one of the other big

realizations about mixing is again, it's
not about establishing 1 fader setting

that works for the entire song.

If you end up with a setting in the

chorus and a separate setting in the
verse, that's okay.

In fact, in a really ambitious mix in a
really large scale production, you might

end up mixing your chorus completely
separately from your verse.

This is something that some engineers did
on big ambitious productions, even back

in the days of tape, and they'd mix each
section separately, kind of in a loop,

and then join them together later.

Well, this is easier than ever on a DAW

with automation, or even on an analog
desk with flying faders.

And if you see some of the really great
mixers working, you may be impressed

you're by surprise by just how many fader
rides they have going on those faders can

really be flying.

They might have one set of balances for

the chorus and a slightly different set
of balances for the verse, and there may

be rides between them with different
relationships in each section, and that's

okay. But right now we're just focusing on your

very dense chorus and bringing an
instrument by instrument or instrument

group by instrument group until you get a
balance that really seems to work well.

At this point, there's no reason to ever
use the solo button.

What matters is how the balances work in
context.

At this point, we're not applying reverb,
we're not panning, we're not Eqing.

It's just seeing how far we can get by
setting levels.

Once you have the balances established
for the chorus, now try going back to the

beginning and mixing through.

Or maybe just back slightly to the verse

and see if you can get away with the same
settings or if you need to tweak them

slightly. If you're in the kind of roduction where

your settings for the chorus don't sound
right for the verse at all, then you can

tear them down and get a completely
different set of settings for the verse.

But on a lot more kind of sparse or
traditional arrangements, you end up

maybe being able to do some kind of
slight ride, some slight tweaks to fader

automation to have your chorus levels
work well for your verse.

But it's OK if you don't end up finding
one static fader setting for the entire

song for each instrument.

That's not necessarily what mixing is

about. A mix is like living, breathing Organism.

It has different wants and needs at
different times, just like you.

It also can unfold like a story unfolds,
and we don't want a static level of

energy throughout the mix.

It's okay for a song to kind of have

peaks and valleys and then peaks again,
and it's okay that if overall as it's

doing that, your intensity kind of ramps
up bit by bit as the piece goes along.

Also remember that contrast is a big
thing in music, and sometimes it's

significant differences that really catch
our attention.

Once you've done this and established the
levels for your song, now I'm going to

recommend that you finally get into
panning, and this is the only other tool

we're going to use for this entire module
and this entire exercise.

And when you do your panning, I'm going
to recommend again an approach that so

many of the grades used and not that many
of the just OK mixers used.

And that is the LCR approach, which
stands for left, center, Right.

With the LCR approach, you're taking your
centered instruments and you're leaving

them there.
Probably your vocal, your kick drum, your

snare drum, your bass.

They'll probably all be straight down the

center, and then anything you want to pan
it wide or don't pan it at all.

This is not a hard and fast rule, but
rather a guideline, a starting point that

I want to see if you can stick to.

Because a lot of really great mixers get

a lot of width by taking this approach.

So for each element, think should this be

in the center?
If not, should it be panned, and if so,

pan it hard left or pan it hard right,
And only once you've tried doing that and

you've tried getting a level that really
works with these extreme panning

settings. If it's just not happening, and it really

is telling you bring me in just a bit,
bring me in from the center, then you

know, do it, but see how much you can get
away with doing left, center or right.

This really frees up room in the Center
for your central elements to have a lot

of impact for them to really speak
without clutter, and it also helps

separate the sides in a way that makes
the mix feel much wider.

You also have a much greater effect with
this LCR approach if you're putting

rhythmically opposing instruments on
either side.

If you just take an electric guitar
double and pan 1 double of this side and

1 double of this side, and they're kind
of moving together well, that may

increase with a little bit.

It can also kind of add a little bit of

clutter to the mix it can maybe feel more
like big mono than true impressive

stereo. Better yet, take two opposing electric

guitars with slightly different tone and
playing slightly different rhythms and

pan them to either side.

That'll give you a much greater sense of

width. You can also do this with a guitar and a

keyboard, or a sample and some other
element, or maybe 2 percussive elements

on either side.

If they have some kind of difference in

rhythm, where they're playing off of each
other slightly, and if they have slightly

different tones, that's going to give you
a lot more width than if they're just

doing the same thing on either side.

It'll also feel like it's going to

clutter up your middle less and really
draw your ears outwards.

This LCR approach can give you impressive
with a really solid center.

I wouldn't recommend it if you're mixing
jazz or classical music necessarily.

