Fully automated mixing could make your life a whole lot easier, but if you can't get your hands on a suitcase full of banknotes, Craig Anderton has some ideas for achieving similar results at minimum cost.
How many times have you been working on the perfect mix, only to blow it in the last few seconds by forgetting to bring down (or up) a particular instrument? (Those with expensive automation systems can flip to the next article.) Well, don't feel bad: it's a common problem, and one of the solutions is automated 'snapshot' mixing.
The snapshot approach assumes that mixer settings are relatively constant for several measures at a time. Therefore, a mixer with snapshot automation stores all control settings (or at least level settings) as a recallable 'snapshot'. As you play a song, each time the mix needs to change, you move the controls and store the settings as a snapshot. You can then superimpose the occasional dynamic fader change (such as ducking a bad note, turning up an effects send briefly, and so on) without having to think about the rest of the control settings.
Some mixers use manual snapshot recall, others are triggered by MIDI program changes, and still others use an internal sequencer to trigger a series of snapshots in order. In any event, the end result is a more precise and recallable mix.
How many time have you been working on the perfect mix, only to blow it in the last few seconds?
However, mixers with this capability are relatively expensive. Even low‑cost external fader boxes (the Niche ACM, for example) might be too much for a budget already strained by buying a hard‑disk‑ or digital‑tape‑based system. Fortunately, there are some low‑cost snapshot solutions using gear you probably already own. We'll cover two methods: one for those with analogue multitrack tape recorders who mix down to DAT and also have access to two tracks of hard‑disk‑editing capability; the second, simpler method is for those with multitrack machines that use digital tape (Alesis ADAT, Tascam DA88, and so on) or hard‑disk technology (Roland VS880, Vestax HDR, Emu Darwin, Otari Radar, and so on).
Snapshots A LA DAT
Here's the procedure if you're mixing down to DAT from an analogue multitrack. The idea is to record the mix section‑by‑section to the DAT, changing settings between each section as necessary, then using the hard disk editor to 'splice' all the pieces together into a final mix. Note that if you don't have a DAT but prefer to mix down to half‑inch analogue or something similar, you can follow the same basic idea but do your splicing with (gasp!) razor blades instead of using a hard disk system.
1. Set up your mix, and start mixing to DAT.
2. As long as the mix is okay, keep recording to DAT.
3. As soon as there's a problem, or you want to make a change, stop the analogue tape, then, a few seconds later, stop the DAT.
4. Rewind the analogue machine to before the place where you need to make the change.
5. Play back the multitrack without recording to DAT, and set the mixer controls as desired for the next section.
6. Rewind the analogue machine to about 10 seconds before the point before you made the changes (the reason for rewinding before the splice point is to make sure that the signal after the splice point includes any reverb tails or other time‑based processing).
7. Set the DAT to record, then put the multitrack into playback. Record the next section of music to DAT.
8. Repeat steps 2‑7 until the entire song is mixed.
9. Your DAT now consists of several sections of the song, each mixed optimally and separated by a little silence.
10. Bounce the DAT over to your hard‑disk editing system.
11. Play back the hard disk until you reach the splice point that will define the end of the first section. Define a region between this point and what will be the splice point in the next section, then cut. Caution: make sure the 'splice' occurs on the beat, or where there's something like a heavy snare hit, as this will tend to mask any abrupt level changes.
12. Keep splicing the various parts until you end up with a final mix, then bounce this back to DAT for archiving.
Although this method helps create perfect mixes, it is time‑consuming and requires two processes: making the original mixes, then doing the off‑line editing on the hard disk. The next method is faster, easier, and more intuitive.
Snapshots A LA Digital Multitrack
One side‑effect of digital recorders (tape or hard disk) is that they have brought back the art of pre‑mixing. This is partly from necessity: with eight tracks as the standard entry‑level format, you'll probably need to pre‑mix if you want a complex, layered sound. But digital audio also makes quality pre‑mixing possible — unlike pre‑mixing with analogue machines, the digital process doesn't build up noise and distortion.
Our second snapshot method uses two unused tracks on your digital‑tape or hard‑disk multitrack to hold the final mix. The downside is that, with an 8‑track, you'll only have six tracks left for basic recording; this method works best if you have a lot of tracks available to start with. However, the advantages of this type of mixing are quite compelling (especially with 16 or more tracks) as it gives snapshot mixing 'for free.' Here's how to do it.
1. Connect the system as shown in Figure 1, where the recorded tracks go through the mixer to two unused tracks.
2. Go to the beginning of the song, put the multitrack into Record, and start mixing to the two unused tracks.
3. As long as the mix is okay, keep recording.
4. As soon as you want to change the mix, stop the multitrack and rewind prior to where you wanted the mix to change.
5. Play back the multitrack and adjust the mix levels, EQ, and so on.
6. Rewind the multitrack to about 10 seconds before the point where you want these changes to kick in.
7. Punch in at the precise moment where the new mix should take over. Unlike analogue, there's no punch‑out gap to fret about (you can optionally use a rehearse mode, if available, to set and audition the punch points).
8. Repeat steps 4‑7 until the entire song is mixed.
9. Your final mix is now located in what had been two unused tracks. Bounce them over to DAT (or whatever your mastering machine might be) using analogue or digital outputs, and you're done.
This is really a great way to mix, as it gives the advantage of intuitive, real‑time mixing up to the point where you need to make a change, at which time you reset a few controls and carry on.
Fully automated mixing that recreates all fader and control moves is convenient and effective. But when you have to do more with less, either of the above approaches can give you a perfect mix without too much effort — and very little cost.