3 Remedies to Liven up Any Mix

Date:2020/1/9 14:30:41 Hits:

Have you ever been mixing a well-crafted song with well-played, nicely recorded instrumental tracks and a perfectly delivered vocal performance, but still found your mix to be lifeless, uninspiring, and simply boring? You’re not alone; most of us have been in the same boat at some point. This article is meant to address exactly those situations — the times when your mix just seems to be sitting there: no problems but no excitement. The solution may be to use an effect to add some sonic excitement — some ear candy that doesn’t necessarily “need” to be part of the mix but that adds a bit of sparkle that may make listening to the song a little more interesting.

This sort of effect is typically used only once in a song — the intention is to catch the listener’s ear then get out of the way. Remember that these sorts of tricks won’t work in every style of music — nor necessarily work in a specific song — but they may give you some ideas for your own mixes.

Dynamic Delay

One issue with simply adding a delay to any individual track in a mix, whether it be the vocal, a guitar, or even a snare drum, is that a delay tends to clutter things up, even if you have it at comparatively low levels. The solution? Automate the delay so that the effect is heard only when there’s room for it in the context of the song.

While many delay plug-ins have a ducking delay preset, where the repeats only happen when the original dry signal is not present, I’ve found the easiest way for me to make this effect work is to send the dry signal through an aux to the delay plug-in, then automate the aux send by keeping it muted and then turning it on at the precise time (a word, a note, a drum hit) that the delay should start. As soon as the sound fed into the delay ends, mute the send to prevent extraneous noise from muddying the echo. You should try having the delays in time — a quarter note, a triplet, or whatever works best for the song (most plug-ins can lock into the tempo of the session), or you can simply have a fast slapback echo. How long the echo should last also depends on the song; perhaps you’ll only want a single echo, or you might want a cascade that fades away over a period of a few seconds. Experiment until you find something that you like and that doesn’t interfere with the song.

Backward Reverb

In much the same way as the delay effect, a backward reverb provides an unexpected texture that can draw the listener into the production. Choosing the right source for the initial impulse of the reverb (a snare hit, a guitar chord, or a sung word on the lead vocal track) will make a huge difference in the sound of the effect.

I’ve found that it works best to print the reverb and then reverse it and manipulate it within my Pro Tools session. Here’s how I do it: I’ll find the sound that I want for the backward reverb (perhaps the first word of a vocal line or the guitar chord that stars the phrase that follows the backward reverb effect) and copy that sound to its own track. The reason for choosing a specific word or instrument to reverse is that the backward reverb will have a tone (based on that original sound), and it’s nice to have the reversed sound be in tune with the music that starts at the end of the reversed reverb.

Next, choose a reverb time that fits the tempo of the song; you might want it to start a whole measure early, or you might want just a beat or two. Send your chosen sound to the reverb, and print that reverb return to a separate track. Then use an AudioSuite plug-in to reverse the printed reverb sound. You can get rid of the track that was used to send audio to the reverb. Finally, move the reversed reverb sound so that it ends exactly where the sound you chose to manipulate begins. The end result can add a lovely bit of drama to your mix.

Dynamic EQ

While it’s an old trick, drastically changing the tone of some element of your mix can still be a good trick. Listeners probably won’t be surprised when a lead vocal, a drum track, or even the whole mix sounds like it’s playing through a telephone, since that trick has been done so often. So, the trick is to find a slightly less overused way to have fun with EQ.

A number of equalization plug-ins have some variant of an AM radio or telephone sound, but you can create your own version by setting a high pass filter around 400Hz–500Hz, and a low pass filter in the neighborhood of 4kHz. I generally add the EQ plug-in after all of the other processing on a given track. And rather than going for the obvious lead vocal, drums, or whole mix route, try using the telephone effect in other places — the background vocal buss, a piano, or even an acoustic guitar (or some combination of all). Experiment with the filters and the output level of the plug-in to find a sound that makes you smile, then bypass the plug-in. Using the automation function on the plug-in, simply make the plug-in active for the section of the song where the effect will work best. Then bypass it again.

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3 Remedies to Liven up Any Mix

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