012 - Bruce Kaphan - Mix Preparation

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Bruce Kaphan

San Francisco Bay Area Musician Bruce Kaphan has been professionally involved in the Music Scene since the mid-70's. His skills and talents have made their mark on hundreds of projects, and thousands of performances given around the world.

In this podcast Bruce Kaphan shares his insights in basic mixing concepts.

Check out these articles by Bruce Kaphan: RecordingMag.com

For more info on Bruce's mix prep techniques go here: Bruce Kaphan - Prepare Your Mix

Podcast Notes

Frequencies

  1. Lower mids add up quickly in a mix
  2. Lower Mids = 125 - 325 Hz
  3. Mid Mids = 175 - 500 Hz
  4. High Mids = 2500 - 4500 H.
  5. Hi Shelf starts at 3k or 6k or 8k
    • Add air with a high shelf

Favorite Plugins

Mix Preparation

by Bruce Kaphan

  • infinity– there is no magic formula or recipe other than pulling together every shred of your knowledge and creativity on a per project basis
  • when mixing for a client, the entire production must be predicated on their needs, both artistic and financial
  • mix preparation begins before the computer is turned on– begin at the end– determine the goal of the project and work backwards from there. Generally speaking, more tracks means more time spent mixing. If you don’t have a sizeable budget, then think minimally in terms of track count, recording methodologies, number of Pro Tools sessions, etc.
  • fastest path– treat it like a live sound event– one single session. Depending on budget, either turn in to individual sessions after the whole board is set up (or not).
  • faster path– use compression to replace in depth leveling

Mixing begins before the first track is recorded! My preferred pre-mix setup method includes

  1. Organize the tracks such that you won’t have to waste time looking for anything. For pop music I choose to organize mine from top to bottom: drums, percussion, bass, chordal instruments, melody instruments, solos, lead vocals, backing vocals.
  2. Grouping: usually created at the time of tracking or overdubbing. Nonetheless, by mix time, group and/or sub-group instruments that are inherently of a group.
  3. Subgroup audio tracks as desired for either a “sub-master” (for a variety of conveniences including the ability to have both automated and manual level control on the same tracks, easier level/trim control) or to facilitate being able to easily and resource economically set up sends for spatial or dynamic effects to grouped sounds
  4. Create (sends and) returns for spatial processing
  5. Create a master fader

When all tracks have been recorded and all editing completed

  1. “cleaning”: manually scour each and every track for extraneous noise– use head and tail fades, and crossfades to eliminate the possibility of clicking
  2. check phase alignment! It has a profound effect on the way sounds fit together. Be especially careful with multiple signals which combine to form one sound, i.e., drum tracks, or a bass DI in combination with a mic’d amp.
  3. If your system offers it, engage delay compensation!
  4. If you’ve been responsible for recording the tracks, you should already have a good working mix in process. If you haven’t been responsible for tracking/editing, then ??? Using just faders and whatever processing has already been built to get a good rough mix
  5. Start messing with pan- figure out how the sounds balance from left to right
  6. The “Bump” theory– start taking care of problem sounds by whatever means necessary– usually EQ and either limiting or compression or both
  7. In some cases, manually mute tom tracks around tom hits
  8. If time allows, optimize the sound of each track using EQ. Due to budget, this is a luxury on some projects. It’s a meditational process that gives me time to get to know each track intimately. My feeling regarding EQ is that this is the time to optimize each track, most especially to reduce lower mid cloudiness both within the individual track, but ultimately to enhance overall clarity in the mix. Generally, EQ begins with scooping out lower mids, then mid mids, then sculpting bass either additive or subtractive, then the same with upper mids and then adding “air” with a high shelf if necessary. As the mix progresses, each EQ may be subject to change as the overall sound of the mix suggests.
  9. LEVELLING! Using volume automation both to get a good “read” on focal images such as vocals, and to create the relationships among the sounds
  10. Processing- compression, reverbs, delays, special effects, feedback loops, whatever

Final checklist: before final bounce, be sure

  1. no red lights unless you specifically want them!
  2. Engage delay compensation!
  3. Depending on my client, I sometimes apply mastering or mock-mastering compression and/or limiting to the master bus for presenting mixes. If the project is going to be mastered by a separate engineer, before the final bounce, I disengage at least the L2
  4. Mind your master level! It should be as loud as possible without overflow, unless you like the sound of overflow.
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