By Tom Mulhern
Many years ago, I marveled at a bigtime rock guitarist who detailed how he needed three different digital reverbs in his rack for playing gigs, all in stadiums. Most stadiums, as we all know, were designed (1) to hold a lot of people and (2) to be built to fit someone’s budget (usually the taxpayers’). That’s why they tend to be cavernous and made of concrete. Sound quality rarely enters into the design, and that’s why the acoustics almost invariably stink. So, this guitarist thought that, in the echoing concrete caverns of the world, people would be able to hear the difference between, say, a 2.2-second reverb with a 10-millisecond pre-delay and a 10kHz rolloff of 3dB/octave and a 1.7-second reverb with a 30-second pre-delay and no damping. Gimme a break. I’ll bet he could hear these subtleties in his studio, and maybe even in rehearsals, but in a 50,000-seat monster truck emporium? Nah.
And the point? Know your venue before you start splitting sonic hairs. I’ve long beaten the drum of "always mix for the highest-quality playback medium." I’m not backing away from it. But I am suggesting that you bear in mind the subtleties that are lost, or at least not worth the effort, in some settings. I’ve found that effects can be a complete waste of bandwidth, both literally and figuratively, in some web mixes. A good example is a hard rock or metal number that comes close to making every LED on the console glow continuously during a song. Mix it with the effects you think are necessary, and mix it again without them, and then convert both to MP3 (yeah, I know it will blow an hour or two, but how else do you learn, except through experience?). You’ll probably be blown away by how little the effects contribute, or how little they can be heard.
You may be tempted to crank up the effects to make them more prominent. But remember that effects can add unacceptable amounts of noise. Listen with fresh ears and good monitors, and be discerning. Cheap signal processors, incorrectly set levels, and other imperfections show up quickly when you listen for their negative effects on your sound. If a prominent wash of reverb is key to the mix, then buy, borrow, or rent the best reverb you can get, assuming yours isn’t up to the task. If you’re doing something that’s primarily voice and one or two other instruments, with a sparse arrangement, then your mix will be totally doomed if you let an ounce of hiss interfere with the clarity being conveyed by the performers.
To maximize impact, with or without effects, you might want to mix a bit extremely, even exaggeratedly, if the circumstances call for it. For years, everyone tried to mix as if they were making an expansive mono sound, in contrast to earlier hard-left/hard-right stereo. Some claimed it was for AM radio, while others claimed that it was more natural. In any case, there’s no written rule about your mixes. And by spreading out, you can either do subtle or extreme things, and they’ll be audible. Placing some sounds in one channel or the other and mixing them low enough creates a subliminal effect (shaker percussion is a good example). It stays clean, remains out of the way of the "centerstage" instrument or voice, and usually requires less in the way of effects or enhancement. In addition, adding effects to something on one side but not on the other can make the effect more prominent than if it were washed across the entire left/right spectrum. Note, however, that reverb can sound particularly stilted if it’s only on one side, because we’re used to hearing reverberations in the natural world in a sort of "all around" way. On the other hand, some effects like flanging, ring modulation, and tremolo can cut through just great when mixed hard left or hard right.
Beyond effects, you may want to simply remix. And that means to remix simply. Most of us have evolved as recordists with the notion that "more" equals "fatter" equals "better." To that end, we’ve all done things like double- and triple-tracked vocals, slightly delayed guitars and spread them left and right, and even triggered gates with bass drums to pass through subsonic frequencies to beef-up the bottom. To a certain extent, it works, but when it comes down to it, the song is the real point, not the size. A good song is going to impress even if it isn’t massive. So, doing an alternate mix that’s pared down into a leaner, meaner piece of audio can be a good thing when the final target is something like MP3, where its compression relies on masking (effectively eliminating) sounds that aren’t very audible to begin with. Try a few different mixes, rip ’em, and listen to them carefully. It’s a good exercise, even if you don’t keep these trimmed-down mixes, because economy can keep a song focused and more immediate-sounding.
Don’t make your pared-down mix your "final word" on a song or collection of songs if you plan to put out a CD. But, if you’re targeting MP3, Real, or other web-centric formats, then dig in and experiment with effects, extremes, and pared-down mixes. What have you got to lose? Nothing. What’s the best you can hope for? A better match between your mix and the medium you’re putting the mix into. Plus, the new CD/MP3 hybrid disc format will let you put the CD mix and the MP3 mix onto one CD, a bonus to those who like the music and want to hear a couple different takes on the same material. There can even be unexpected fallout: If you’re recording a band, or doing your own music, and they (or you) hit it big someday, those "alternative mixes" may be valuable and coveted by the fans.
Remember: There is no perfect mix. But, there may be two or three darned good ones for each song.