But for most popular styles of music,
whether it's rock or pop or hip hop or

neo soul or e d m or whatever you might
be working on, usually a little bit of

hyperrealism is just the ticket and this
is a way to get a little bit of that

hyperrealism and a little bit of extra
impact in your mixes.

A few more quick notes you should be
mixing at low levels and I recommend

having a small set of speakers that you
can trust to mix on.

Some of the most popular ones have been
the oratones or the Yamaha NS tens

Overtime I'm a big fan of oratones that
you can find a small set of speakers that

you know and trust.

Ideally they'll be fairly resonancefree,

and ideally they won't be too hyped up in
the low end or the high end.

Keep in mind that your mixes will sound
to a degree like the inverse of your

speakers. So if your speakers are a bit on the

bright side, your mixes are going to end
up sounding a little dark because you

won't push high frequencies and high
frequency instruments quite as much

because your speakers are telling you
that information is already there.

Similarly, if you have speakers that are
really bass heavy, nice and hyped in the

bass well your mixes, it might end up a
little kind of on the thin sounding side

because you're not putting in that extra
oomph that you really need your speakers

are lying to you and telling you it's
already there.

One of the worst things you can have is
speakers that are really hyped up in the

lows and the highs and kind of scooped
out in the midrange.

Then you're going to end up with a kind
of annoying weak midrangey sounding mixes

with kind of off balances.

Ideally, having a set of small speakers

that are kind of even through the
midrange or maybe even push the midrange

slightly forward will help you end up
with mixes that are hyped up just a

little bit because they have energy of
their own.

You get a similar benefit from mixing at
low levels.

The way our ears work, if we're listening
at really loud levels, we hear a lot more

bass and a lot more treble than if we're
listening at lower levels.

Listening at slightly lower levels helps
you make sure that you bring the drama

and the interest and the intrigue and the
power from your mix and not from a whole

bunch of hyped up air moving in the room.

So by listening at lower levels instead

of getting hyped out by our speakers will
we bring the hype to the mix ourselves

and making sure it has real impact and
great balances at any level in general if

you're mixing loud and then you turn
down, you might not be that happy with

the results.
If you mix on big impressive sounding

speakers and then you fold down the
little ones, you might not be that

impressed by the results.

But if you go in the other direction,

working on somewhat smaller speakers at
somewhat lower levels, and then fold them

up to nice hyped, big sounding speakers
at loud levels, you're going to blow

yourself away and I think your clients
away too.

It's a much more fun and satisfying way
to work, and I think it'll get you better

results too.

The other and potentially most important

piece of advice here is to remember to
listen to your mix away from the mixing

console, away from the mouse, away from
the control surface, away from the

screen. Lie down on the couch in the back of the

room. Go take a walk around, put headphones on

and take a walk and hear how the mix
sounds that way.

Take it to your car if you have one, and
listen in there.

Sometimes we do our best mixing when
we're not mixing and you'll find that

with your hands off the controls you can
stop fiddling and start really listening

for the first time.

Ideally, you can bring that into your

daily practice so that you're able to
zoom out and take the kind of bird's eye

view and then zoom back in without
leaving the console.

But even the guys who've been doing this
for years and years and years find that

this technique is essential.

Take a break and hear the mix in a

different environment, or just from
another space in the room where you can't

touch the controls.

Then you'll find yourself really

listening and coming up with.

Obvious changes that become so clear as

soon as you get your hands off of those
controls.

So keep that in mind when you're mixing,
and keep in mind that no matter what kind

of speakers you're in, no matter what
kind of room you're in, you're going to

have to learn that environment.

And one of the best ways to do that is

referring to references.

So that's it.

Those are the best practices this is the
received wisdom of so many of the best

mix engineers.
It really boils down to a few things.

One, don't just start your mix from the
beginning of the song.

Dive into one of your most complex
sections and get your levels happening

there first.
Second, do this by bringing up your most

essential instrument first, your focal
point instrument.

90 % of the time the focal point of a
section is going to be the vocals or

maybe the drums in the rhythm section
that drives that bit, it could be another

lead instrument it could in some cases be
the interplay between two instruments,

like 2 dueling guitars or something like
that.

But much of the time, you'll be looking
at vocals or drums first.

But if your gut is telling you, hey, the
focal point of this section is the

guitars, Trust your gut.

Bring them up first and fit everything

around them.
If you're convinced the focal point is

the vocal, bring that up and fit
everything around it.

And this focal point instrument that you
brought up first, every single instrument

that you bring in around it is never
supposed to mask the level of this lead

instrument you've established.

