SR 15 - Mixing
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[00:00:00] Brino: The difference when you add plugins on your mix was much more noticeable. Plugins do something when you are mixing in the box rid of that space. And just everything sounds a little bit more brittle and not as open.
[00:00:15] Jon Con: Welcome back to another episode of the Session Record podcast.
[00:00:18] Brino: Hello, Jon. Hello everyone.
[00:00:20] Yep. Nice teacher. Na. Yes. That's the Flip Flop records one sent to me by Scott Milligan. I might mention that last week in last week's podcast in the perfect angle as well. Yeah, I try to set it up exactly the same. I mean, I've probably got slightly more beard now than I did last week, but yeah, I tried to make it look exactly the same as last week, John.
[00:00:38] Yeah, I
[00:00:38] Jon Con: know. It was really important, especially on Spotify where you can't actually see what you look like. But if you did wanna watch a podcast on YouTube, you can find us at session. Yeah.
[00:00:46] Brino: I've, I have watched the t-shirts be washed, you know, I haven't worn it all week, just. Yeah, so what we talking about then, Jonathan,
[00:00:52] Jon Con: today what we wanna talk about is following on, I suppose a little bit from last week when we were talking about producing and producers.
[00:00:58] Mm-hmm. , one of the things we're thinking about is really like about mixing and I suppose like the approach that you kind of take for mixing or approach that we have for mixing when it comes to mixing jacks ourselves, mixing productions or when people send us stuff and what thing, what we can kind of look at.
[00:01:13] I mean the most out of that,
[00:01:14] Brino: As with everything, different approaches, different artists. So if, if it's something I've recorded, then generally as I'm recording, I'm kind of building the mix, building the album, getting it to. kind of how I've got it in my head and how the band wants it as we go, as as kind of much as you can.
[00:01:31] So I'm tweaking it. I'm building effects in and maybe setting up how I would want it for mixing as we're recording. Cuz then maybe you've gotta mix two songs a day because of budgets or whatever. So you, you can't do all that stuff if you're mixing two songs a day cuz you're eating up into so much. If you mix time.
[00:01:48] But the beauty is if, if you've recorded it and it gets sent to me to mix, or if I'm recording it and I'm mixing it is, I know it's gonna be well recorded, well labeled, everything's gonna be laid out, and it's virtually gonna be ready to start mixing on. And it'll already have some elements of the mix on it, which you'd put on or I'd put on.
[00:02:05] So then you're just basically, Building it. How do you make it pop out where it needs to pop out? What's kind of wrong with it? What's, is it muddy here or there? Or is it, does it need elements brought out and you're not spending loads of time comping vocals or fixing people's edits? Cuz the amount of stuff I get sent where they haven't done any cross fades on anything just really pisses me off because you spend a couple of hours fixing people's bad edits, tuning vocals com, you know, comping stuff, and then you haven't got any time to.
[00:02:33] So if we've done it, then you know, it's kind of ready and then I won't strip that back, you know, if I think the song's sounding good. And that's what those effects are on there for a reason, because they're integral to the song. That's why I try and record a lot of that stuff. If a, if a guitar is go, gonna have a big echo on it or whatever, or slap delay, then you know, we've got, we've got analog effects that we can record and record.
[00:02:55] So that we don't have to recreate afterwards, it's integral to the track, then it should be on there. So I wouldn't strip that back and look at maybe sometimes if it's a plugin, the delay's not working or something. So I might switch it out for something else. But I would tend to, that would be my starting point of the mix.
[00:03:08] And then I would move stuff around from that. If I think the drums turn's not working, I might go into that. If I'm gonna add some samples or do whatever. When I get something I haven't recorded, so I maybe aren't as familiar with, obviously wouldn't be as familiar with the ins and outs of the track and all the elements to it, then the first thing I'll do is try and get the mix up.
