Originally Posted By: bluage
Hello, folks...

A BIAB user named Floyd Jane directed me to this forum to seek input, feedback, advice, what-have-you, on the posted subject, "Mixing and panning", based on his response to my request for help concerning those two particular production elements as they are heard in my song, "How Do You Know (When Someone Loves You?)".

Here is the link to the webpage the song was posted onto:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=1321235&content=music.

I was not entirely satisfied with the mix I created that involved a vocal track and the following instruments: acoustic bass, drums, piano, slow strings, tremolo strings, and a steel guitar, all of them virtual instruments.

Simply put, I experienced some frustration attempting to get the instruments' volumes high enough without "clipping", or losing volume because of subsequent volume corrections I made. Panning seemed to complicate things because it seemed that steering the instruments right or left caused them to lose something -- body, or fullness, is the only way I could describe it -- so that, to my ears, ultimately, everything seemed to be clashing. What I mean is, I felt that none of the instruments were truly "balanced" in relation to the other.

Mr. Jane suggested that I indicate the DAW I used, which is Cakewalk Sonar. I'm grateful to him for his well-considered feedback, and I would be equally grateful to anyone who feels like pitching in their "two cents."

Thank you for reading this!

Most sincerely and respectfully,

"bluage"


Here is some imput/advice from an graduate of music/audio school:

1. Ask yourself what are the most important parts of the song? What parts really need to stand out in the mix, and what parts do you feel that the listen could get by with out really hearing up front and in the spotlight. Listening to the song, I can already tell that the center focus of the song is the singer, with a second focus on the sax solo twoards the end. I do understand that you want every instrument and part to be heard loud and clear but with all the instruments coming loud, what am I really supoose to be listening for?

2. Lower the levels on the tracks- Some DAWs have the option to lower the gain levels on the audio tracks to avoid clipping.

3. Lower the master fader- If you are not able to lower the individual audio trakc gain levels, then lower the master fader volume before rendering the mix

4. Retry panning certin instruments- When your panning an instrument in a DAW, all your doing is your change the placement of where the sound source is coming from within the stereo image which is controled by a pan potentiometer. In the old day before the pan pot, you had the option of either having a track be hard left (9 o'clock), hard center (12 o'clock), or hard right (3 o'clock). Now a days, you can adjust the pan pots as wide or narrow as you want. A nice trick for this is to take a stereo piano track, and only pan one side. It willl give you this effect as if the piano is coming from one speaker when it is actually coming from both speakers. I know panning things can make tacks sound out of place at first, but after a while, you'll start to find that not ever track need to be dead center.

5. Try compression- I don't recommend this when first starting to learn to mix, but if use properly, a little bit of compression can go a long way.

Computer: Macbook Pro, 16 inch 2021
DAWs: Pro Tools, Logic, and Maschine
plays drums, percussion, bass, steel pan, keyboard,
music producer/engineer