Blind - Mixing
For the CD Glass Star, as a band wrote, rehearsed, recorded, individually mixed and mastered three songs before uploading them for use. By myself I made my own mixes to each of the songs in order to practice mixing and try to improve my sound. I've decided to create a post for the process of just one of these songs which is called Blind. Below I'll list the process of mixing this track whilst on another separate post I'll show how I mastered it and present the final audio.
To begin, it had been quite awhile since I'd last mixed one of my own tracks so I wasn't quite sure where to start. I decided to watch some videos on Logic mixing to help me. Below I have listed a couple although I couldn't re-find them all.
This video was helpful as it was short and easy to understand.
Whilst on the longer side, the video including timestamps for different aspects the video would cover which made it easier to navigate.
Something I really struggle with is mixing drums so I honestly found this video the most helpful.
The Mix.
I started my mix by diving in with my least favourite thing, the drums. Although they're definitely not the main focus and don't come in for awhile in this song, drums are what I wanted to practice most. I started by busing my drum tracks and lowering all of their volumes to zero. I then looped a section of the drums and started balancing each of the tracks to each other. During this, I tried to compare the volume to that of a Ghost song so I would have a reasonable base volume to build the rest of my song on. Despite how calm the song was, I really wanted to make sure the kick drum had punch and that the snare wasn't too 'tinny'. I made sure to try and find the biting point of the snare drum's audio in EQ to minimize that tin sound like I had seen Paul do before. I also adjusted the EQ of my kick drum track to give it more of a punchy impact. I then panned my overhead tracks right and the other left respectively to give the audio more depth. I tried to add a touch of compression but I didn't want to mess with it too much as I knew it would just sound worse and worse. I also really tried to bring out the low end of my drums EQ as I've started doing lately since seeing it in a tutorial. I also added a big crash using the Logic Manchester kit preset at the beginning of most choruses as I felt they needed something more.
For guitar, we needed to ensure it had a clean sound to fit the song so I used the 'Clean Echoes' amp preset and also removed a few of the effects that were added along the way whilst mixing for a more natural sound. I believe this track was the only track where we recorded the drums and guitar together. 'live. We recorded them at the same time with Jack on drums in the studio and Amber on guitar in the recording room where the rest of us sat. I then added automation at the build up of the song and attempted to increase the power of the guitar. I also tried adding the heavenly chorus pedal to the guitar as I felt it suited the idea of the song. I also used automation to build the volume at the beginning of the song intro.
With bass, Morgan recorded it all at home using a DI as he didn't feel well enough to come in. I saw a way of mixing bass that I wanted to try where you duplicate the track and EQ them differently, one track you use a lowcut filter and the other a high pass but give them a bit of a cross fade on where they meet so there's no annoying cuts. On the lower end I added a limiter and messed around to get rid of most of the peaking issues I experienced and then mixed the two tracks individually. I also used a compresser but didn't want to use too much as I've read adding too much can make the bass sound flat and lack the dynamics it needs. I also added a hint of distortion.
For vocals I left them quite raw and did minimal mixing, however, in the last chorus I doubled tracked the vocal line and added an enveloper to that second track to add some attack as I felt the original recording was lacking any dynamics especially towards the end where it's supposed to build.
I tried my best to EQ each track individually whilst making sure they all sounded good in the final mix.