[00:03:29] Everything up as quickly as possible. So a quick tweak, a quick balance, a quick look at stuff, get it all up so I can hear all the elements, and start to hear what's making it work, what's driving the track? Is the bass driving it? Is the drums driving? Is the guitars? What kind of frequencies are going on between all the instruments?
[00:03:45] So what am I gonna need to do technically to this and get it up really quick? I've seen other engineers, mixed engineers, Producers who will, so the kick drum work on a kick drum. Solar the snare, work on the snare. So are the Tom solar, the overhead, and get all these great sounds individually. Then move onto to the bass, then move on to the guitars.
[00:04:01] But you're not hearing how they're working together then. Yeah, a whole, and then, you know, and they start building it up with plugins and there's plugins and this plug-ins and plugins. And then you go, you've lost so much like head room and so much of. What the actual song is about that sometimes you've said, strip all that off and you go, oh, actually it sounds really good about any of this.
[00:04:23] You think you're improving it by adding this loads of like chains and stuff, and all of a sudden you haven't improved anything and it's a mess. Yeah. So I don't like to solo stuff, individual work on individual instruments. I like to get everything up. So the song, so I'm hearing the song and hearing all the elements really early on.
[00:04:41] And actually when I mix an album, I won't finish a song. So I'll do that to each song. So maybe I'll do three or four in a day where I get it all up and I'll start to build the drum sound, start to. Hear what I like about that and add things onto that. So me cue on things and hearing what's going on, some vocal effects, get the track, then move on.
[00:05:01] So I might do three or four in a day, then the next three or four, and then after three days, I've kind of got the whole album mixed to a point where it would probably be like that if I had recorded it or you know, where, where the stage I'd be at at the end of production. And then I'll go. To song one, cuz you've learned so much about the album and so much about all the elements and the guitar sounds and the drum sounds, and you might find things along the way that work and then you go back and apply that to the first one.
[00:05:28] But you've started to build up a really big picture of the album, a really good feel for what's actually going on there. And then I'll go back and I'll finish 'em off. So I'll go back and I know, right? I can do. Two or three of these in a day now, because they only need a couple of hours each, two or three hours each.
[00:05:44] And then I might go in, you know, tweak the drum sound and like the drum sound needs to be heavier or the drum sound needs to be more aggressive or whatever. And then mess with some effects and make sure the song's working as it should do. And then, you know, the album, you know what's to come, you know, all the other songs then, because you've got them all up to a point.
[00:05:59] And then I'll go through and that's just, that's just my, my way of working. You know, when I mix it, I just find it. Difficult to just approach on an album, just one song at a time. If you don't know the album, if you haven't recorded it, that's a good way of
[00:06:13] Jon Con: doing it. Would you, would, you know, even mixing the albums that you've recorded yourself, would you do the same kind of thing?
[00:06:18] Would you, would you still like batch and go through each one and then come back? Or is it more because you've kind of had like a much longer time?
[00:06:26] Brino: Yeah, I, I'm working. Then I, I, I don't necessarily need to do that, you know, and, and a lot of, the, lot of the stuff, the technical things I would've addressed during the production thing.
[00:06:36] Mm-hmm. . So we're kind of almost there with the drum sound. And then there might be some things where I might not, you know, switch out some plugins and use like an outboard compressor or chain or something or run it through something and record it back in or some outboard effects or whatever. But essentially, then it always ends up in the box.
[00:06:54] But I might have recorded. Analog stuff and outboard back in, but I'm mixing in the box even though we've got desks and things because you need to do so many mix changes and tweak things and do things later on and down the line and the instrumentals and all these different things. Just mixing the box makes that so much easier for people to come back to you.
[00:07:12] just because of the time and time is money. All the mix changes you end up doing. If you have to recall every mix and put it through an analog desk and set up all the outboard, it would just be a headache. Now on the time that we've got, I mean we used to have to do that. That's what we used to do. Yeah. I, I kind of enjoy mixing stuff, have recorded cause I know what I'm getting and I know.
