Digging Deeper - Posted on 2014-03-08 by David Haro

My mentor Anthony this week went over exporting files and what effect it can have compressing it into a MP3 and other formats and how to connect the patch bays on the studios consol. Then he gave me an assignment. He pulled up a salsa song that a church group had done and Anthony wanted me to balance each track using only the faders. On the consol it had about 20 different tracks so i started with the drums. After getting a good level out of the drums i began working the levels on the other percussion instruments, then bass guitar, then acoustic guitar, lead guitars, horns, and so on. When I thought i had the mix well balanced he tought me a technic. You turn the volume of the monitors down to a low level low enough to still hear the music. He asked me, "What do you hear stand out?" The percussion instruments were a little to loud. He tells me, "its good to take a moment and turn down the music to a low level to see what instrument stands out because if someone played this song loud in their car or at home whatever instrument is too loud they will hear it and that can ruin a song." He then showed me a mix that he did and showed me the difference between his and mine. Anthony told me i did a great job and was going to give the mix that i did to the musicians. Some advise he gave was to find that instrument that gets people moving. With salsa thier are tons of instruments that play an important role but particular instruments will get people to dance. You just have to find it and blend it in.