The Evolution of Mixing, Listening Examples, The 6 Elements of a Mix, Balance, Frequency Range, Panorama, Dynamics, Dimension, Interest

1. Mixing
Mixing Fundamentals
And a Brief History of Multitrack Recording
sdjones3@glam.ac.uk
www.stuartjones.org

2. Mixing
Mixing Fundamentals
And a Brief History of Multitrack Recording
The Evolution of Mixing
Bing Crosby
Les Paul
Listening Examples:
The Beatles ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’
The 6 Elements of a Mix
1. Balance
2. Frequency Range
3. Panorama
4. Dynamics
5. Dimension
6. Interest

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The Evolution of Mixing

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The Evolution of Mixing
A recording set up from the 1890

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The Evolution of Mixing
Bing Crosby was an early pioneer of magnetic tape recording in the USA

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• Crosby was America's most successful recording act of the 1930s, and again in the 1940s.
• He used his considerable professional and financial power to innovate new methods of reproducing
audio of his performances.
• Murdo MacKenzie of Bing Crosby Enterprises had seen a demonstration of the German
Magnetophon in June 1947—the same device that Jack Mullin, a pioneer in the field of magnetic
tape recording in the US, had brought back from Radio Frankfurt, along with 50 reels of tape, at the
end of the war.
The Evolution of Mixing

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The Evolution of Mixing
• Crosby hires Mullin to start recording his Philco Radio Time show on his German-made
machine in August 1947.
• Crosby invested US$50,000 in Ampex with an eye towards producing more machines. In 1948,
the second season of Philco shows was taped with the new Ampex Model 200 tape recorder
using the new Scotch 111 tape from the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M) company.

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The Evolution of Mixing
AMPEX Model 200A

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The Evolution of Mixing
Les Paul
Session guitarist, Songwriter and Inventor

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The Evolution of Mixing
• Paul had never been happy with the way his records sounded.
• During a post-recording session talk, Bing Crosby suggested Paul try building his own recording
studio so he might be able to get the sound he wanted.
• Paul reinvents the Ampex 200 from two track to three track so he could overdub.
• Paul continued to develop this technology by commissioning Ampex to build the first 8-track
(multitrack) tape recorder.
• His design became known as "Sel-Sync" (Selective Synchronization), the core technology behind
multitrack recording.
Les Paul

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The Evolution of Mixing
Les Paul
• Paul’s three track machine proved extremely useful in popular music recording (two tracks for
backing track and one track for vocal overdub).
• Early Motown records were recorded on three tracks.
• However, four track soon became the standard in the mid-late 60’s

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The Evolution of Mixing
4-track
• The 4 track machine allowed for greater complexity.
• Multiple tracks were recorded onto one 4-track machine and then mixed together and
transferred to one track of a second 4-track machine.
• it was possible to record literally dozens of separate tracks and combine them into
finished recordings
• Engineers at the time became became particularly adept at a technique called
‘bouncing down’ also known as a ‘reduction mix’.
• Decisions as to volume levels, blending sounds, reverb settings etc would need to be
made during the recording process (i.e mixing being part of the recording process).

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Listening Example : The Beatles

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With A Little Help From My Friends
Taken From ‘St. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’ - The Beatles
Track 1 - D.I Bass/Tambourine
Track 2 - Drums/Keys/Rhythm Gtr/Cow Bell
Track 3 - Backing Vocals/Lead Vocal
Track 4 - Backing Vocals/Gtr Fill
Recorded over three days from Wed 29th March - Friday 31st March 1967

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With A Little Help From My Friends
Taken From ‘St. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’ - The Beatles
Track 2 - Drums/Keys/Rhythm Gtr/Cow Bell
Paul played piano, George lead guitar, Ringo drums and John cowbell. Ten takes were made using this basic rhythm
line-up, the tenth being best. This was then converted into take 11 by a reduction mix which saw all four tracks from
the first tape merge into one.