Now, if you end up with gain staging

issues, you can take all of your tracks
and turn them down a bit, or turn them up

a bit if you need.

But if you're establishing a good set of

balances at a low to moderate level, that
set of balance is going to work at almost

any other level, whether it's very quiet
or very loud.

So I'm going to encourage you number
three to listen at moderate to low

levels. This will help you get better balances,

help you hype up the mix instead of just
getting hyped out by your speakers, and

bonus, if you're in a kind of compromised
mixing environment, mixing at a lower

level will help from exciting room mode,
room nose slap, back flutter, all of the

room issues that you might have in your
space.

So here's piece number four.

Once you've done this in your most dense

section, now you're going to start mixing
your other sections.

You could now go to the verse whatever
you think the second most important

section is.
Or, in a less ornate arrangement, you can

go back to the beginning, to the intro
and start mixing through.

Factor number five is to remember that
you can have slightly different mix

settings for each section.

In some cases, you could even have

significantly different mix settings for
each section.

All right, number six.

Remember, we're just dealing with volume

here, only level setting.

You're not doing any panning yet no e q

yet, no reverb yet, just setting your
level number seven.

If you get stuck on a level, if you're
not sure exactly where you should be,

remember it can help to overshoot the
level, push things to where you know that

this new instrument is too loud, and then
pull it back to where it starts to feel

reasonable. If you're still kind of uncertain about

where this should sit, pull it down until
you know it's too low, and then bring it

up to where you feel like it's kind of
reasonable again.

Hopefully you'll have a pretty small
window between kind of reasonable hot

level and a reasonable low level, and you
want to just find something that works

within there.
If you've got a really big gap between

level that works that's hot and a level
that works that's low, you may need to do

some additional processing of that track,
and we'll get into that later on.

But those tracks that have the most
trouble finding one static fader position

are the ones where we might want to look
first at doing some extra surgery,

whether with e q or compression, And
we'll get into that a bit more in future

modules. But remember, we're not just looking for

one fader position where we set and
forget, and it works for the whole rest

of the mix.

Fader rides throughout sections and

between sections are okay.

In fact, you'd be amazed to see the

console automation of some of the great
mixers and just how much faders are

really flying in some of their mixes.

And the last major takeaway I want to

give you is once you set your balances,
now start thinking about panning.

Your mix should sound great and mono and
a mix that sounds great mono is going to

sound great, panned out, but I'll tell
you what a mix where you start making

things sound pretty good panned out isn't
necessarily going to fall down to mono

very well, and it isn't necessarily going
to work on all speaker systems you're

going to have a much better time mixing
in mono and folding out to stereo than

the other way around.

You're going to have a much better time

mixing at low levels and then listening
loud for fun later than the other way

around. And you're going to have a much better

time listening on accurate and flat
speakers and often smaller speakers, and

then folding up to the big boys rather
than the other way around.

All right, so here's your exercise for
this module.

I want you to pull up a mix that you have
already completed in the past and want

you to save a new version of this session
and tear down all of your favors.

Remember to go through the setup process
we discussed in the first module where

you're getting all the technical stuff
out of the way first so that you can

focus on being creative.

And then I want you to take one unbroken

hour block of time, 50 minutes with a 10
minute break, and spend that time only

focusing on setting your general
balances.

Do that by diving into your most dense
section first, throwing up your primary

instrument and then throwing up one after
another, remembering that's okay to

overshoot and hone in on the right level,
and remembering that's okay to have

different level settings for different
sections.

Spend at least 10 minutes doing this.

If it's a relatively minimal track, you

may get much of your balancing done in
about 10 minutes.

If that's the case, throw down all your
faders and try it again.

This time, start with a different
instrument, an alternate instrument that

you think could have been the focal point
If you start with vocals the first time,

This time start with drums.

I want you to get into the habit, the

idea that it's okay to tear down your
entire mix and start again, and it's

especially okay to do that early on.

You don't want to find yourself

experimenting with what could have been 4
hours into a mix session.

You want to try all of your different
variables now the hardest part of mixing

is not getting there, it's knowing where
to go.

I want to repeat that one for you is so
essential.

The hardest part of mixing is not getting
there, it's knowing where to go in the

1st place.
And you can only really discover that by

trying different settings and see which
resonate with you the most, and at this

stage, which compare the most favorably
to some of your references once you've

gotten 30 minutes into your unbroken
block of an hour that you're setting

aside to work on this, I definitely want
you to tear down your mix if you haven't

already, and then start again.