[00:07:31] What I need, what I need to do and what's needs to be done. And I'd have done all the editing and comp in, you know what I'm, like I say to all the assistants that come in, I don't want to be left with a load of edits at the at anyway. Yeah. So I'm always, when I'm recorded, I'm always editing and that little point where we've gotta take, instead of just chatting, I'm busy just editing, getting those cross fades done, getting those edits done and moving on.
[00:07:50] I never like to leave myself a ton of editing to do at, at the end of a
[00:07:53] Jon Con: session. It's the thing is that the cross phase is the ones that always end up like taking loads of time. Yeah. I remember coming on a session and just like walking into a mix and it. I, I spent an hour on each song just in, just go and literally, like I had to take tabs transient off and just do tab across each thing to cross
[00:08:08] Brino: fade.
[00:08:08] Yeah. It's a nightmare. And we get stuff sent all the time, like the big end, like mix engineers have a. They'll have a list of, of how the mix needs to be presented to them. And you have to stick to that. And if you don't, they won't touch the mix until it's like it, you know someone, is it FRAs? Mike Frazier?
[00:08:24] Yeah, Mike Fraser. So his, so he, you know, he likes to have his, like, it just come off a 24 track tape or 48. He mixes 48 outputs onto his s ssl, like it's two tape machines. So you have no, you have no regions, no edits. You consolidate everyth. You take all your plugins off, but if the plugin's integral, you need to put it, you need to record it back in.
[00:08:45] You can can only come out of 48. It can only be 48 tracks, only 48 outputs. If you've got loads of backing vocals, do a bounce because it has to come out of only so many. Everything has to be split on its own tracks. You've gotta get it down, do the bounce, but you can leave him in there. Cause if he feels like he needs to go in and rebalance stuff, he can.
[00:09:02] But do the bounce. Bounce. Or your acoustics. Bounce. Or cuz he might have hundreds of tracks, you've gotta get down to 48. and no edits to do so. He's just mixing, you know, he's not, he's not editing and fixing your things. And we get, you know, we get a lot of the time you asked, get asked to mix something and you've got two songs a day, which is essentially five hours a mix.
[00:09:20] You know, they, then you get it and they go, oh, by the way, there's still some, we comp the vocals. Maybe that's something you could do. Or the vocals need tuning. Can we have a quarter? A quarter delay on this guitar here. We really feel it needs to do this and it needs to do that. There's some other takes if you prefer the solo and all that, and it's like that's just eaten up three hours of your mix time.
[00:09:40] It goes
[00:09:40] Jon Con: back to like last episode where we were talking
[00:09:42] Brino: about making decisions. Yeah. And now it's three hours of your mix time gone. So now you've got two hours to mix a song and we're not Jesus. You know, we can't do miracles. So it's, it's like it's a two hour mix regardless of how good equipment we've got and how good we are at doing it.
[00:09:57] It's a two hour mix. And then they'll say, oh, well on my demo mix, you know, my, my scenario, my drum sound, I preferred work that I had that on the, on the demo mix. And I was like, how long do you spend on that? About a month? And I'm like, right. So you had a month to get up. Right. And we got two hours. Yeah, because we've been busy doing production stuff, which, and then you got.
[00:10:16] Realms of, right. So am I gonna charge for this? The editing and the comp? And the fixing, and then charge for the mix because you're doing production work, you're not mixing, you're doing, you're doing production and engineering, so it's always a battle. So you'd like to get them to send you something that's ready to mix.
[00:10:33] Otherwise, you have to factor in the extra time for the comping, for the vocal tuning, and you can't possibly then do two mixes in a day. and that, so that needs to be factored in. So you need to stop at the beginning, stop before you even go ahead and say, right, all this needs sort in. It's gonna take me two days.
[00:10:49] So I need to add two days onto the mix time. That's how long it's gonna take me to do all this editing in production. And then you mentioned about obviously, like
[00:10:55] Jon Con: Mixing in the box. Do you, do you notice a difference? Like do you miss mixing up hardware or like, Do you? Do you?
[00:11:02] Brino: Yeah, but plug into real plug into really good.
