Guide to getting and playing better gigs
Mixing Tips
Each channel on a mixer is creating noise even when no signal is going through that channel. Multiply that noise by how many channels you have idle at any one time and you can have a lot of noise. Effect processors are notoriously noisy. Headphone bleed on drum overheads, lead vocals, and acoustic guitars can really mess up the dynamic range of your mix. All of the above together makes for a lot of noise.
Although you may not hear any of them during the louder passages, you probably will on the quieter ones, and this noise is eating up valuable headroom. Ultimately, the depth of your mix will be affected. So, it's a good idea to mute these tracks when no material is present that you want in your finale mix. By muting the channel, it's not routing to the master fader on your mixing console. The noise the channel strip is creating will not be present at the master fader, thus, lower noise floor from your mixer, thus, more headroom available to the mix, thus, a better recording.
Change the guitar tone for a better mix:
Suppose you're recording a band, and it's time to mix down the tracks to a master tape. You bring up the guitar, but it just doesn't seem to cut. You raise the level a bit more, but now the guitar drowns everything out. This happens because the guitar's frequency range overlaps with other instruments. With equalization, you can accent part of the guitar to make it really noticable, while still leaving a space for the other instruments. Adding a bit of peak around 3kHz to 4kHz really makes a guitar solo stand out. Since that's above the range of the tom-toms, bass and most rhythm oriented keyboard parts, there's no interference with these instruments.Equalize the guitar for better vocal support:
Your playing rhythm guitar behind a vocalist, but because the guitar and vocal occupy a similar frequency range, they conflict. The solution is to cut the guitar's midrange to make room for the vocal frequencies. This will allow you to mix the guitar level higher but not mask the vocals.Reduce noise from effects pedals:
If you like using stomp boxes but want less noise, try using one equalizer to boost the treble (say, from 2kHz on up) going into the noisy effect, and another post-effect equalizer to cut the treble (again, starting at 2kHz). The amount of boost and cut should be equal and opposite, so this is an excellent application for simple boost/cut tone controls.Create artificial stereo:
For this you'll need two amps or an amp with two channels. Boost the bass in the equalizer going to one amp/channel and cut the bass going to the other amp/channel by an equal amount. Another way is to use two graphic equalizers. On one, boost every other band starting with the first band and on the other, boost every other band starting with the second band. This can help fill out a mono guitar part when mixing.Volume automation is really nice if you have it. Often, it'll negate the use of a compressor. If the track for the most part is even dynamically, but in a few spots the either drops or rises beyond an acceptable level, a fader move can be executed and saved in the automation and you will not need to insert a compressor to even out the part. A fader move will preserve the fidelity of the part while a compressor will add phase distortion to it. Which would you want?
EQ automation can also be a lot of fun too. Here and there you may have a snare hit that sounds a bit different, and a little EQ tweak on it makes the offending hit sound more like the other hits. In the hard drive realm, the offending hit may just be replaced with a better sounding hit, but this can be time consuming. Also, EQ automation can be used for really cool artistic applications such as changing the EQ on a vocal line in a certain part to give it the "telephone" sound.
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