Why Fix It In The Mix Doesn't Work!

[brandondrury]

Why ?Fix In The Mix? Doesn't Work

I've noticed that A LOT of young recording engineers, home recording enthusiasts, and the band member who got stuck using the digital recorder all seam to be asking how to make drastic changes to a given track. This article will explain that you can't simply change the fundamental character of an instrument. You can make subtle changes, but anything drastic will end up sounding nothing like you intended.

Get The Recording Right At The Source
After messing around on various forums, it's quite clear that an overwhelming amount of beginning recording guys/girls are asking questions that go something like this, ?How do I get clicks and pops out of my snare mic?? or ?I don't like the sound of my recorded guitars. What should I do?? or ?There is ringing in my snare drum. How do I fix it in the mix?


There is a really simple answer to all of these questions.

How do I get clicks and pops out of my snare track?
Easy! You hit delete on the track, stop whatever is making the clicks and pops, and hit record again. Most of the time this is a 10 minute fix. The band wanted to take a smoke break anyway.

I don't like the sound of my recording guitars. What should I do?
When I don't like the sound of my recorded guitars, I go over to the amp and start tweaking and listening. We'll try drastically different settings on the amp, different guitars, different pedals, different picks, etc. Sometimes, I'll move the mic. Generally, I've found that I don't have to move the mic all that much. If the mic is properly capturing the amp, all I have to do is get the sound I want to come out of the amp.
Of course, you were looking for a fix you could do in the mix. There is no fixing guitars in the mix. Sorry. Most of the time, I don't even use EQ on guitars. It's straight in and straight out. This applies to tones that range from John Melloncamp to Morbid Angel.
If you waited until mix time to listen to the guitars, you are confused. You listen immediately and you make changes. Sometimes you'll be taking a change.

There is a ringing in my snare drum. How do I fix this?
Easy. You tune the snare so that it doesn't ring. I'm not all that great at this either. You'll find that, as a recording person, you HAVE to tune drums because most drummers are completely clueless. Even drummers that take pride in their tuning aren't used to hearing what you are hearing. If the snare is dull and doesn't crack well it also needs to be retuned most of the time. The big boys tune a snare after every single take for a reason. Just like guitars, snares go out of tune.

Anyway, so if there is a ring, stop the ring. I don't specifically know what to tell you because I'm not in the room with you. If using the little gel deadening things helps, use them. Otherwise, just grab a different snare drum. Don't buy any fancy recording gear until you have a few spare snare drums, by the way.

Of course, the question was how do I fix the snare in the mix. Why would you wait that long to fix it? You can hear that it's a problem the first time you hit play on your recorded tracks? Are you so lazy that you can't get up out of your comfortable control room chair and retune the snare drum?

I don't mean to be negative. The point here is that, in my eyes, if I let something silly like crappy guitar tone, an out of tune snare, or clicks and pops get on a recording, it's my ass! I'm in trouble! I failed! In fact, people are paying me to make sure they have a great snare drum sound. So in many ways, I'm more of a pre-recording consultant than anything else. If I can get each instrument to sound it's best, it's not difficult to slap a 57 on there and go. Seriously! I'd be much happier slapping a SM 57 on every instrument that I have personally checked out to be a great sounding instrument than I would putting a $3,000 German mic on a crappy source. Do you really think the guys using $10,000 mics on overheads are just rushing through a recording? Do you think they have digital clipping, etc? Hell no! They take their sweet time. The only way you can come close to competing is to take your time as well. What do you care? Your bedroom isn't costing you $5,000 per day!!!

Fix In The Mix Doesn't Work
Let me explain why ?Fix In The Mix? Doesn't Work. We have a limited amount of tools in recording. We have compression, which lets us monkey with the dynamic range. We have EQ which let's us mess with the harmonic content of the source. Keep in mind that a parametric eq isn't all that different from a wha pedal. (What is a why pedal going to fix?). We have volume, panning, and time based effects like reverb, delay, etc.