[00:11:04] Oh yes. We do use some hardware. Obviously when we were tracking we use hardware. But the thing is, when you, when someone like Rockfield and you're going through those old Mike pre with great mics and you're getting all that kind of graininess and loves from driving the PR and all that, and it's gone through outboard 1176 s and smart compressors and all that, then you don't need, really need that again in the mix process because it's gone through all that analog lovingness.
[00:11:28] It's got all that stuff there. You know that's using plugins. You don't need to redo it. You don't need to add another 1176 compressor on your base if you've recorded your base through an actual 1176, driven through some nice BBC mic breeze or something. So there's this tendency from people to put stuff on straight away because it's what they do.
[00:11:47] That's, that's a vocal. Therefore, it needs, this was used to work with some producers and. A guy called Bob Rose used to tell me, he asked me to set up a VO in the vocals for him, and I would put the mic up, and then I was busy plugging in a chain for him, like the VQ and the 1176, and he was like, we don't need that yet.
[00:12:03] He says, I never ever put it on until I've listened to what they're, what they're doing. What does the singer even need it? Are there dynamics already Exactly what we need? Is this needed at all? You know, do you need it? Is it gonna color it? And then add it in if you need it. Don't start at that. Where you've got it going through all that, because you don't know if you're gonna need, you don't necessarily need that.
[00:12:24] But in the box, I mean, we've got, we're, we are lucky we can, we can come out for our Neve summer mixer or our ther culture summer mixer. So you're kind of in the box, but then you're bringing it out of a nice. Analog, some in mixer. So you're getting a bit more of that space and that kind of sound that you get from the Neve or the ther.
[00:12:43] So I like that on the, on the back end of the mix really. I think it, it adds something, especially you've got like the air function and a bit of width or whatever. If you need it, you can end up checking too much, too much onto. Each channel and there's not actually anything wrong with it in the first place.
[00:12:59] And the same when you're recording it, you don't necessarily need to have all that going on. Yeah,
[00:13:04] Jon Con: I think, I think sometimes, like I remember when like the mixing stuff, like I had a habit of like just putting the stuff on for the sake of it. So when I was recording before I started working me, it was just like I was just, all I had was some mic press.
[00:13:15] Didn't have any out body queue or compression. I thought everybody needed it. Mm-hmm. So when it came to mixing, everything had like the universal audio tape machine, the 800. Yeah. And then it had the waves non-line semial and, and last wherever it is or the virtual summing mix, whatever they call it.
[00:13:30] The virtual console collection. Yeah. It's going through that. Then going through 90, like a zaki queue and 1176. Cause I thought that's what I needed to do in it. So it was like hundreds and hundreds of EQs and stuff across the entire track. And then like you take it all off and go. Sounds a lot
[00:13:42] Brino: better.
[00:13:43] Yeah, I know. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you sometimes you just can't quite get this to sound right and sometimes you just go back to. Like take everything off, just bypass everything for a bit and listen to what was actually going on. You're going, well, that's not the best drum sound in the world, but with everything else on top of it, which has been produced around that drum sound, it actually sounds better.
[00:14:04] It fits. Even though if you sold the drums, you think, oh, that could do with that. But it just fits sometimes. And you've spent all that time trying to get this drum sound, you think is a great drum sound. And then it's not really, it's not really happens, you know? And then for mixing, do you. Is, it
[00:14:17] Jon Con: always is like a formula.
[00:14:18] Do you like take it every song at a time? Do you ever do anything like left
[00:14:21] Brino: field? Yeah. I mean, sometimes the approach will be like, make everything, you know, if it's got a, a certain sign, the band or after something, you know, everything's going through a tape machine or everything's driven through something because that's the sound they, they want, you know, or everything's.
[00:14:38] The vocals through amps. I think it's just mixing to the artist really. Obviously you're making sure technically it's all, all right. It's not all muddy and it's not too harsh. It's not too bright. But I think in terms of effects on mixes, you're actually trying to capture what that band is about and what they've tried to capture in their performances and bringing out all those elements.
