Old 09-21-2014, 03:09 PM   #1
donchilcott
Human being with feelings
 
donchilcott's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Santa Cruz, Ca
Posts: 480
Default Deadly Assumptions

OMG I have made some pretty good Demo's(my own stuff) so I figured I could mix my friends band easy enough... Just for fun Here's where the wrong assumptions come in. I assumed there was a click track, an assigned tempo, that they would adhere to the tempo, that the drummer had great time, that the tracks would be a tiny bit balanced(levels) and I could go on...The stems he sent me are a train wreck. Many lessons and comments I have seen on this board now make sense... I have played with a few multi track songs from Mike Seniors web site but to begin with they at least had an tempo that was set and adhered to. Oh well, I guess I will learn some new stuff... Of course I can see drum transients making the beats seem obvious but, What's the easiest way to alighn the audio to beats? (in places it seems necessary? Use Timestretch?
I know it may be a long answer, maybe this is more of a rant than anything else. I sent my friend a text saying "have you heard of this thing called a metronome" ?
PS and the mike bleed on the drums... omg
I think this first day I have already decided not to be a professorial mix engineer :-) I bought Kenny's Video tutorials, I will look for information about aligning audio...

Update. Thank you for the comments, you save a lot of time and heartache...I'll work with what they gave me... Maybe some tempo markers but I will keep it simple/real.;-)

Last edited by donchilcott; 09-21-2014 at 10:36 PM.
donchilcott is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-21-2014, 03:16 PM   #2
Cosmic
Human being with feelings
 
Cosmic's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Online
Posts: 4,896
Default

Just mix it like they played it.Don't get into moving audio around.
Thats grand for the odd fluffed kick or snare or a bad note here and there.
But if you have to then you're moving everything..overheads..all the drum mic tracks.Its not worth it.
It'll never sound right..it'll be a PITA and the life will be sucked out of the tune

If the band arent tight...thats what the are.Give them what they played
__________________
it aint worth a bop,if it dont got that pop
Cosmic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-21-2014, 03:45 PM   #3
martifingers
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 2,694
Default

+1.

Now it will be interesting is to see if they notice.
martifingers is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-21-2014, 04:56 PM   #4
Runaway
Human being with feelings
 
Runaway's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 2,510
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by donchilcott View Post
OMG I have made some pretty good Demo's(my own stuff) so I figured I could mix my friends band easy enough... Just for fun Here's where the wrong assumptions come in. I assumed there was a click track, an assigned tempo, that they would adhere to the tempo, that the drummer had great time, that the tracks would be a tiny bit balanced(levels) and I could go on...
When will you be visiting earth next? LOL

Welcome to the real world - when you open the doors to the public, trust me, you never know what will come through them.

I used to shudder when a clown car pulled up and the clowns started tumbling out - now at least I accept that I'm going to have a laugh (at least inwardly) ;-)
__________________
AATranslator
Runaway is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-21-2014, 04:56 PM   #5
Sound asleep
Human being with feelings
 
Sound asleep's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Montreal, Canada
Posts: 9,048
Default

I think also, that this is why tracking is important as well, because you can make them redo some parts etc...
__________________
Slava Ukraini
Sound asleep is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-21-2014, 05:05 PM   #6
Magicbuss
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 1,957
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by donchilcott View Post
OMG I have made some pretty good Demo's(my own stuff) so I figured I could mix my friends band easy enough... Just for fun Here's where the wrong assumptions come in. I assumed there was a click track, an assigned tempo, that they would adhere to the tempo, that the drummer had great time, that the tracks would be a tiny bit balanced(levels) and I could go on...The stems he sent me are a train wreck. Many lessons and comments I have seen on this board now make sense... I have played with a few multi track songs from Mike Seniors web site but to begin with they at least had an tempo that was set and adhered to. Oh well, I guess I will learn some new stuff... Of course I can see drum transients making the beats seem obvious but, What's the easiest way to alighn the audio to beats? (in places it seems necessary? Use Timestretch?
I know it may be a long answer, maybe this is more of a rant than anything else. I sent my friend a text saying "have you heard of this thing called a metronome" ?
PS and the mike bleed on the drums... omg
I think this first day I have already decided not to be a professorial mix engineer :-) I bought Kenny's Video tutorials, I will look for information about aligning audio...

If it wasnt recorded to a click dont try to make it fit the grid.

I go the other way and tempo map a free time song song with tempo markers. Tempo markers tell reaper where the start of every bar is so reaper can recalculate the tempo on the fly for each bar. This allows me to tempo sync effects as if the song was recorded to a grid.
Magicbuss is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-21-2014, 06:43 PM   #7
ambiguation
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 125
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by donchilcott View Post
PS and the mike bleed on the drums...
Yeah that can be awful!

I've found that gating, expansion and/or EQ on the individual parts can often clean things up really nicely.

I usually start with the overheads (if they gave you any!). If they're decent-ish you can sometimes scrap some of the other parts completely. Everything except kick will generally benefit from high-pass to clean up inaudible mud.
ambiguation is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-21-2014, 06:58 PM   #8
Wolffman
Human being with feelings
 
Wolffman's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Down Under
Posts: 2,148
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cosmic View Post
Just mix it like they played it.
If the band arent tight...thats what the are.Give them what they played
+1, keep it real

Just imagine if this mindset went viral and every audio/mix engineer in the world
said "THATS IT" NO MORE

No more autotune
No more fixing up bad timing
No more drum replacing
NO more telling the guitar player, hey man , your out of tune.
No more etc etc etc
No more fake music business

What would the fans think ?

Cheers
__________________
" Serve the song "

https://soundcloud.com/wolffman7

Last edited by Wolffman; 09-21-2014 at 07:03 PM.
Wolffman is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 07:20 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.