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With A Little Help From My Friends
Taken From ‘St. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’ - The Beatles
Track 3 -Lead Vocal/Intro Vocals
‘Billy Shears’ bit added at a later date

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With A Little Help From My Friends
Taken From ‘St. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’ - The Beatles
Track 4 - Intro Organ/Backing Vocals/Gtr Fill

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With A Little Help From My Friends
Taken From ‘St. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’ - The Beatles
Track 1 - Intro Drums/D.I Bass/Tambourine

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With A Little Help From My Friends
Taken From ‘St. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’ - The Beatles
Track 1 - Intro Drums/D.I Bass/Tambourine
Track 2 - Drums/Keys/Rhythm Gtr/Cow Bell
Track 3 - Backing Vocals/Lead Vocal
Track 4 - Intro Organ/Backing Vocals/Gtr Fill

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From these beginnings, multitrack recording evolved in subsequent
decades into a mainstream recording technique.
‘Ever since we have been able to record instruments onto their own tracks and overdub new
material onto existing recordings, we have then had to re-balance them for the final piece of
music’.
Alan Parsons

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Kick Sn Hats Tom Tom
Over
L
Over
R
Bass
Mic
Bass
D.I
Rhy
Gtr
Rhy
Gtr
Lead
Gtr
Lead
Gtr
Lead
Vox
Lead
Vox
Chor
Vox
Chor
Vox
Cow
Bell
Today, we tend to mix after the recording is complete

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Different engineers have their own procedures to follow when developing a mix.

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The 6 Elements of a Mix

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The 6 Elements of a Mix
In his book, ‘The Mix Engineers Handbook’, Bob Owsinski describes the 6 elements of a
mix as:
1. Balance - the volume level relationship between musical elements
2. Frequency Range - having all frequencies properly represented
3. Panorama - placing musical elements in the soundfield
4. Dynamics - controlling the volume envelopes of a track or instrument
5. Dimension - adding ambience to a musical element
6. Interest - making the mix special

25. Mixing
1. Balance

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Balance
Level Balance
• If the arrangement has been structured with the final production in mind, the final mix will be
much easier.
• Good balance begins with a good arrangement.
• The arrangement will fit together better if all the instruments sit in their own frequency range.
• Too many instruments playing at once will make the mixing process much harder.
• Correct recording levels are also important here as one sound might not get a fair chance in the
mix if it has been recorded at a low level.

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2. Panorama

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Panorama
• Movement of a sound from between the stereo image during a mix can create an
interesting dynamic.
• Possibilities range from short, minuscule moves to wide, sweeping moves that span the
entire stereo spectrum (Gibson: The Art of Mixing)

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Stereo Image Balance
Example - Typical Panning
Left Centre Right
Lead Vocal
Bass Drum, Snare and Bass Guitar
Lead Guitar
Rhythm Guitar
Drum Kit; Toms & Cymbals
Keyboards
Backing Vocals
Main Reverb
Panorama

30. Panorama
Stereo Image Balance
Example - Typical Panning
• Any sound panned to the centre will become louder in mono while those panned hard left or
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right become quieter when the stereo mix is collapsed to mono.
• A sound positioned exactly mid-left (or mid right) will not suffer from the mono/stereo
translation problems.
• Therefore, be careful when panning hard left/right.

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Frequency Range
The 10 Octaves of the Musical Spectrum

32. 20480
Octave 10 : Extreme highs, air, hiss, sizzle. Little musical content.
10240
Octave 9 : Highs, treble, brightness, sibilance.
5120
Octave 8 : Presence. Primary recognition range for voice. Critical musical and vocal range.
2560
Octave 7 : Upper mid range. Major range of harmonic content.
1280
Octave 6 : Mid-range. Highest fundamental pitches. Beginning of upper harmonics.
640
Octave 5 : Lower mid range. Body and richness of sound.
320
Octave 4 : The so-called ‘mud range’. Transition octave between bass and mid range.
160
Octave 3 : Upper Bass. Bass and lower elements of drum kit fundamental here.
80
Octave 2 : Lower Bass. Low C octave. Bottom of musical pitches.
40
Octave 1 : Bottom End. Little Musical content. Some speakers will not play back these frequencies.
20
16kHz
8kHz
4kHz
2kHz
(high C - 1040)
1kHz
500
(middle C - 260)
250
125
62
31
deep bass
range of musical fundamentals
range of musical harmonics
(low C - 65)
HF
HMF
LMF
LF