With these tools, there is no ?morph? effect. We can't just twist a knob and turn a piece of shit snare drum into a snare drum that sounds like God himself. It DOES NOT work that way. I'll repeat it again. There is no knob to fix your crappy sounding tracks. Ever tried taking a 24kps MP3 and making it sound like a cd again? What tool would you use for this? Sorry, there is none!! Not in 2006, there isn't. Maybe in 10 years there will be, but I seriously doubt it.

If you take it a step further, if you want to change the fundamental sound of your snare and turn it into a Ludwig Black Beauty, for example, the process wouldn't be any different than turning your current snare drum into the sound of a WW2 fighter plane or an impact wrench.

So with limited tools, we can only do so much. So when a snare drum has way too much ring, we can put a gate on it and chop the tail of the snare off. Unfortunately, we've moved from semi-real land to fake land. Most of us recording in this fashion want the sound of ?real drums? (whatever that means). So putting a gate on a ringing snare drum can cut the tail off, for better or worse. You are out of luck on the overheads, more than likely. If you try to kill ringing in overheads you are going to sound like a Nine Inch Nails remix (nothing wrong with that, if that's your bag).

The lesson learned here is simply the best way to get the best sounds is to put a mic in the right spot. That's all an engineer can do unless they want to get in there and get there hands dirty with the instrument itself. (You are still at the mercy of the song and the musician but that's 10 other articles). If you want to get great sounds you really do need to learn how to tune drums, because most drummers have no clue how to make a drum set sound great. The same goes for bass players and guitar players. The only guys that ever have their tone together is the synth guys, obviously.

The Tracking Stage Is Everything
Guess what a guy mixing a flawlessly tracked drum set has to to. If the drum kit was tracked flawlessly, all a mixing engineer has to do is adjust the level of the overall drum sound. That's it! It does happen. As you become a better audio engineer, you'll find that there will be times when you don't have to fix things. All you have to do is bring up the volume. As you get even better, you'll expect to only have to bring up the volume and do almost nothing else. Good luck.

[volsball]

Brandon, this is some good old common sense advice. Most of the time, it's going to sound better if you fix what's wrong witht hte actual instruments and go back and record again.

[brandondrury]

Definitely...unless there was some sort of magic in the orginal takes that can be recorded. For whatever reason, people don't feel bad wasting hours to fix something in their recording software when they could just have easily fixed it with re-recording in 2 minutes.

Brandon

[volsball]

Not to mention the fact that if they fix the actual instrument ot amp or whatever, then the awesoem results are their own, not the the machine's, which would be something to really be proud of.

[brandondrury]

not the the machine's, which would be something to really be proud of.

Really, I don't care about that anymore. My only focus is making the noise that shoots out of the speakers actually makes people feel something. I don't care about the methods we used to get there. I'll cheat every step of the way and I know I'll never feel bad about it.

Besides, even if you fix a problem with recording software, it still takes a lot of practice and talent to get any good at at. In some ways, it is the musical instrument.

Brandon

[volsball]

Sorry, I wasn't knocking using the recording software or whatever. I just meant that if someone is playing live they still need to sound good, not just on their cd.

[brandondrury]

There's no need to apologize at all. I've just changed (hopefully evolved) to the point where I only care about making the record as good as it can be. That's it. When the band goes on tour, I'm not going to be there. If they need to play catch up to their record, that's there problem. 8) I'll be working on a new record by then anyway.

Brandon

[Wassgob]

i was given some advice when i started my career that i always remember!
when you arent getting the sound you want
1) get a new mic
2)get a new intrument
3)get a new musician

[brandondrury]

Those are all right, but are probably in reverse order of important...... but probably the right order in terms of not getting fired from the session.

Brandon

[AfaraWayland]

To put my two cents in,

What really sucks as an engineer, is when you receive tracks from another "engineer" to fix and mix. The burden is then shifted to the new engineer, who is then stuck either trying to weasle out of responsiblity (blaming a new found discrepancy on the earlier engineer), delaying the project, or to try "fixing it" in the mix with some sort of ju-ju magic, risking the blame again if the discrepancy is noticed in the final product.

Its a bad situation all around.

Some artists or producers may be forgiving in either circumstance, YMWY.

It's like Whiskey Tango Foxtrot in all caps.