Member Dana Nielsen
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Woomp, there it is! Hope you fabulous “stooges” can join us!
mixprotege.com
👂 How To Dial In Perfect Compression Settings By Ear
Come hang with Dana and your fellow Mix Protégé community members as we talk compression - specifically (but not limited to) stereo bus compression!
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@Bigchrizzle comin strong with the great questions again! Love this. I definitely do not have specific ratios or other compression settings I always use for mix bus glue. But what I do have is a method for deciding on settings which I’d be happy to demonstrate via video!
If you (or anyone else here!) are interested in that lemme know and I’ll either record a demo or schedule a livestream or member zoom. Great topic!
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@Bigchrizzle! This is such a great question and one I think about and tinker with all the time.
Here’s my general approach to fx while mixing.
- I always get my initial balance without reverbs / delays, and I let the dry mix “tell” me what it needs — for example, while I’m working on the dry balance my imagination is filling in various effects like a vocal tape slap effect or a delay throw on that lyric there, etc.
- After I’ve been mixing “dry” and my imagination has been consistently suggesting the same effects ideas over and over again, I’ll take a moment to manifest those ideas using various plugins on a series of stereo FX returns like Slap, Delay, Verb, Modulation, etc. This initial “FX manifest” doesn’t have to be 100% perfect, but it should at least be a quality representation of my imagined sound.
- I’ll play around, mixing with the FX, automating some of the special FX moments I’d imagined, having fun while doing some delay throws, reverse reverbs, maybe some kind of bone-dry vocal line when the band drops out before the last chorus …
- Then I’ll mute them all again and really focus on the dry mix, imagining “how could I make this mix radio-ready without any effects?”. I’ll really try to make the mix as engaging and exciting as possible with no reverb, delay, etc. This “back to dry” process forces me to work harder on what I would consider the essentials: balance and automation.
- Once I have a dry mix that really slaps, that I’m loving even without FX, then I’ll put headphones on and bring my FX return faders back up, little by little, adjusting to taste. Doing this part in headphones ensures I wont add more FX than needed – the FX are there to support an already rocking mix. And since I already designed the FX in step 3 and know they’re in the ballpark, this final step is really just about fine-tuning rather than exploration and discovery.
So in general I like to keep things fresh and stay inspired by toggling back and forth (usually for hours, sometimes days, at a time) between dry mixing and wet mixing. And the point at which I switch between those modes is when I feel I’ve started to lose steam or perspective and need to re-inject some inspiration into my process. ⚡️
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Jesse!! What a great question.
Yeah, I love to “cover my bases” for mixing options later by capturing a great close mic’ed sound (mono or stereo) and supplementing with room mics, which can be balanced to taste later during mixing.
When placing the room mics (and all mics for that matter) I try to ensure that their signal is recorded in phase with the close mics — and also with each other, which you could check by soloing the room mics and flipping polarity on one of them to see if the sound gets better or worse. One advantage of XY stereo mic’ing and other ‘coincident pair’ mic setups is phase btwn the two stereo mics becomes a non-issue. With the capsules right on top of one another with a 90º angle, it’s near impossible for the phase btwn the two mics to be anything other than glorious.
Once your room mics are sounding good on their own, any phase discrepancies btwn the room mics and the close mic(s) can be adjusted by physically moving the room mics closer or farther from the close mic until all the mics blend together in a positive/additive way.
NOTE: when checking phase like this you always want to make sure all signals are playing back at roughly the same loudness. Even if you know you’ll likely bury the room mics at a low volume beneath the direct mic, you gotta turn up the rooms so they’re as loud as the direct mic(s) to hear the cumulative effect of flipping those polarity buttons in or out.
As for time-alignment of the room mics during mixing, that’s not something I do regularly at all. Once in a while I’ll scoot room mics earlier on the timeline (or later!) to get a desired effect, or if I like the room sound but sense that the mics were really placed farther away than I would have liked. (And, importantly, this trick would only work if there’s no bleed from other instruments in the room mics you’re moving, otherwise you’d screw up the room sound and phase relationship related to those other instruments).
Honestly, the only times I can recall doing radical time alignment on room mics like that is when I’m mixing live performances and the front of house mics or other ambience mics in the audience are creating too much of an echo effect against the direct stage mics because those mics were literally hundreds of feet away from the stage.
For day to day studio room mics and whatnot tho, I will definitely throw a time adjuster plugin or Little Labs IBP or SoundRadix Auto-align on there and do some sweeping micro timing adjustments if I feel like I can get the phase relationship tighter. And importantly, this method a) is only delaying the signal by samples or milliseconds, not seconds; b) does not move things earlier, only later in time, which is why I tend to use these plugins on the close mic/DI as opposed to the room; and c) will keep your audio clips at their original position on the timeline, which I’m always in favor of when it comes to time-alignment. Otherwise I’m libel to accidentally move some clips more than others and/or forget the specific offset I used when moving them, etc … all sorts of potential gremlin nightmares arise haha.
Ok that answer got a little long! Hope this all makes sense and is helpful, you rockstar!