33. • Our audible frequency range is 20 Hz to 20 kHz (20 000 Hz)
• The most basic division of the frequency spectrum in mixing jargon entails four bands: lows, low-mids, high-mids
and highs. This division originates from the common four-band equalisers found on many analog desks.
• Primarily, EQ is used to try to improve the tone, richness, and general subjective appeal of each of the
instruments in their production.
• However, a much more crucial task is to achieve a stable balance across the frequency spectrum.
• The most common problems with frequency balance involve the extremes. A mix is boomy if there is an
excess of low-frequency content, and thin if there is a deficiency. A mix is dull if there are not enough highs,
and brittle if there are too many.
• low frequencies are usually the hardest to stabilise and it is always worth paying attention to this range when
comparing a mix on different playback systems.
• As a general rule of thumb, we cut if we are trying to make things sound better and boost when we are trying
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to make things sound different.
Frequency Range

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4. Dynamics
Compression and Gating

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Dynamics
Dynamic Control
• Dynamics are controlled by the use of compression, limiting and gating.
• All dynamics processors use a gain-controlling device to alter the dynamics of the input
signal.
• The gain controller (input signal) can also be controlled by a circuit which looks at the signal
and decides how much to reduce its gain. This control circuit is known generically as the
'side-chain'.

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5. Dimension

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Dimension
Reverb and Effects Guidelines
Bass Drum/Bass
Guitar
A good bass sound will cement the mix to the floor. However, the right reverb might help your mix to 'float'. Keep the reverb
time short and filter high frequencies.
Snare Drum Depending on what you are doing but, as a rule of thumb, the reverb tail on one snare hit should finish before the next.
Overheads Overheads act as ambient mics and therefore should require no reverb.
Guitar The electric guitar is often associated with a spring reverb but it's worth experimenting with different reverb types and delays.
Organ Use distortion for a lo-fi effect. Use a Leslie or automated pan effect for stereo.
Brass Slow attack on reverb to allow the natural attack of the instrument to come through (esp. on Sax)
Vocals
ADT (Artificial Double Tracking) - A common vocal effects that uses a short delay of around 30-60ms.
Worth experimenting with both reverb and delay. Try a chorus effect on backing vocals Experimentation is the key.

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6. Interest

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6. Interest
Making the Mix Special
• Automation - Automation or gain riding can make a mix ‘move’
• Mute - The most underrated mix tool. If a sound is ‘fighting’ to be hear in the
mix, try muting it or muting another sound in that frequency range
• Momentum - Build the mix throughout the song
• Master Fader - Automating the master fader up slightly during chorus’ can
make the chorus sound bigger

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References
Books
• Izhaki, Roey., ‘Mixing Audio Concepts, Practices and Tools’. Elsevier, 2008, US
• Owsinski, Bobby., ‘The Mixing Engineers Handbook’. Mix Books, 1999, US
• Senior, Mike., ‘Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio’. Elsevier, 2011, US
Web
• Ross Snyder interviewed by Howard Sanner about the history of Les Paul's eight track Ampex 300 and Sel-Sync, 11 Mar
2000
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetophon
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitrack_recording
• http://recordist.com/ampex/docs/histapx/ampchrn.txt
• Lewisohn, Mark (1988). The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (First Hardback ed.). EMI. ISBN 978-0600612070
• http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/company.histories/ampex/ampex_history_project.html
• Hearing: An Introduction to Psychological and Physiological Acoustics, Fourth Edition Stanley A. Gelfand
• http://www.stuartjones.org/category/mixing/
• http://www.one-nil.com/Compressors.pdf

41. Mixing
Mixing Fundamentals
And a Brief History of Multitrack Recording
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