Mixing: Volume Adjustments and Panning
In my last post, I grouped all of the tracks together and got myself organised. Now that the project is more clear and neat, I'm ready to mix. Essentially I need to ensure that every track gets its own space so that they wouldn't clash. Also for this entire mixing stage, I had a huge help from watching MusicTechHelpGuy's mixing series on YouTube.
Balancing:
First and foremost, I like to start off by making sure that all of the tracks are well balanced. So I started adjusting each of the channel strips individually until a fine equilibrium is achieved.
Panning:
Once I found a balance, its time to pan certain tracks to give it that stereo effect instead of being one dimensional. Generally speaking, tracks such as the lead vocals, bass and the kick drum should always remain at the centre.
1) Drums
For the drums I only panned the Hi-Hat slightly to the left while the rest remained at the centre. There was also a clapping sound that I panned slightly to the right.
2) Strings
For the strings, I basically grouped them into twos. Within the groups, I panned one to about 10 o'clock and the other to about 2 o'clock.
Here's the result of the panning I've done to the strings:
3) Synths
As for the synths, I decided to slightly pan two tracks because these two tracks are essentially playing chords except that one is playing them in quarter notes while the other in whole notes. Therefore I wanted to give them their own space and make things more clear and less muddy.
That's all from me for this post. I'm separating the documentation of the mixing stage into multiple posts as I wouldn't want you to read a long and draggy blog post. In the next post, I'll be touching on EQ, compression and effects. As usual, I would gladly appreciate your feedback, thank you for your time.
Balancing:
First and foremost, I like to start off by making sure that all of the tracks are well balanced. So I started adjusting each of the channel strips individually until a fine equilibrium is achieved.
Panning:
Once I found a balance, its time to pan certain tracks to give it that stereo effect instead of being one dimensional. Generally speaking, tracks such as the lead vocals, bass and the kick drum should always remain at the centre.
1) Drums
For the drums I only panned the Hi-Hat slightly to the left while the rest remained at the centre. There was also a clapping sound that I panned slightly to the right.
Here's how the Hi-Hat and the clap sound like, note that I wouldn't want the panning to be really obvious, it's just a small adjustment that I like to make:
2) Strings
For the strings, I basically grouped them into twos. Within the groups, I panned one to about 10 o'clock and the other to about 2 o'clock.
Here's the result of the panning I've done to the strings:
3) Synths
As for the synths, I decided to slightly pan two tracks because these two tracks are essentially playing chords except that one is playing them in quarter notes while the other in whole notes. Therefore I wanted to give them their own space and make things more clear and less muddy.
That's all from me for this post. I'm separating the documentation of the mixing stage into multiple posts as I wouldn't want you to read a long and draggy blog post. In the next post, I'll be touching on EQ, compression and effects. As usual, I would gladly appreciate your feedback, thank you for your time.
It's hard to hear what's going on in a mix when it's presented so piecemeal. Strings should be together. Better to have them panned to one side and send it to a delay/reverb on the other side. Always consider whether a sound should blend or stand out.
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