Complicated Mixes. Where to Start, How to Finish – Part 1

Navigating your way through a complicated mix is all about starting with an open mind and a positive attitude the moment you sit in the chair. There are essentially two types of complicated mixes: the one you’re familiar with (possibly because you tracked it) and the other you hear for the first time when you hit play on the multitrack. This article is mostly about the latter.

Some mixes you’re presented with on first listen start off as a multitrack barrage of wildly dynamic, upside down, topsy-turvy levels, where one sound is 10dB louder than everything else, most things are in mono, the arrangement sounds like a mess and the song isn’t so much ‘speaking’ to you – as the clichéd first impression would have it – as assaulting your ears with obnoxious levels and tones.

Not all multitrack sessions present this way out of the gate, but many do.

So to start a complex mix, the first thing you need to do is get past this first stage – tame the wild beast!

Everyone mixes in their own unique way of course, and each of us has our own priorities of what we might action first to get the ball rolling, depending on what we’re working on. But the vast majority of us start by knocking the song into a very rough shape as quickly as possible, for our own sanity and safety as much as anything else.

Once we’ve got the song in a relatively predictable place where nothing is set at a level that will blow our head off halfway through the song, we can get to work.

At this point, many of us go our own separate ways. We deploy our own working methods either based on a set plan, a hunch, a curiosity about a sound we heard during the first listen, or a random whim.

In some respects it really doesn’t matter where you start, so long as you start somewhere, safe in the knowledge that you’re thinking positively, and mindful that it’s all about where you end up, not where you started.

I would defy anyone on earth, whether they’re a mix engineer or not, to identify where a mix engineer started his or her working process. Not only would that be a futile exercise, it would also be pointless.

All that matters is the end result.

The mix process is entirely up to you (and your client, if they’re involved). If you’re a Start-With-Channel-1 (Kick Drum) kind of guy, then by all means, go for it. If you’re a Vocals-First girl, then start there. Or if you like to just let all the faders speak at once, do that.

However you want to start the ball rolling is up to you. What matters most, especially if you’re acquainting yourself with the music as you simultaneously start working on it (meaning you’ve not heard it before), is that you don’t try too hard to develop a deep insight straight away.

Forget all you’ve heard from other people (including me) about how they work, or where they start, how they pictured the song, or how it spoke to them! Blah.

Let the song be the roadmap as it were, and use the sounds, lyrics and attitude in combination with your curiosity, instinct and stream-of-consciousness workflow to just get on the road.

And hey, the song might have 200 tracks of audio, but that doesn’t mean you can’t immediately take a detour off the freeway and check out what’s on Track 178. Why not?

Ephemeral First Impressions

At the beginning of a mix, the song, its instrumentation, and the musical details of every part are inevitably unfamiliar to you, but that’s your greatest asset at this point.

You’re fresh and new to the music, and that’s a powerful perspective. Don’t waste it, or belittle it as being naïve or ignorant to the music somehow.

Listen without prejudice, fear or favour and enjoy the fascinating, luxurious perspective while it lasts.

Your unfamiliarity is your strength. Your lack of background info about the band members, their gear, politics and eating disorders helps you listen to the music as a punter might.

No-one else has this perspective on the music – least of all the band.

While you’re getting acquainted with the music, lots of thoughts rush through your head about all the things that need to be addressed during what will likely be a drawn-out process, possibly involving days of work.

So after a short period of time with the track – you’ve settled it down over a few listens, poked around in solo here and there, and had some interesting initial thoughts and reactions – now is the time to go put the kettle on.

While that’s boiling, let your mind wander, then gather your thoughts together on what you want to tackle first, what has piqued your curiosity and what was clearly a sound that needed ‘fixing’ from the outset so you can hear past it to the rest of the instrumentation.

Let the song be the roadmap as it were, and use the sounds, lyrics and attitude in combination with your curiosity, instinct and stream-of-consciousness workflow to just get on the road

When you sit back in the chair, cuppa in hand (but not on the console!) you’re primed for work, and this is one of the most productive times during the session.

There’s a lot of fun things to do, sounds to investigate, things to fix and background work to do like grouping and/or colour coding like tracks, auxiliary sends, routing construction and so on.

This work is often best done with the song playing at modest levels, and without too much in-depth scrutiny of the music on your part.

You may choose to get to know the song a bit better while you’re performing these menial tasks by keeping the track rolling, or you might prefer to have no sound at all.

Whichever way you prefer to work, it pays to float around early in the session, addressing whatever you feel necessary, whether that be a highly creative development of a key sound, or screwdriver work involving tweaks to your DAW’s preferences.

It really doesn’t matter – ultimately it’s all work that needs doing.

If, on the other hand, clients are present, you may not have this luxury. You may indeed find them dragging you around like a fish on a hook following their whimsical (and possibly prejudiced) perspective, rather than pursuing your own train of thought.

This can be frustrating to some engineers. If you’re in this group, identify your irritation and consider making a habit of working alone during this initial phase.

Jump Cut

Okay, now we’re at the other end of the session. It may be late on the first night, or days later, but now we’re almost there.

We love the work we’ve done, we’ve travelled a huge distance to get the song sounding great, and we’re vastly more aware now of how the song’s instrumentation works compared to our puzzled perspective way back at the outset.

The band has also heard the mix, and apart from a few little issues, they love it. But we’re still not quite there.

We need to address a few things.

At this point what is often overlooked are some of the details buried in the performances. You may be well aware of them by now, but not necessarily.

My tip at this late juncture is to listen for details in the main (and secondary) performances, making sure you highlight them appropriately. To do this you may need to solo an instrument, or small groups of instruments, to hear exactly what they’re playing.

Avoid buying into the generalisations floating around the pro audio community around soloing. Statements like: “Oh, no, I never solo because that’s not how people listen to music!”

That’s true, but it’s also rubbish in one important respect. Listeners aren’t mixing the song! You are.

So unlike the way people ultimately listen to the mix, you are in charge of orchestrating what’s heard and what’s featured. If you don’t know the details of what’s being played, how do you know what to feature?

It’s not enough to say: “Oh, this is the lead instrument, obviously it needs to be loud!” Most songs, particularly complex ones, don’t often feature one single, overtly dominant sound, and even if they do, they don’t do it for the whole song!

Avoid buying into the generalisations floating around the pro audio community around soloing. Statements like: “Oh, no, I never solo because that’s not how people listen to music!

There are inevitably times when small details matter. The potential downside of the ‘never-solo-during-a-mix’ method is that sometimes the detailed phrasing within a performance (especially inside a complex ensemble of sounds) can remain elusive, even to you, the mix engineer!

Now is the time to get acquainted with these details and decide whether they need extra limelight (or conversely, editing out). Like little diamonds just under the surface, when you highlight all these nuanced moments in the music, the mix explodes into life – a life you may not have been aware of or had time to address for the last 30 hours.

Next issue we’ll look at some special ways to highlight these details without unravelling the mix!

Andy Stewart owns and operates The Mill on Victoria’s Bass Coast. He’s a highly credentialed producer/engineer who’s seen it all in studios for the last three decades. He’s happy to respond to any pleas for recording or mixing help… contact him at: andy@themill.net.au

CX Magazine – March 2020   

LIGHTING  |  AUDIO  |  VIDEO  |  STAGING  |  INTEGRATION

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