Audio mixing

A Solid State Logic XL 9000 K console in a mixing room

An AMS Neve 81 series mixing console

Audio mixing is the process by which multiple sounds are combined into one or more audio channels. In the process, a source's volume level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated or enhanced. This practical, aesthetic, or otherwise creative treatment is done in order to produce a finished version that is appealing to listeners.

Audio mixing is practiced for music, film, television and live sound. The process is generally carried out by a mixing engineer operating a mixing console or digital audio workstation.

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Hey whats up, it's Wick for WickieMedia tutorials. And today is going to be the first episode that I'm going to be talking about mixing. So let's start off with the very basics before we're going to be diving into mixing consoles and just look at the basics of mixing music. Let's take a quick look at the recording process. When we're recording a song, all the individual instruments get recorded separately onto a track. The very first recordings were all done mono that means we could only play it back over one speaker and it was captured with just one microphone So in order to create a balance between the individual instruments we had to move the musicians throughout the room So if someone would have played a solo, they had to step up and walk towards the microphone. Going back to modern times, where most of the people listen to their music over two speakers or over headphones we're now working towards a stereo mixdown. Even if you're doing electronic music this is still theory that's gonna apply to you... Let's take a band that we're going to be recording and mixing. We've got a drum-kit We've got a bass player we've got two guitar players. we've got a keyboard player and we've got a small brass section. we're going to be placing a microphone in front of every instrument. Every microphone is transmitting a mono-signal which is being fed into the mixing console where we take care of the levels, and that's being sent to tape. Of course this is now mainly done on the computer, so we're recording it inside a computer. But i'm a still going to be using the reference of the tape machine a lot just for the simplicity of understanding signal flow. So the band has played their song and now we have recorded eight separate tracks of their instruments. Now we're going to start with the mix- phase and we're basically going to be fitting the whole band into two speakers. I'm a drawing an illustration right here that's going to represent that. We're going to be fitting everything between the left and the right speaker and we should visualize a three-dimensional space in between those speakers where we're going to be placing our mix in. We can move instruments forward and backward by changing the volume, or fader-riding. This is basically moving sounds over the Z-axis. With the pan-knob on each channel we can move them from left and right between our speakers. when we are panning sounds in the middle it means that they come just as loud out of the left speaker as out of the right speaker. We than talk about panning sounds into the phantom-image, because on a stereo-mix we don't have any speakers in the centre. We can kind of place instruments over the vertical axis with the means of frequency. Assuming that the bass is low and the treble is high. That means that we can basically now visualize our whole mix in 3d-space. So this illustration makes the concept of placing the sounds into a 3d environment a lot more understandable. Let's take a look at how we can illustrate some mixes. Let's start off with the simple eight-track recording that we've just done. Normally when we're mixing we are using the audiences view as our perspective. We had two guitar players which were standing at both sides of the room so it would be nice to kind of pan the first guitar a little bit to the left and the second one a little bit to the right. This will create a little bit of space in our mix and it will reflect the way that it was. A good rule of thumb is that we always want bass frequencies to come out of the center... So the kick drum and the bass-line will be placed in the center, or the phantom image. The keys were on the left side of the room and the brass section was on the right side so we're going to pan that accordingly as well. This is already creating a very rich stereo image. So let's take a look at some styles of mixing that we can apply... Here we can see a very open and defined mix. The gaps in between the instruments can be filled up with a little bit of reverb. This can create like an aura around an instrument... This is something which is really open and defined so it could fit very well for a jazz-mix for example.. Right here we have a more commercial type of mix which we would call 'the wall of sound'. The focus on these types of mixes normally lays on the vocals, which seem to be kind of like in front of the band or at least in front of the music. So a lot of commercial productions either it being pop or dance or hip-hop or even a pop/rock type of song this type of mixing style is applied a lot. If we're going to take a look at more underground productions you can see that the vocals are not that upfront as in these commercial- types of mixes. So it could very well be that the mix that you're going for doesn't have to have your vocals really upfront like in a commercial type of product. You should go for this sound that fits your song and the type of production. So when we start off with a mix it kind of looks like this... You can see that that everything is still in the middle and also frequency-wise it's definitely still like a mess. So we're going to start with the volume and the panning and place all the instruments where we want them to be. You can see this already cleans up a lot and makes a lot of things more defined and separated. When theres still too much overlapping frequencies and we needed to define something a little bit more we can than filter off some of the frequencies that we don't need, and highlight some of the frequencies that we need to give a little bit of extra sparkle with the use of an equalizer. When the dynamics of certain instruments are fluctuating too much, like for example on the bass or on the snare, and we want to tame those peaks we can use a compressor to make sure that these stay in balance a little bit better. The next video is going to be an in-depth tutorial about mixing consoles and we're going to look at the signal flow and a lot of commonly found functions and knobs that we will run into. And after that we're going to be applying all that stuff into creating some mixes. And were going to start off with some eight-track mixes, sixteen track mixes, from there on we're going to go to twenty-four track mixes and even a lot higher. I hope you've enjoyed this first tutorial, which was an introduction to the beautiful world of mixing. Where so many things are possible once you just know how to. And i'm going to be teaching you a lot of that stuff in the upcoming tutorials So i hope you've enjoyed it, I hope you have learned something and I hope to see yall soon... Peace!

