Behind The Mixer

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Topics:

Light, Subject, Composition, and Idea.

Light, Subject, Composition, and Idea.

I stole this idea from a photography class from Ming Thein.  There are four fundamentals of photography that so closely resemble the requirements of a music mix, I couldn’t help but notice it.

In photography, they follow as:

  1. Light – because a three-dimensional object becomes two-dimensional in a photo but the photographer must find a way to make it feel 3D.
  2. Subject – it tells the story and has to stand out from the background through color, size, shape, contrast, etc.  Be it an apple, a person, or a pack of cards.
  3. Composition – the scene makeup and relationships between objects.
  4. Idea – what does the photographer want to say?  Is it happy, sad, violent, peaceful, etc.?

Hopefully, my photograph of a dragonfly is a good example.  Free photography lesson aside, this is so much like creating a good music mix.

The 4 Music Mix Fundamentals

1. Dimension

The mix has to have depth.  A common mistake I’ve heard is “all channels at the same volume.”  One might say the mix is two-dimensional.  Nothing stands out.

A good music mix is three-dimensional with instruments pushed to the back and pulled to the front.  Backing vocals might sit behind the lead vocal.  The lead guitar stands in front of the bass.  All depending on the song arrangement of course.  But the mix has dimension. That’s the important piece.

Dimension is added through differences in volume, EQ, and effects.

2. Subjects (Primary Channels)

Who is the lead vocalist for the song?  What is the lead instrument?  Does another instrument ever come to the forefront?

The subjects are the major roles in the song.  Without them, the song lacks something key to its essence.

Subjects are pulled to the front of the mix with volume or in some cases, a competing instrument is pushed back.

A lead vocal that’s covered up by electric guitars or drums can’t lead.  It can’t fulfill it’s required role.

3. Composition

Composition is dimension plus subjects and then some.  The subjects tell you which channels are in the front of the three-dimensional mix and how all channels are related.

What better place to talk composition than classical music?  That’s a rhetorical question.

Going back to 1984 (a year I oft return), a movie about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart showed a fictional account of the relationship between Antonio Salieri and Mozart.

Salieri reflects on a particular score from Mozart:

“On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse. Bassoons and basset horns, like a rusty squeezebox. And then suddenly, high above it, an oboe. A single note, hanging there, unwavering. Until a clarinet took over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I’d never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God.”

That’s composition.  It’s arrangement for musicians but for you, it’s composition. And it’s composition for the composer – because that’s what they do, thus the name.  (Yes, my mind can go on like this.)

It’s dimension (high above it – though more frequency in this case), it’s subject highlight (oboe, then clarinet), it’s instrument relationships (bassoons and basset horns in supporting roles).

Dimension is about creating a 3D mix but composition tells you where to place the instruments and vocals in that 3D space. This is why I encourage people new to mixing or mixing new songs to listen to the original recordings of the songs so they can make composition notes that tell them what goes where (and if/how effects are used to accomplish it).

4. Style Target

Make sure you wear a black shirt when mixing.  Ok, it’s not THAT type of style of I’m talking about.  I’m talking about creating a mix that mimics or best-reflects the sound desired by the worship leader or the bands’ “defined sound.”

Is the band acoustic-drive?  Pop/rock? What is their style of music?  Heck, I’ve heard a Christian punk/rock band that was outrageously loud (too loud, in fact) but their mix dimension, subjects, and composition was amazingly tight.

Do you have a lead singer an acoustic guitar, and a piano?  How do you think that should sound?  Definitely not like a rock bad.

Style target defines how you mix and what you do with effects.

Going even further, I’ve mixed contemporary bands for two churches of similar size but because one band used a keyboard as the primary lead instrument for every song, I had to mix them differently.

We do three services each weekend with the same format, same songs, etc.  One Saturday and two Sunday.  And while I can hit the mix the majority of the time, I’ve had a couple times when the next day the worship leader politely said I needed to boost or lower something.  In other words, I wasn’t hitting the target.

For a little fun (and because I love this picture from a recent vacation), apply the 4 fundamental mixing rules to this photo.  Is there dimension?  Is the subject obvious? Does the composition work?  What style is it in? Think of it like this; in what type of magazine would you expect to find it?

Copyright 2016 Chris Huff

Copyright 2016 Chris Huff

Recap

For a quick recap, the 4 fundamentals of mixing music are:

  • Dimension
  • Subject (Primary Channels)
  • Composition
  • Style Target

As you begin your next mixing session, consider these four areas when making any mix changes.

