Explore pureMix Assignment

Overview

pureMix Pro offers a wide variety of incredible resources for learning about all things audio. With courses and tutorials taught by some of the industry's leading songwriters, producers, and engineers, your subscription provides you the opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look into the process, tools, and techniques, utilized by some of the best in the field.

For this assignment we would like you to explore and become familiar with all that pureMix Pro has to offer.

Instructions

1. Go to pureMix.net and login to your pureMix Pro account
2. Click around and explore everything pureMix has to offer
   • This can be any video tutorials, upcoming contests, plugins and apps included FREE with the subscription, etc.
3. In the discussion, provide a description of the content you found with a summary of your thoughts
   • Are you participating in a contest?
   • Have you downloaded, installed, and tested out one of the plugins?
   • Did a specific video tutorial help you understand a particular concept?
4. The Minimum word count for this discussion is 100 words
5. Paste a link to the content you discussed

52A Mixing and Mastering 1

Devin

3: Yes I signed up for the giveaway and did all of the steps to get 5 entries, and I haven't downloaded the plugins because I'm not a huge fan of something that if I cancel the subscription they stop working.

One app I did try was the frequency response test which I did pretty okay at, the first lower octave test I got a 7/10, the midrange I got a 10/10, and the highs I got an 8/10, though some were a but hard to distinguish. I remember that "ooeeaa" thing when listening to white noise and boosting a certain range so that helped a lot too.

Here is the test: https://www.puremix.net/ear-training.html

Diego

The section I was mainly looking through was just the tutorial section, there's a large variety of different content that I found very interesting, and honestly it wasn't all necessarily tutorials, for example, I watched a tour of the blackbird studio which was super cool, and a very interstingly/intricately designed studio. (Link for the Blackbird studio tour Links to an external site.) But I did also see some actual tutorials/guides, for example, Start to Finish with Snark Puppy and Nic Hard was one that I watched for a little bit, it was only a 30 minute video but it had a lot of insight into stereo mixing and I guess just different peoples styles.

https://www.puremix.net/video/start-to-finish-nic-hard-mixing-snarky-puppy-coney-bear.html

Christopher

After browsing through the menus and categories of the Puremix site, I am glad that I was able to discover content beyond the video tutorials, plug-in perks, and other services (Mixup) that initially came with my subscription.

Probably my most interesting find so far was the Mix Analysis section found under the Features menu. As the name implies, this section includes links to various hit recordings, each giving an in-depth analysis of the mixing and other details leading to the creation of the hit songs. I was drawn and found myself spending some time reading a few of the somewhat long articles about the recording backgrounds behind such hits, like Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature,” Earth Wind & Fire’s “Let’s Groove” and Metallica’s “Death Magnetic” Links to an external site.. Reading some exclusive behind-the-scenes analysis of the creation of these hit songs was a real treat and really broadened my mixing & production horizons even further. Eventually I’ll read the analysis of all 25 tracks and hope that more new insight stories on other songs will appear in the future.

Puremix: Mix Check - Mix Analysis

Shreya

I mostly looked through the video tutorial section and watched the tutorial Links to an external site.about EQing vocals as this is something I struggle with a lot. My main takeaway was that small changes can make a big difference to how the vocals blend in with the other tracks. There was also a super helpful vocal frequency chart, which detailed which frequencies to focus on for which problems. For example, if the vocals sound too muffled, notching out the 180 – 240 Hz frequencies for male, and around 300 frequencies for female can help.

Another really interesting feature I found was the mix tank Links to an external site., where you can upload mixes and get feedback from other pureMix Pro members. I thought this was useful because getting an outside ear can be extremely useful, especially when you’ve been working on mix for hours on end, or if you’re a beginner.

Scarlett

After clicking around the pureMix website, one video series of interest to me was ill Factor's Start to Finish playlist. It was useful to see a producer and engineer using the same DAW as me, Ableton Live, who also shared his creative process behind producing a new song from scratch. His tips for starting a new track in this video were very useful to me, such as how to build momentum for creating new ideas by either getting inspired by existing songs or playing around with patches. One tip specifically he mentions is setting aside one day a week to look for inspiring samples and bookmarking them for later to minimize time needed to browse later. Also, I like seeing how someone starts off with a basic idea and melody and begins to build it into a full track.

Links to an external site. Jumpstarting The Creative Process

Jason

Found this free giveaway here! Here's the link if any of you guys want to enter: Snarky Puppy Links to an external site.

