TASK 3: Mixing and mastering

Mixing

Organisation

As a means of organising my project, I created track stacks, allowing me to group my drums, guitar and vocals into their own individual stacks, as seen in the image.

Levelling

As to level my track, I used the 'Priority method', in which I turned every track to its lowest possible volume (negative infinity), as seen in the image, and selecting the most important track (vocals in this case) and raising it to around -3.0 dB (as not to make the track peak). I then selected the next most important and made it a lower volume than the other, this continuing until everything has a level. I then went back and adjusted the volumes as some tracks had more gain than others, which made it so a less prioritized track was louder than a higher prioritized one, so by fixing this i created a level sound which i was happy with.

Flex Time Drum Fix

When first listening to this track, there was a drum hit which was significantly off time, so in order to fix this, I grouped all of the drum tracks together (meaning anything done to one track would apply to all that are grouped) and turned on flex, opening a view like what you see in the image, I then found the drum beat which was off time and moved its transient on the beat, making sure to use smart snap to get a exact placement on the beat.

EQ

Image of all my EQ's

To show my use of EQ better, I have selected two tracks which I will explain the use of EQ on.

For the kick EQ, I boosted frequencies at around 1k Hz, as to give it more punch, and I removed the brilliance to give it a more contained sound with less airiness.

For the EQ of the vocals, I was sure to add brilliance to add air and space to the vocals. I also boosted the frequencies I liked at around 4k, using a wide bell as I like the sound of the frequencies around it too, however the sound at around 1500 Hz sounded unpleasant, so I cut it quite aggressively. I also cut a lot of the lower frequencies as I thought it sounded good and decided to boost the resonance at the cut off point to give clarity to the lowest frequency of the vocals.

Compression

To show my use of compression, I have bounced out the vocal track to show a before and after of the compressor. I fist started out by selecting the Opto compressor as it isn't as agressive as others and is quite airy, making it good for vocals. I then set a threshold so that the peaks of the track were reduced in volume, however I was sure not to do this too aggressively as the peaks in the track added a lot of character to the vocals, so I made it so the peaks stayed it, but were less loud. I also used a fast attack time as to reduce the volume quickly and I used a slower release time as to create a more level sound. I then ensured that I used makeup gain and output gain to rise the track back to its original volume.

Mastering

EQ

When Eqing, I found this a struggle, so I decided to utelise the mastering plug-in in logic to see where I needed to adjust the EQ, however I didnt just work off this as if there was something that sounded off, I would do what I thought sounded better, boosting some of the low frequencies and reducing the low mid and mid and the highs to create a more level frequency range.

I also used some linear Phase EQ to try and make it more of a stereo eperience when listening to, making it so that the left and right had less high end, making it feel more spaced out, however I didnt cut too much as it would have made it sound very thin in the middle.

Compression

When First trying to compress this, I tried using the Multiband compressor within Logic, as last year on the Btec course we were taught to use this as it allowed us to target Specific frequencies that needed compression. However, I couldn't really remember how to use this so I decided not to and use the standard compressor as I was more comfortable with this, only slightly compressing it down as not to remove to much expression, setting a low ratio and a high threshold to slightly reduce the peaks and using a fast attack and release to not over compress.

Limiting

When limiting my track, I found how quiet it actually was, having to boost this by 7dBs. I found when I got to this stage though that it was fairly level. I set a lookahead to 6ms so that there wasn't any unnecessary peaks. I also made sure the input wasn't to loud as not to distort the track and making sure that my output sat at around 0 dB at its peaks.

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