The Next Step
This is a lot to consider the next time you’re mixing. To get the MOST time possible for mixing while using these 4 areas, check out this post:

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Comments

  1. Great advice on this post! Especially the point in dimension. I think most home mix enthusiasts focus so much on eq and compression and just trying to get the mix to sound right, that they forget about dimension. Thanks for the advice!

    Reply

  2. Excellent info! I have one question…how can the worship leader know if something needs to be raised or lowered?? I am the worship leader, so I am speaking from that perspective. I’d love to be able to know what is going on out front so I can direct my audio volunteers better…but I’m on stage leading! I have no idea what it actually sounds like!

    Reply

    • Brandon, the worship leader should never deal with the house mix. That’s to say they’ll never hear what the audience hears because they (you) are on stage where is sounds completely different. What sounds great in the house might sound bad from the stage. The audio techs need to be trusted to create the best house mix…and that’s why I put so much emphasis on audio techs being trained – or focused on continual self-education. But let’s look at what can happen this next weekend…after the service, ask a few people how it sounded. Make sure you ask people who sit in different areas. They are your ears. If something’s way off, such as lead vocal buried or too much bass, then you can talk with the tech. Just make sure the complaint is coming from multiple people.

      I’ve seen times when the worship leader is skilled at audio mixing but they can’t be in two places at once. This is where is comes down to training. Also, if you have an audio console that has virtual soundcheck (multi-track playback) then you can train them as if the band was in the room.

      Reply

      • totally agreed! you just mentioned that your worship leader informed you that a few things needed to be changed…and I found myself wondering how he could possibly know that! :-)

        Reply

  3. Similarly, I mix a song like I’m setting a stage. It’s a very visual approach that freaks-out my musician friends.

    Every sound source appears spherical with different shapes, textures, colors, sheen, and transparency. Based on those attributes certain sounds can be acoustically close and others need to be isolated. Setting the stage looks something like this…

    Lead (Follow Spot and Blocking)
    I try to put a spotlight on the part of the song the should be giving attention. As the song moves so does the spotlight. Solos, melodies, changes, beats, and silence all get their time in the spotlight. The tools I use to spotlight audience focus are higher relative volume, near center pan, large spectrum EQ, appropriate compression, and dry FX.

    Arrangement (Sets, Props, and Costumes)
    The arrangement of the song needs to make sense. Having three guitars playing the same melody at the same time is like having three actors say the same lines at the same time–its confusing to the listener. I love attending rehearsals and hearing how a song comes together. It helps me understand how the parts work together and I get to ask questions when I’m confused.

    Mix (Lighting and Movement)
    Surf the song and its every changing scenes. The director has given me their notes, I’ve heard what the players are trying to do, and the crew has put everything in place to support the scenes–now, I get to team with the players, the audience, and the Spirit in the creation of music.

    PS: The Holy Spirit is found in the subwoofer!

    Reply

  4. Chris, as you no doubt learned from my previous comment, I’m a fan of sci-fi. It should come as no surprise, that I will reference the fourth dimension (spacetime, not Euclidian), insofar as this.

    I know that you’ve covered the living mix before, but as I read this, I felt that it represented a static moment in time, versus the constant changes. That’s why what we do is more than mere photography, but leveraging that fourth dimension (time) to have the mix evolve. Indeed, your Salieri reference above indicates time, but as you talk about 3D, I can’t help but feel that there are readers that might neglect the idea of a living mix, where the dynamics are changing and evolving before our very… ears.

    To those that need more illustration, I would say that the perfect mix does not exist in a concert, in the opening or closing set, nor even the song itself. It instead exists for a brief moment, that while somewhat predictable if you know the song / band / leader / intent / emotion / venue / listener / audience assembled, and we can get very close for a moment, but the song is evolving. Every tech should be working to find that perfect 4th dimensional aspect in their mix, reviewing and working like Robert Burk, the cinematographer for Vertigo, who provided us new directions in the cinema. While our worship leader chooses the direction (as Hitchcock did), and may even advise us on his artistic intent, it is ultimately up to us to be the cinematographer (as Robert Burk did), where we are constantly seeking the proper place for focus and blur, contrasts in light and dark, colorations and discolorations, etc. We accomplish this through a continual adjustment of all of the tools at our disposal. Every second possible should be towards getting the mix better than it was the moment before. Those techs that just read or play iPhone games during rehearsal, are not doing the mix any favors.

    Reply

    • The biggest problem with “chasing the mix” is that most tech haven’t spent enough time learning exactly what their different tools do in a live setting. This is where a house band with good tolerance for an extended sound check is vital Sound check isn’t just for the band! It’s also a time to experiment with what the changes to basic settings (EQ, compressions and my favorite unused setting, cool off and gating) sound like in real time.

      Try it, you’ll like it!

      Reply