[00:14:56] So there might be lots of elements going on. So making. You can hear the elements when you need to be hearing the elements or if it's just a big wall of sound, making sure it's a big wall of sound then, but, so there's that creative aspect of the mixing and there's the technical both trying to, trying to get them both to go hand in hand, you know, and I'm switching between speakers.
[00:15:15] And I'm also listen to everything on headphones and I might listen to everything on little Bluetooth speaker. I might go in the car and listen to things all. Usual tricks really. See, you are using your eggs mainly for mixing, aren't you there? I've got the yeah, I've got aone, I've got my
[00:15:29] Jon Con: little aone mix cubes, but they're just in storage at the moment while I'm waiting for a house.
[00:15:34] Brino: Yeah. And they're good, you know, whatever you're comfortable on as well. I mean, I'm, yeah, I'm on the atoms. A 77 Xs. I have a sub with that. And then I really like my monitor audio studio speakers. They only, that's the only studio set they made really, cause they're a high five company, but they're really good like them for mixing, not necessarily for tracking.
[00:15:50] KK is not really, I usually just keep them for tracking. I'd be mixing on the atoms, but then checking it on other systems. Then I've spoke to engineers and producers about the, in the boxing and going through a desk, and I was at a studio over in Nala, Canti studio Sacramento, great studio with a great producer there, and he was doing ab tests of his mixes just in the box, and then coming out of his duality.
[00:16:12] Splitting everything through the channels. And he, he said the difference was, you know, minimal. But it was there and it was noticeable if you came through the desk. I mean, he can recall the desk. So it's not as much work as just a pure analog desk. Cause you can actually say that. Yeah, it's a F of,
[00:16:30] Jon Con: yeah, with the dualities and the SSL stuff.
[00:16:32] Cause I got thess, like you can record
[00:16:34] Brino: the finger movements and stuff. That's great. But you know, but he definitely. Swears that he can hear a difference. And he was trying different converters as well. So he's got issued, he tried a few different ones as like, say Martin at Red Kite would do. And you know, and they hear the difference.
[00:16:51] And and, and he's, he would definitely mix out of the, onto the desk, but he said the difference when you add plugins on your. Was much more noticeable and the plugins do something when you are mixing in the box that get rid of that space and just everything sounds a little bit more brittle and not as open and then when, than when you run it through the desk.
[00:17:16] So it was when the plugins were on the, the. The difference was much bigger. And other people have AB and other people have AB and can't hear any difference and love, love just mixing in the box and say there's no difference. There were a lot of big mix engineers just mixing the box. Yeah, I think, yeah, the first one was like Andrew Shep's.
[00:17:33] Jon Con: Oh, shes, yeah. He did, I think it was Hoy's on a Hoy's record. He just did it as a trial, sent it off and they went. Yeah, sounds great. Couple changes
[00:17:41] SR 15 - Mixing: and
[00:17:41] Brino: it's done. Yeah. I think you just compensate for those things anyway. When you're mixing, you compensate to get the space and to get the things. Mm-hmm. , but I think yeah, once you, there's the no tan duns of plugins and you just speed.
[00:17:51] Is it the experience thing? Yeah. Ears experience. Yeah. It just like, it takes
[00:17:54] Jon Con: time to kind of understand what you're missing and Yeah.
[00:17:57] Brino: Like someone like Mike Fraser won't do. Once start adding loads of effects to your mix, you know, it doesn't need it. You've done that, that's the production. You've given him everything you need, your effects.
[00:18:07] But he's an absolute master craftsman. Balancing, taking it, making sure that kick just sits mainly that snare sits, the vocal sits, and the right place. The guitar change, he uses everything, just has its place and just sounds massive and is just perfectly placed. You know, and he, but he's not someone.