I also discovered that puremix offers a free to an external site. LUFS analyzer

In addition, I had no idea but puremix has community submissions and feedback of mixes. It appears you can both comment on other people's mixes as well as submit your own. I found this particular mix and correlating community feedback particularly nice: Links to an external site This one is really cool as well: Alexandre va sweat Links to an external site They discuss effects as well as frequency range.

Finally, I played around with some ear training which helps tune your ear to specific frequency ranges: Ear Training: Frequency Quiz

Gavin

After searching through Pure Mix, I found many helpful tutorial videos and free plugins. I mostly searched through the tutorial videos and I'm glad I stumbled upon a video made by Andrew Scheps about Dolby Atmos. I have always been curious about how it worked and this video was very informational. He covered many topics including, the kind of speaker configurations available in Dolby Atmos, how the room calibration of the speaker system is done, and even broke down the Dolby Renderer. My favorite part of the video had to be the portion where he explains how mixing and mastering is done. I'll leave a link to the tutorial video down below.

Andrew Scheps Introduction to Dolby Atmos

Miles

pureMix Pro has all sorts of cool stuff from access to tools like decibel and other plugins to including mixup.com. The tutorials seem endless and they do a pretty good job at giving you the option to navigate the topics you want to go over (protools, mastering, recording, etc.). I actually found some great downloadable master tracks which I was able to use as mix practice on my own. It's cool that you have the option to watch a pro mix the tracks and then try to do it yourself. Unfortunately, I learned the limits of my computer this way. Time for an upgrade!

I am not participating in any contests. I reckon I'd be pretty lousy at first but I think I have some tools in my belt to start trying just for practice until I am better! I have downloaded Decibel but have had some problems I don't want to get too deep into here. Mostly my computer woes and weird signal paths. I'd love to download them all though but have been holding out until I allow myself to splurge on a new computer due to limited space on mine.

I think all the videos have good takeaways. I like watching each producer's process and how they think about things. I guess the one I've watched the closest is F Reid Shippen mixing Dierks Bentley.

F. Reid Shippen Mixing Dierks Bentley

Bryant

I watched a mix analysis video on the song Angela by The Lumineers and it was great. I think it was super useful to hear the breakdown of a song that I really like because I've heard it so many times that it was easier to digest how the sound was achieved. I was unable to find where to get free plug ins but I would love to try some out. I was able to find an ear training quiz but it was pretty difficult for me. I may try one of the contests but I am pretty unconfident about my mixing skills at the moment so I don't know if I will do that quite yet.

Inside The Mix: The Lumineers with Ryan Hewitt

James

Discoveries on pureMix I found most interesting were:

Andrew Scheps talking about mixing Green Day Links to an external site.. Included is a description of the technique to do the intro with a very narrowband EQ or at very low volume or very down the middle (or all three!); then when the full wide mix comes in the listener gets this blossoming effect. While I know this could easily be overused I really love that experience. Also interesting that he mentions being terrified to work on the mix given a few challenging situations (e.g. an a capella section, a drum solo). Always good to hear the professionals can be intimidated.

In the "Mentors" section, Mick Guzauski describes Links to an external site., and provides a link to, his template. (Actually templates plural, one for each of several DAWs.) I opened the template in Logic... don't get it yet... look forward to spending some time learning and understanding the concept. I'm not participating in any contest and my only download was of the aforementioned plug-in.

William

While I was exploring the site, I found this really good article that dives deep in to David Bowie's discography & David Bowie retrospective. I personally Have listened to a majority of Bowie's discography and this article was a quite nice retrospective. I am having a lot of fun with these articles. This one I found about the mix on Dark Side of The Moon was also quite interesting It was fun to listen to the record after reading what Fab Dupont was saying about it. I also was going through Mix Tank looking through some of the mixes. It's interesting to have such a large data base of amateur and professional mixes.

Filiberto

I haven't gotten to checking out or downloading the plugins included in Puremix Pro but will definitely check them out will I have a subscription.

I watched Start to Finish: Vance Powell - Episode 8 in which he talks about his process for recording vocals and the video actually shows the conversations between him and the artist in order to best accommodate the artist to get the best performance possible. Its very useful to see how communication and experimenting does wonders during the production and the tracking stage. One part in the video the singer wanted a certain effect on his vocals to get him in the zone and Vance was quick to get that setup to start recording again

Start to Finish: Vance Powell - Episode 8 - Recording Vocals