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This wikipedia article is pretty dang fascinating if you or anyone else is interested in further reading on the subject of microphones and polar patterns. I had no idea there were such things as laser, fiber-optic, and plasma mics!!! ⚡️🧑🔬🔭🎤
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microphone#Capsule_design_and_directivity
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Jesse! Great questions, and you’re right about the way cardioid and omni polar patterns pick up sound, with cardioid picking up sound from the front of the mic/capsule and omni picking up sound from the front, back and sides of the mic/capsule.
But … it’s important to understand that regardless the polar pattern, these mics output a mono signal. An omni mic WILL capture sound on all sides, giving you a non-directional representation of the room, for example; however, it will be a mono recording of the room … unless you use two or more mics and pan them anywhere other than center.
In the case of an omni mic when we listen to the recorded audio on a stereo playback system, the sound does come out of both speakers but equally so, thus it is mono. One mic – even when in omni, picking up sound from all sides – can never reproduce stereo sound. Gotta have 2 or more mics to recreate the stereo image you hear with your two ears 😉
Does that make sense? I’m realizing while typing just how odd and difficult these concepts are to write about. Much better to demonstrate with sound and/or video! 🤘
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Ooh, sick – thanks, Jesse!! I can’t wait to hear what new sounds and shredding synth lines you come up with using this new technology!
Dropping a link here as well if anyone wants to dive deeper:
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Drum timing: mainly at 2:09. The side-stick on beat 3 feels late. Once you scoot that forward the bar after it might need a little adjustment, but nothing too crazy.
Main acoustic guitar: overall there seems to be a bit of a phase issue between the two panned mics. The main sound on the left feels good – I would sweep around your IBP on the guitar mic that’s panned to the right to try to get it aligned with the guitar mic on the left. (do that step while listening in mono and once you think you’ve found the best, fullest guitar sound then check it in stereo to make sure you like your settings in mono and stereo). You could also try SoundRadix Auto Align, which is an amazing tool.
Vocal: really sounds great! – full body, sparkly top end👌. I would try a de-esser tho, and/or manually clip-gain down the S’s a bit so that you retain all that beautiful top end on the voice but without the piercing S moments. Not all of the S’s need this, but many of them do. Massey DeEsser is my go-to: quick, easy, and the blend knob allows me to mix in some of the original S, which helps things from getting to “lisp-y” sounding.
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This has really come along, Patrick! Such a sweet song, and fun to hear all the new production elements.
And @-PT, awesome work on the mastering (or did u use some of your AI magician tools as well? Do tell!). What you did sounds great, and really goes to show the kinds of effective, broad adjustments that can be made using the stereo mix alone. What I mean is, @Pat, is that your mix was feeling good (!), and often it’s a bit of mastering – by you or someone else – that can help get things sounding finished and competitive alongside songs by other artists you dig.
For me, some favorite mix finalizing tools are BX_Masterdesk_Pro, Fabfilter Pro-L2, The God Particle, and sometimes even the “Master” tab within Waves’ Maserati GRP.
I would prob still tighten up a few areas in the drums that feel a bit loose, timing-wise, against the track, but other than that this is feeling real nice, man! ⚡️
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I agree with the TX bbq philosophy – meats (all food, really) should be seasoned to perfection and unstoppably good, sans sauce. But like you, I ain’t no sauce hater!
For what it’s worth, here’s a link to my stems checklist I send to folks who are exporting their multitrack session from Ableton, Logic, etc. in preparation for me to mix it in Pro Tools:
https://dananielsen.com/stems-checklist/
dananielsen.com
Stems Checklist - Dana Nielsen
Time to prepare your mix stems! Stems Checklist Tempo (bpm) clearly marked on folder or files Stem name (instrument or instrument group) on each file, i.e. “Lead Gtr – Song Name – Mix Name or Date” Stems do not need … Continue reading
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Hahaha, love the BBQ analogy, which is dead ON! (And perfect coming from a Texan 😉🍖. TX is more of a “this Q don’t need sauce!” region of the BBQ map, if I’m not mistaken, right?).
As for saucy stems … I’ll always try to utilize the effects provided in a “wet” stem if I can, since that’s the way the artist/producer have envisioned the sound of the record. But if their sauce seems off, or is diminishing my creative/technical flexibility, I will immediately switch to a dry stem and do my own thang.
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Hahahaha!
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Awesome, man, I’m so glad to hear that! Happy to help, and look fwd to hearing what you’re up to!
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Yep, you nailed it! You’re totally on the right track, and all of your understanding is solid!
I haven’t heard the Lewitt so I can’t specifically comment on that mic. But one super helpful resource I love using to audition various mics is Audio Test Kitchen. You can put that Lewitt mic up against other mics in your virtual “mic locker” and seamlessly audition and compare the mics using a library of sound sources.
Plus it was founded by a legend among us here in our MP community (tho I don’t want to put him on the spot at the moment – perhaps a collab vid in our future would be fun 🤩)
Anywho, I use it all the time and recommend it all the time. It’s pretty damn cool, and quite a monumental undertaking to have sampled all these mics on all these sound sources with laser precision scientific accuracy for a true and trustworthy comparative sonic assessment!
audiotestkitchen.com
Audio Test Kitchen | Compare the sound of 300 microphones
Find the best microphone for you. Try microphones before you buy on the world's largest online microphone shootout. Listen to unbiased comparison recordings. Compare standardized frequency response graphs. Created by Grammy-winning engineers and renown scientists.
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Hahahah – brilliant post and excellent insights, Paul!
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