Recorded music

Stevie Wonder attending a mixing session in a German studio in 1984

A control room with the Pro Tools digital audio workstation, hardware outboards and a mixer

Before the introduction of multitrack recording, all the sounds and effects that were to be part of a recording were mixed together at one time during a live performance. If the sound blend was not satisfactory, or if one musician made a mistake, the selection had to be performed over until the desired balance and performance was obtained. However, with the introduction of multitrack recording, the production phase of a modern recording has radically changed into one that generally involves three stages: recording, overdubbing, and mixdown.^[1]

Film and television

A mixing console in a cable news control room

During production dialogue recording of actors is done by a person variously known as location sound mixer, production sound or some similar designation. That person is a department head with a crew consisting of a boom operator and sometimes a cable person.

Audio mixing for film and television is a process during the post-production stage of a moving image program by which a multitude of recorded sounds are combined. In the editing process, the source's signal level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are commonly manipulated and effects added. In video production, this is called sweetening.

The process takes place on a mixing stage, typically in a studio or purpose-built theater, once the picture elements are edited into a final version. Normally the engineers will mix four main audio elements called stems: speech (dialogue, ADR, voice-overs, etc.), ambience (or atmosphere), sound effects, and music. As multi machine synchronization became available, filmmakers were able to split elements into multiple reels. With the advent of digital workstations and growing complexity, track counts in excess of 100 became common.

Dialogue intelligibility

Since the 2010s, critics and members of the audience have reported that dialogue in films tends to be increasingly more difficult to understand than in older films, to the point where viewers need to rely on subtitles to understand what is being said. Ben Pearson of SlashFilm attributed this to a combination of factors, only some of which can be addressed through audio mixing:^[2]

Unintelligibility as a stylistic choice by filmmakers, particularly by Christopher Nolan and those influenced by him
Soft, under one's breath delivery of lines by actors, a practice particularly popular among younger actors, as opposed to the theatrical clarity of delivery previously used
Low priority of sound recording on set, with priority given to the visual aspects of production
Increased technological possibilities, including in post-production, no longer compel filmmakers to obtain an optimal recording on set
The film crew's familiarity with the dialogue can lead them to overestimate its intelligibility
Theaters play films at a lower than recommended volume to avoid excessive loudness complaints from the audience
Different standards of compression and volume balance applied by the various streaming platforms
Inadequate audio remixing for films played in a home theater setting or on mobile devices, where the audio playback capabilities of the various setups strongly differ from each other and from cinema settings

Live sound

Live sound mixing is the process of electrically blending together multiple sound sources at a live event using a mixing console. Sounds used include those from instruments, voices, and pre-recorded material. Individual sources may be equalised and routed to effect processors to ultimately be amplified and reproduced via loudspeakers.^[3] The live sound engineer balances the various audio sources in a way that best suits the needs of the event.^[4]

References

^ Huber, David Miles (2001). Modern Recording Techniques. Focal Press. p. 321. ISBN 0-240-80456-2.
^ Pearson, Ben (2021-11-30). "Here's Why Movie Dialogue Has Gotten More Difficult To Understand (And Three Ways To Fix It)". SlashFilm.com. Retrieved 2021-12-06.
^ "Mixing Principles". Leonard Audio Institute. Retrieved 2013-01-03.
^ Tim Crosby (28 April 2008). "How Live Sound Engineering Works". HowStuffWorks. Retrieved 2013-03-03.

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