Mix-down Lab - Posted on 2013-10-17 by William Hough

September 6, 2013

9:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Lesson 15 : Midterm & Mix-down Lab

Today we reviewed a mix I have been working on from session I had with a band I was in back in Illinois.  I chose this to start working on because I was familiar with the recording and had a vision for what I had hoped for it to originally turn out to sound like.  Dahl said he could tell I was using my ears to make adjustments to the mix.  One thing we were able to determine was that the drums may not have been captured as well as they should have been so he experimented with using triggers.  This process really changed the sound of the track.  Everything seemed buried before he started adding the triggers to the kick and snare drum.   I was amazed to hear the song starting to come to life and now understood why I was not able to achieve the drive and intensity from the tracks just with EQ and Compression.  What can't you do "in the box"?  I'm still searching for the answer.