mixing Santa Monica - Tweak Sheet

[Audiozoo]

I cannot post the audio unless Racasse gives permission to. But here's the text tweak sheet.

Screenshots: bit.ly/2vc1WNX

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When i hit play, I am expecting that some tracks will be in the wrong positions, so i will try to fix that.

Then I will work on balancing the volumes of each track.

- Begin -

I have moved some tracks slightly forward or back depending on what would allow them to synch up correctly.

Instrument tracks that I could not hear well have been grouped based on what they are:

Voice Group
Soft Percussion Group
Guitars Group

This is so that once I've mixed the tracks I CAN hear, I can use compression on them as groups to reduce the amount of compressors needed in the mix, this is a more cpu efficient method than compressing every track individually.

I have muted the groups I cannot hear for now.

I find it difficult to know exactly where the scratching track needs to be nudged to.

I'll mute it and get to mixing.

- Keyboard -

I have cut the 'keyboard' instrument by 116Hz to remove some low end from it.

This allows the bass to be more audible.

I have allowed the 'keyboard' to reach a maximum of 4.17kHz. I give instruments a 'window of opportunity' so they stay in their lane but not bleed too much over into other instruments.

I have turned down the 'keyboard' instrument by -7.99dB. It felt like it was dominating the mix & personally I think electronic drums should be dominating the mix.

- Harmonica -

I have cut the harmonica by 110Hz.

I have allowed it up to 13.1 kHz frequency range.

I have turned the harmonica down by -8.54 dB.

It does actually have two volumes - it appears 4 times in the song.
1 = quiet 2 = loud 3 = quiet 4 = quiet

So what I will do is cut the quiet appearances and duplicate the track, then match them in volume range on the second track.

Instead I decided to just keep the loud appearances since it's the same recording but just different in volume.

- Drums -

Next I will send the beat 1 & beat 2 tracks into a single channel (drum bus) for compression.

I have looped a short region that contains all the drums. This is to ensure the compressor will not sound odd at some points throughout the track.

I WAS going to use a compression preset (whichever one sounded best) but since i am writing this to help someone learn i will manually compress.

I have decided on a threshold of -7.73 dB to get the compressor to activate on audio input.

I increased the ratio slightly to 2.33 so there is some volume increase

An attack of 0.73 ms allowed the compressor to react late enough to sound natural, but early enough to capture the drum hits.

A release of 9.85 ms allowed the compressed drum hits to fall out of the mix in a natural sounding way but allow the compressor to re-activate on the next hits.

A knee of 6.5 dB allowed the compression to not be too abrupt. The activity rate is smoother with some knee softening.

I turned off the compressor and turned it on again while listening to the drums, to check if it was making a difference.

I am happy with how it sounds.

The compressor has reduced the gain difference between the kick, hats, snare & claps, making the drums sound punchier & more well defined.

- Vocals -

So that I can re-position the vocals' starting point, I'm going to just turn up the vocal group.
I’ll do the compression afterwards. I need the vocals in synch with the music immediately.

9.00 dB boost. Wow, that's high. Okay, now i'll re-position the vocals.

I have lined up vocal 1 & 2 (which is a lower octave, notationally fine. The 3rd vocal line however, has incorrect notes which i could only hear when they were lined up.

I am considering muting the 3rd vocal line for notational correct-ness. I don't intend for it to appear rude, but I'll do what is necessary from an engineering perspective.

I notice there is nothing on the 4th vocal line audio track.

I have removed the vocal lines 3 & 4.

I have re-positioned parts of the vocal that were slightly off in rhythm.

Now it's time to compress the vocal group instead of just gain boosting it.

-25.4 dB Threshold

2.29 Ratio

attack 58.9 ms (late)

release 2.43 ms (quick)

8.7 Knee (soft)

Makes it so much louder. About the same level as the +9db gain boost.

Compression is better because it is calculating averages, the gain boost is effecting all the audio so background noise gets turned up too.

Compression boosts the loudest parts of the audio specifically.

Now I will solo the vocal group with the compression applied, and see if I can clean it further of background noise by using a Gate effect.

I have a preset I made myself for a gate. The aim is to not make the gate cut up the audio, but sound as clean & natural as possible. If this needs tweaking I will do.

I want to reduce the volume of the bass vocal line so that the higher notes are the main line.

I have cut the second vocal line by 89.3 Hz and allowed it to reach up to 9.10 kHz.

I have turned it down by -4.96 dB. Now it supports the main vocal line instead of competing with it.

I'd like to add some chorus to the vocal line so that the occassions where the vocal lines are slightly off will be less noticeable. Chorus will act as a 'blur'.

I can't add much more effects at the moment as my cpu is starting to spike, so I will try freezing the audio where I can.

- releasing CPU power -

I have frozen the 2nd vocal line which has some eq & gain control effects.

I will next bounce the drum bus out so it does not have to calculate compression while playing the track in the DAW.

Now, the drums have been exported, the compressor is off, the drum channel is muted.

- vocal chorus effect -

There's not enough cpu power, so i'm also going to bounce out the vocal group too.

I've applied a chorus preset called 'Slow Pan' which functions a bit like a stereo widener. I have reduced it's dry/wet to 72%.

Saturation could have achieved a similar effect if combined with a stereo widener.

I don't want it louder, i just want it spread a bit more.

I'll freeze the audio, reduce the cpu usage.

- soft percussions -

I want to try re-introducing these.

I'll use a gain boost to hear them then re-position them correctly.

Replaced a 9db boost with compression.

-29.3db threshold
7.11 ratio (high!)
attack 0.06 ms (fast)
release 2.43 ms (fast)

Percussions have fast attacks and short tails so quick compression is appropriate.
The audio is very low in recording volume so a high ratio works.
I have slightly removed some low end with equalisation to keep it sounding clean.

I'll bounce the soft percussion bus out to save cpu power.

Now i've re-imported the soft percussion bounce, then reset the gain of the drum bounce.

To mix the soft percussion bounce, i've cut it by 158 Hz, and allowed it up to 17.0 kHz, reduced it in volume by -14.1 dB.

- scratch audio track -

I've re-positioned this scratch audio track

Now I want to make sure it is no louder than the kick because usually dj's scratch by pulling the vinyl over a kick sound.

I felt that cutting the scratch by 53.1 Hz and allowing it the full frequency range of 22.0 kHz (default), & reducing it by -6.06 dB in volume seems to make it fit the mix well.

- final mix -

I will clear the master channel's gain checker, then listen to the audio from start to finish and find out what value the gain checker reaches.

I want to know what is the loudest the mix reaches.

Now there is no clipping, because I have reduced the total mix by the amount that the total mix was going over 0db by, i can turn up the volume of my headphones.

I am now listening to the mix to think about what can be done to master it.

I've added multi-band compression. I didn't use a preset on this like I usually do, I've given the mix a custom tweak here and there in 3 different frequency bands.

I have just used intuition on what sounds good to my ears. It is subjective and could be wrong. I have just done my best to balance the mix.

Lastly I will look at maximizing the audio then limiting.

Using a free plugin called Loudmax I have brought in a maximization threshold of -2.9db. The limiter just ensures nothing is going over 0db and there is no unwanted distortion.

These aren't same settings I use for my EDM tracks, I have given this a custom master. It's not the greatest master, but it seems to do the job.