Hi Brian, Well, this is, as you can imagine, an incredibly huge question that isn't easy to answer. Nevertheless, I will share some thoughts.
First of all, I now see why you were asking about the Trim plug-in. An old school way of mixing was to bring all faders to unity gain and adjust the trim pots for balances and make fine adjustments from there. At least in Pro Tools, I don't know anybody who mixes that way. I wouldn't worry about unity gain. Personally, I start by framing a static mix where most levels apply for the majority of the song, depending upon the complexity, this works most of the time. The faders usually start roughly half way across the board and I start bringing up certain tracks as I see fit. This process is relatively quick at first. I'm usually 75% there within the first fifteen to twenty minutes. I might spend another fifteen minutes making finer and finer adjustments. When I'm satisfied with the basic relationships, I start automating volume information for most of the audio and instrument tracks. I usually don't automate aux inputs unless they're being used for bussed tracks. I start with a snapshot of the volume and immediately start automating individual track volume automation. I often start with vocal and move onto solo instruments. After volume automation, I might do some pan automation if it calls for it and I usually save effect automation for last. By the time I'm doing effects, I've been working on a mix for roughly two or three hours and I've undoubtedly listened dozens of times. The last things I'm doing involve send mutes, riding send levels, automating a few plug-ins, etc. Mind you, sometimes I take a completely different approach and mix backwards from the chorus. I get it sounding as big as it's going to get in the choruses and then strip away here and there for the verses, bringing the volumes down a bit so they have somewhere to easily go when they need to open up. This applies to effect levels as well. The entire process I've outlined above assumes that I've already gone through each track to make sure there's nothing that needs surgical EQ. I tend to strap compressors across every track even if I don't necessarily need it. I'll bypass or keep threshold levels out of the way until I need them. I mostly mix what I myself have recorded so editing and application of plug-ins happens along the way. By the time I'm getting ready to mix, that stuff is usually prepared. I take two different approaches to printing mixes, depending on the project. Sometimes I sum externally and bring in the summed signal into a stereo audio track right within the session. I keep an eye on the input signal to make sure I'm getting a decent signal level but still relatively conservative as I'm still at full resolution. when mixing in the box, I bring up a master fader to make sure the internal bounce is several dB below full scale. If I'm getting too close, I simply bring down the master fader is they control the output to the hardware rather than output from the hardware, if that makes sense. The point is, if you're clipping your master output, you can simply pull back the master fader for that output and you won't be clipping your master output's signal. With offline bounce, I've been getting lazy and not summing as much so I'm mixing in the box more these days for convenience. I still use the summing for other reasons that have more to do with headphone mixer flexibility and surround mix routing. I'm not sure what else to say. Again, this is an enormously complex subject and books have been written about it with many viable approaches. Hopefully, the above helps a bit. Make sure to take everything with a grain of salt, discard it, flip it upside down and make it your own. Slau On May 12, 2015, at 2:40 PM, Brian Howerton <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello all, > Okay, this might sound like a really stupid question, so my apologies right > up front. Does anyone have any tips for getting used to mixing with a > control surface? Coming to pro tools from Sonar, in Sonar, I would mix > totally in the box and use the keyboard to mix my volume adjustments, but I > wanted to do the control surface route in pro tools. With my control surface > which is the BCF2000, there is no indention on the fader to let me know that > I am at unity gain, so just am curious to hear some tips for getting used to > mixing with a control surface. When I was trying to set volumes yesterday, I > noticed that my volumes were like +3 and up sometimes. Just trying to get > used to the whole concept of mixing with a control surface. Thanks for any > help or tips, > Brian > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Pro Tools Accessibility" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Pro Tools Accessibility" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
