How to prepare
I
get this question most often from my students and starters who wants to mix a song faster to deliver for their clients. Well, there is no way you can mix a song within 10 minutes! Well, a rough mix? Yes, but not the Final mix. Always take time to analyse the song first and get what the singer is trying to convey on this song. Also talk to those who arranged the music and try to understand what they want and not what we want! We are just there to craft their song and polish their mixes so that its well received by the public audience. Most of sessions which comes from various DAW’ s are not well organised when we receive it for mixing. We cannot blame the programmer or the producer for this. We have to find a solution so that we can work efficiently during our entire mix session. Below are the tips which will help you to work faster on a mixing the project faster.
Prior to mixing, all the tracks should be edited and the clean up of unwanted sounds should be removed in your session. Insert your markers according to the song and keep them ready for the mix engineer and also get the tempo and meter from your programmer. This was it helps you to assign time based effects.
Preparing your DAW SessionTemplate
1. First identify the type of file ie. the audio resolution of the file wether its 44.1KHz or 48KHz and the bit rate is 24- bit or 16-bit. Now set your session to the same bit rate and resolution.
2. Have a template set in your DAW for the Drums, Bass, Guitars and name the tracks and keep it organised.
3. Now colour code the tracks so that larger track counts are visible for the eyes and easy to mix.
4. Set the High pass filter were ever needed. And also insert the Compressor were ever needed in your session.
5. Assign the Aux sends and returns for Effects buss and insert your favourite Reverb and Delay plugins in your buss.
6. Also create group buss for Vocals, Guitars, Drums, Synth and pads etc. This helps you to quickly adjust the overall levels in your final mix.
7. Keep your favourite Master chain of plugins ready and insert them into your Master buss Fader.
8. Also do insert your Peak Metering plugin in your Master Fader.
The Score Magazine
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