Indie Ambassador

Whether it’s speed metal or Tuvan throat singing, mixing audio recordings is an art. If you’re producing your own record out of your basement or working on a client’s album in your commercial studio, there are several steps that need to be taken to prepare your studio workspace before you take on such a project. We’ll get into the technical side of mixing in later installments of the subject, but for now here are a few steps you can take to prepare to mix your dream record.

Work Space Aesthetics

Many people, no matter their optimal working environment, need to feel like they can “be in the zone” wherever they’re sitting down to do work. Whether you’re a songwriter writing a hook in your notebook or a mastering engineer putting the final touches on the next Seal record, feeling comfortable in your work environment feeds the creative process and efficiency.

Don't look like this...                                                ...Look like THIS!                    

So be sure to take some time to tidy up the room, clear off your desk, grab a cup of coffee (or if you’re tactful, you’ve already hired an intern to do it for you!), and mentally prepare to sit down and focus on your mix.

Setting up your Room

It’s understandable that many DIY recording artists do not have the optimal space or proper acoustic treatment in the space they’re working in. It’s not uncommon for DIY musicians to have studio space and sleeping space be one in the same, so it’s important to do the best you can with the space you have. Here’s a few things you can do to prep your space for the betterment of your mix:

1. Speaker Placement / Sweet Spot - Setting up your sweet spot is possibly one of the most important factors of your room when preparing to mix. To put it bluntly, why would you want to mix if your speakers aren’t in the right place? In order to set up your sweet spot, you need to create an equilateral triangle with your speakers and where you’re sitting. An equilateral triangle (for those who may be unclear) has equal angles and equal sides. Thus, you’ll end up with your two speakers and your head creating 60 degree angle from each other. It is also important to ensure that the distance between the three points in your triangle are equal distance from each other (speaker, speaker, ears).

*WARNING* This may require some basic geometry. I know many musicians usually spent their time drumming with their pencil in class, so if you’re having a flashback of your 10th grade math teacher, save yourself the headache and refer to the picture below.

2. Treating the Acoustics of your Room - Much like Crickie Thomas describes in this article, acoustic treatment can make all of the difference in your studio. Eliminating reflections off of the walls surrounding the sweet spot is key to ensure that the sound you are hearing is true to what’s coming out of the speakers, and that there are no phasing issues. Here are some steps to begin treating the acoustics of your room:

• Isolate your speakers from your desk. Whether you have your speakers on stands or you decide to use the foam that came with the packaging, isolation between the desk and speakers will prevent vibrations that could affect your mix.
• Ensure that your desk is at least 2-3 feet from the wall. This, much like your speakers being isolated from your desk, will prevent any vibrations to the wall that could affect your mix.
• Be sure to treat the following areas, if possible, with acoustic paneling / studio foam:
  • Bass traps in the 4 corners of the room
  • The walls in the front and back of the back of the room
  • The walls on either side of your sweet spot
  • If possible, a “cloud” or treatment directly above the sweet spot.

It’s understandable that treating all of these areas may be out of your budget, or simply won’t work with the space you’re in, but a little bit of acoustic treatment in your room will go a long way. Whether you’re creating your own acoustic paneling or investing in a treatment kit, there are several options for every room and budget.

Prepping Your files and Session for your Mix

One final thing we’ll touch up on in this article is file management. File management is one aspect of the art of engineering that separates the true professionals from the amateurs. To ensure that you don’t run into the problems of opening a session to find that you’re missing 237 audio files, follow these steps:

• When creating a session, make sure you’re aware of where on your computer you’re storing your session. Whether you’re working off of an external firewire drive or you’re saving the session folder to your desktop, make sure that your session folder is all in one place. It is important to make sure that you will have a large enough drive to store these sessions, as a full album could exceed 100GB of space.
• When importing or creating new audio files, be sure to check that the disk allocation of new audio files is in the correct place. For example, if you’re working off of your internal drive you need to make sure that your files are saving to the correct audio files folder on the correct drive. No matter the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) you’re working with (Pro Tools, Logic, etc), you should be able to trace the file path of individual audio files to ensure that the files are saving to your desired folder.
• Clean up your session! Once you’ve gotten the OK from the artist you’re working with that the active takes/performances are the ones they’d like to be working with for the final recording, clear your inactive playlists and unused audio files to reduce the size of your session, allowing your CPU to work more efficiently. You may want to rename all of the active audio files you’ll be using before this step so you do not delete anything accidentally.
• Be sure to place similar tracks together in your mix and edit windows to make it easier on the eyes for when you’ll be mixing. For example, you won’t want to see your harmony vocal track placed between your kick drum and snare drum tracks in the mix window, so try to group similar tracks together. Color coding similar tracks can improve session workflow and organization.

Finally, the GOLDEN RULE of engineering and file management is that you need to BACK UP YOUR SESSION! If a copy of your session doesn’t exist in 3 different places, your session doesn’t exist at all. Back up to your external, save a copy on your laptop, and clear some space on that 2GB flash drive, because the last problem you want to have is starting from scratch.

Once you feel comfortable with how your workspace is set up and all of your files are in place, we’re ready to get our hands dirty with some actual mixing. In the next segment of this series we’ll be talking about the Dos and Don’ts of Mixing, some insight on Industry etiquette, and mix techniques that can really make a difference in your overall final product. Feel free to leave comments below, and keep your eyes peeled for Part 2!