[00:18:27] Some bands, they give you a track and he's got no production on it. It's just recorded them in a room and they go, we want this to sound like such and such. And you're like, well, it doesn't, cuz there's no production or anything on it. Then that's a different way of mixing then that's like, yeah, almost like a remixer.
[00:18:42] or maybe a bedroom producer bedroom mixer who's creating music. So someone's given you a basic song, but they want it to sound like so-and-so's album. Yeah. Yeah. And then that's a different thing cuz then you are kind of mixing it to that, but you are also producing those sounds. You've gotta use lots of effects and lots of things to get it to sound like that.
[00:18:59] And that's fine as long as you've got the time to do that. And you know, that's what everyone wants and. And they've recorded something that you can do that with, and there's no problem with that either. But a lot of the big mix engineers, they're just there to make sure what you've, what you've recorded and captured, and your production is presented in the best way it possibly can for all the platforms and media.
[00:19:18] It's gonna be put out on when people are sending you stuff. .
[00:19:22] Jon Con: Yeah. What do you recommend? Like what would you recommend to them for, to, how do you like things to be sent to you? Do you like proto sessions? If it's like a logic session where you prefer to do it
[00:19:32] Brino: yourself? Well, yeah. If they're if it's on Pro Tools, they can send me the proto sessions.
[00:19:36] Cause I'll be mixing within Pro Tools. I might strip everything. Off if there's loads of stuff that doesn't need to be on there. But no, I'd like to see what's going on in their pro session. If they've been working on logic, then I'll get 'em to send me waves, but I'll get 'em to send me the dry waves and the affected ones.
[00:19:50] The affected ones separate, and I'll have them, I'll have them underneath each other on playlists. and R c R, they're trying to go for that. I can hear what they're doing with their effects, but I could get a much better effect by running it through an actual tape echo rather than that plugin they used on logic or whatever.
[00:20:04] Yeah. So I'll have them both. Sometimes their one just fits with their effects on, just fits perfectly in the mix. So I'll just use it, but I'll have them underneath each other. And just so I can hear what they've done. Yeah. So I'll ask for them both. And then do you get
[00:20:18] Jon Con: monitor mixes often or like a rough mix?
[00:20:21] Brino: Yes. Good to have a monitor mix because before you even agree to mix them, it's nice to hear what they've got and what they've done and what you're gonna be dealing with before you could. How long is it gonna take to mix if you never listen to it, you have no idea. Yeah. You know, there could be 200 tracks of.
[00:20:34] Orchestral parts going on and backing vocals and layered guitars and all this, and you're like, well, I can't do that in half a day. This is a massive song that needs to be a massive radio hit, and it's got all these elements that are just gonna take a day to mix. Getting a Mon monitor mix from the end of the session.
[00:20:48] Sometimes those desk mixes at the end of sessions of the mixes. You know, they're great. You haven't overthought it, you've driven it through an ice. Long desk and it just has something, and then you spend your
[00:20:58] Jon Con: time chasing your tail, trying to recapture the,
[00:21:01] Brino: that you got magic to that. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so like wildfires affected wildfires raw wildfire, wildfires, all the pro tool sessions and edited, tuned and comped.
[00:21:15] Unless you're gonna ask me to do that. And that's separate, that's separate from mixing? That's, no, that's, that's gotta be discussed beforehand about yourself.
[00:21:23] Jon Con: If it's processs or logic, I'll get 'em to send me the blue sessions and I'll just do it myself cuz it's easier cuz most of the time. If you, the people I've been working with, I then they're, they're right to start recording like garage band as well.
[00:21:35] Just send me the sessions and I'll convert it into what I need it for because it's a bit easier doing that Pro Tools as well. Yeah, it's fine. But otherwise it would be, I normally set up a Dropbox transfer link. And so just upload your files to me this way, so then you don't have to worry about we transfers and limits
[00:21:48] Brino: and everything.
[00:21:49] Cause Yeah, which is a pain when you start getting everything separate. Folders. Yeah. And
[00:21:53] Jon Con: like the Google drives just, you know, like you, the experience with Google Drive Headache.
