A Year Later: Lessons Learned – The Mix

So its been approximately a year since I’ve delved into the sampling/looping world – it was about this time last year that I picked up Ableton Live and Reason. I must say, having those elements in a live situation has really contributed to our sound in a very positive way.

But, over the past year or so, I have learned a lot of practical lessons when it comes to live sampling and looping…

The first major lesson I wanted to address is what I would call The Mix.

Very early on in this whole thing, my attitude towards sampling and sequencing was “well, more sounds/instruments are better than fewer…”. And while I think that this is partially true (with so many instruments available, you can have a killer arrangement), its also a very dangerous way of thinking. The problem with this is that you run the danger of creating a messy sound. So, I begun to think of all of it from a sonic soundpoint – considering the overall mix.

So, up until the point that we started throwing in sampled elements into the mix, we were running the typical setup – 2 electric guitars, a bassist and a drummer. After much trial and error (you should have heard some of the loops we used…haha…), we began to find out that, for one reason or another, some loops sounded great, while others sounded terrible. When things really started making sense was when I (and the rest of us) began to write loops and integrate elements from a mixing standpoint. Maybe this will help (click on the picture to see it in its entirety).

So, if you look at this chart, you can pick out the instruments that you’d typically find in a rock-band setup. For example, if you look at “guitar”, you’ll notice that its fundamental notes fall between 82hz and 1.2khz, with its fullness between 240hz and 500hz. So, to create a clean, “open” sounding mix, you want to avoid throwing in instruments that fall in the same range as the guitar parts that you are playing at that point; you don’t want to have instruments “stepping on” each other. To clarify, its worth noting that it is fine for some overlap, but too much will cause general lack of clarity in that range.

So, the thought process would go a little like this..
– In the verse (for instance), what will the other instruments be playing?
– What frequencies are they going to be occupying?
– Based on that information, what kind of instrument/part would sound good in the available frequency range?

So, for example, lets say you’ve got this setup for a verse of a song
– One guitarist playing higher notes (let say in the 1khz range)
– The bassist and drummer holding down a pocket beat (mostly occupying ranges below 100hz for the low-end, and above 3khz for the cymbals)
– The vocalist singing a mid-to-low range vocal line (while voices are very different, most of the clarity and articulation in the voice is above 1khz).

So, we see that we’ve got some space for further instrumentation in the mid-range. So, that would be a starting point. I realize that this is an over-simplification, but it doesn’t have to be extremely precise – its this mindset and approach that make all the difference.

Typically, I find that as a rule of thumb, the verses allow for more intricate sequences/loops, while its good to keep things simple in the choruses.

This approach takes a lot of time to develop, and I’m just beginning to wrap my mind around it. But, with as little experience as I have with this approach, it has made all of the difference in the world in creating a clean, articulate mix. Additionally, front-of-house engineers will love you – if your entire band takes this approach, you make the job of any FOH engineer that much easier.

This approach takes maturity as well, especially if you’ve got a live keyboardist or someone who is doing live sampling. It is boring to sit there and lay down a simple pad when you know that you could do so much more – but, you’ve got to learn that the overall mix is so much more important than any individual putting on their own little show (“Hey! Look what I can do!”). Learn to make sacrifices for the sake of the mix!

Alright…hope that was clear (because I feel like I just vomited all of those words out).

Anyone have any comments? Have you taken this approach? Has it helped? Do you disagree?
Let me know!

~ by mattjhuber on April 17, 2008.