This time, see if you can get to as good

of a mix as you had the first time.

Even faster.

And I think you'll find you go much
faster the second time around because you

already have a better idea of where you
want to end up sonically.

And you'll find that once you have that
established, wow, getting there is so

much easier.
And I think you'll start to recognize

that the vision comes first and then
getting there is a breeze.

But when the vision isn't coming, you've
got to just start working.

Throw things up, and then, if you're
unsure, bring them down.

Start again.

Now, once you're at least 30 minutes into

this session and you've pulled down
things at least once.

Now I want you to start focusing on
panning.

Start with the LCR technique.

Left, center, right.

Think, should this instrument be panned?
If not, let me keep it in the center.

If it should be panned, let's try hard
left or hard right.

And remember, the best way to get a
really wide sounding mix is to put kind

of opposing instruments on either side.

If you have two guitars kind of doing the

same thing on either side, just doubles
kind of going together, your mix may

sound a little bit wider, but it'll be
kind of like a big mono feel.

If you want real width, that comes from
instruments that are playing off of each

other, maybe slightly different rhythms
or slightly different tones.

Having slightly different things going on
in each speaker is what really gives you

cues for separation and width.

If you want tremendous width, I'm going

to recommend that any stereo keyboards
you have, unless they have a real obvious

stereo like ping pong sound, take one of
those sides and just throw them away and

treat it like a mono instrument.

This goes for almost any stereo keyboard

stereo samples unless they have a really
obvious clear stereo effect that's super

awesome and part of the sound, you've got
to have it take one side and just throw

it away and then pan that element left,
center, or right.

Remember, you only get so much with by
putting similar elements on either side.

Doubles of certain instruments sure can
kind of spread things out, but it'll take

up a lot of space in the mix.

If instead of having two guitars doing

the same thing, you have a guitar and a
rhythmically opposing keyboard on the

other side, or if you have two guitars
playing off of each other on either side,

ideally with slightly different tones,
that'll give you much more width still.

Percussion instruments on either side can
have a similar effect and try to find a

level balance that works well with and
pan hard left, center, or right.

Only Once that technique doesn't work
then you can think about pulling things

in a bit, but try that as your default
and I think you're going to be impressed

by the result.

Last quick note I'll give you here is to

refer to your references in this session
once you've gotten more than a half

through forty five fifty minutes through,
I want you to compare your balances to

some commercially released music.

Now the commercially released music is

going to be compressed and e, q and it's
probably going to sound brighter and

clearer than just your balance with
levels alone.

That's Okay at this point, just using
levels, it might not sound like a

completely finished commercial
production, but you'd be surprised at how

close you can get.

With just Level.

You may be able to get your mix 70
percent, 75 %.

Eighty percent, 85 % of the way there,
depending on how well the tracks were

recorded when you got them.

So once you've finished one of these hour

long blocks of time, you're in minute 45
minute 50, take your break and then come

back and listen to your mix compared to
some of your commercial references, it's

important to level match them so you're
not thrown off by their mixes being

louder than yours.

So you may need to bring in your

reference mixes to your DAW and turn them
down a little bit.

And I want you to make some notes,
particularly focusing on 1st your vocal.

How loud is your vocal where it wound up
compared to some of these commercial

mixes?
Then how loud is your snare drummer, your

primary driving percussive instrument
compared to those in these other mixes?

And what you might find compared to some
of your initial balances is that

commercial vocals and snare drums are way
louder than you ever realized when you

finally start listening to it against
your own work and you might realize,

start to realize just how much you can
push some of these central elements and

still have a mix sound really great.

Now at this stage, there may be some

things that you still don't like.

The elements might not have enough oomph

behind them, and it might not be enough
clarity.

You could start desiring even more
separation.

That's all right too we'll go through a
bunch of techniques for getting all of

that and much more out of your mixes much
more quickly in the next module when we

start looking at e Q.

But until then, remember to do this

exercise, taking at least one unbroken
hour block of time and just messing

around with your level on a session that
you've already completed, where you like

the mix okay but weren't completely 110 %
satisfied.

Give this a shot following the rules that
we've laid out for you here.

Don't be afraid to break them now and
then, but try as much as you can to stick

to this framework and see how far you can
get doing just this little.

I think you may surprise even yourself.

And by the end of this course, I think

you'll be surprising.

Not just yourself, but me, your peers,

and your clients.

Thanks for making it through this module

with me.
I'll look forward to seeing you the next

time when we're going to go into Module 3
and look at e Q.