[00:21:57] Brino: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get set up a Dropbox folder. Yeah.
[00:22:01] Jon Con: And normally, yeah, normally share that and then just say like, it's an upload one.
[00:22:03] They just send it to me and they go, ultimately comes onto my computer. Yeah. No, it's, it's just that I normally try and for, for Logic and Pro Tools, they just send me the session, I'll convert it and I'll do it. Yeah. I remember like one of the sessions I just got caught out with the. and I was like, I think that was an attended session as well.
[00:22:16] And it was just like, ah, okay. We've lost, you know, it was quite a long one. We ended have like teasing the budget for it, but could have been saved a lot of time. It was one of the things I should have
[00:22:23] Brino: stipulated. Yeah, you shouldn't learn your lesson and make sure you stipulate that beforehand. Same with mixed changes.
[00:22:28] Please make, yeah,
[00:22:29] Jon Con: please make sure that these, like the files have been edited, cross faded and that everything's everything that you want on the mix. .
[00:22:37] Brino: Yeah. Cause you can still go down rabbit hole with mix changes as well, and that if you haven't put a limit on it. Yeah. You know, if you just said, oh yeah, I'll mix it until you're happy with it, then that can go on.
[00:22:46] And then they're cha you're chasing your tail and then, and bands are changing their minds and going back to what they had before. Ashley, could you put that back? It was better before and it's just a headache. Everyone gets frustrated. Yeah. You end up doing loads of work for free. I
[00:22:57] Jon Con: normally, yeah, I normally do two mix changes.
[00:23:00] Brino: Well, it normally captures it. I'm, if someone asks me to make to mix two songs a day. Then they get two sets of mix changes. Cuz I always think you can't just do one because you change something, it's gonna affect something else in the mix. So there might be something else then that needs to be addressed.
[00:23:16] So if I'm expected to mix two songs in a day, it's two sets of mix changes. , I'm not gonna do two, like an half a day mix in a song and then a day on mix changes which bands we'll try and get away with. But then what you really wanted was to book a day. You know, spending a day on a mix is a much better mix than spending half a day and then a day on mix changes.
[00:23:36] Yeah, because when you're doing mix changes, you're just pulling apart the mix and it's falling apart most of the time. If you overdo. You know, you can be on your 10th. Lot of mix change isn't, they're asking you to try production stuff out on guitars now all of a sudden. Or can you add a tambourine or can you do this?
[00:23:50] And it's like, well, no, it's actually be done in recording. And then if I'm, if someone pays me a a day for a mix, Then that will be dependent on the rate that'll be between three and five sets of mix changes. Because I always think you can get it a lot close. If you've got a day to do it, you should be able to get it pretty close.
[00:24:08] Yeah, but offering like the five mix changes means that they know they can leave with something they're happy with. There's plenty of, lots of mix changes that for their money, for paying you for a song per. In their minds, they can be a lot happier with it because they know they can make those tweaks from spending that money.
[00:24:25] But gen generally, you don't need to do five lots of mix changes cuz you've had a whole day to mix it. Yeah. So yes, two, if it's half a day and kind of up to five, if it's a full day for mixing. And I like to do a song a day cause it's nice to step away from it. It's nice to come back to it. It's nice to have the time to try things.
[00:24:41] It's but some stuff it's. You know, like, like if, if I recorded it, it's, it's just not gonna need it. I can do it in half a day cause it's almost there. I know what's wrong. I can do it pretty quick and I can get two done in a day. Do you use
[00:24:53] Jon Con: templates? So have you got like a template you use for mixing or do you just like kind of
[00:24:56] Brino: build it as you go?
[00:24:57] Yeah, I build it as I go. I know a lot of people work from templates and they like templates. A lot of people have mixing chains, they have guitar chains, vocal chains, all that stuff. I have regular things that I go to. Like, I think this needs to, so I use that compressor, I'll use that reverb or whatever for certain things.
[00:25:12] So I have those things, but I don't necessarily have templates set up. I might have, like, I might pull in my Es and my Master fader and things like that, which are already set up and saved as templates. . But once I've got a mix and I've done a lot of things, I'll import those then into the next song. So the bass chain and the, the, the chains on the guitars, the chains on the drums, the Es for those as well.
[00:25:34] And the effects I might pull them in, just import them into the next one. Yeah. As we go a lot. Yeah. I think
[00:25:40] Jon Con: I'm a little bit different. I've got, I suppose I've got, I've got things saved in pro tools is like track templates. Mm-hmm. . And one of the things I always end up bringing in is I've just got VCAs for like the groups and like my drums is always grouped, is group.
[00:25:52] Yeah. And then I think my base is always be, yeah. And like there's certain things, it was just easy for me to kind
[00:25:57] Brino: like turn things on and off and yeah. I mean, I'll always have stuff coming out in the same order and the same, yeah, kind of outputs and the same kind of things, you know, that's always have bit like that.
[00:26:06] Yeah. But there's two different ways of working out you. I grew up in a way that wasn't possible to have those templates, but once you'd mix the first song, you had your chain, so you had your vocal going through that chain, your vocal, so it would stay set up for the next song. I try, always try to use pro tools.
[00:26:21] A tape machine and a mixer as much as I can with without board. Yeah. There's no reason why you can't use this quicker if you got your templates. If there's certain things, there's no reason why not. A lot of people use them. I have certain elements of it. Save, but not whole tech mixed templates? Not to the extent that you would.
[00:26:36] Jon Con: No. The other one then is about referencing. Mm-hmm. . Do you have, like, do you get the band send you playlist of tracks that they like? Yeah. Or like similar things.
[00:26:44] Brino: Does that help? Yeah. Drum stands, they like records, they like what you kind of hear in this, what's it, what kind of, where you, where do you see this sitting and things like that.
[00:26:52] It's nice to get some references. Definitely.
[00:26:54] Jon Con: Yeah, made a massive, one of the bands I did recently, just like, they just sent me a massive long list of like tracks and so when, cause it was coming in recording as well, just like, just made a massive joke like, okay, I know what drum sound we want. Yeah. Based on the sort of the like approach.
[00:27:06] Okay, we wanna be a bit edgy, we wanna be edgy but dry and like disturb, but not so many effects and everything. It's made a bit easier.
[00:27:12] Brino: Yeah, when you Yeah, it does. And it's like, but you might have that discussion. You might say, oh, I kind of hear that. You might hear the monitor mix go, oh, I kind of hear this sounding like such and such a record.
[00:27:21] Or Do you know this record? Yeah. What they did there with the vocals or whatever, and then that might be what you go with, you know? But yeah, definitely getting references from them, especially if you don't know the band and you didn't record it. Yeah, that's true. It makes it a bit easy when you have done.
[00:27:34] Yeah, he does. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else to add? No, I think
[00:27:38] Jon Con: I think it kind of covers everything. If you guys have any questions for us about any of the things that we've discussed, leave us a comment in, in the video. If you're listening on Spotify, apple Music, or wherever you get your podcast from just drop us a [email protected] and if the production, the mixing stuff is something that you're interested in.
[00:27:55] We are currently running, we're due to be running a workshop in. It's in March or April? April. It's April, April,
[00:28:02] Brino: isn't it? Yeah. April 11th. Three days. , this is a clip for TikTok. Again. There we are. Don't, don't turn up in March. John . I won't be there. No.
[00:28:12] Jon Con: Yeah, we got a workshop in April and you can find out more details at session.com/indeed as well.
[00:28:18] Thanks again, Nick, and I'll see you next. Yeah, see you next week. See you next
[00:28:22] Brino: week. Another episode about, do I have to wear this t-shirt
[00:28:24] Jon Con: again? Yeah. And you have to also have the same angle like me. Okay. Hopefully it'll be a bit sunnier by sound like coming in next week? Yeah.
[00:28:31] Brino: Alright.
