Mixing

Mixing philosophy :
Listening to the song and the recorded instruments, and focusing on getting into the vibe and attitude of the song, and enhancing that—looking to give the song a clearer emotional impact, with a modern sound with attitude.

Mixing-campaign_

More about mixing

What mixing is like, metaphorically speaking
If this was about food instead of music, mixing would be creating a delicious dish out of ingredients already bought: —everything standing nicely on the kitchen table, and just waiting to be transformed into a nice meal for good friends.

So—the ingredients are there already—that's the individual tracks of your song—and what remains is to take these ingredients, and help doing the transformation into the dish that you had in mind when you started gathering the ingredients.

Of course—the ingredients need to have high quality and taste good.
Still, some magic cooking may help making the difference and lift the dish from a possible ordinary or ok experience, to new heights, with that sparkling touch of great sounding vocals and professional polish.

What it really is about...
Well, the tools of the trade is a good mixing platform—in my case Pro Tools 10—and processing tools to enhance and alter the sound of each individual track, if needed; like equalizers, compressors, reverbs, echos,choruses, tape or tape-simulators, special effect processing; dynamic eq, de-essing, dynamic echos, and more.
The idea will always be to have the overall feel of the song in mind, and trying to enhance the vibe and emotional impact.

In many ways, mixing has more to do with sound-design than 'mixing', it's about shaping and 'coloring' each of the individual sounds and tracks, and also shaping and coloring the overall 'vibe' and 'attitude' of the song.

The emotional factor, is by far, the most important.
All technical things are there just as tools to make that happen.

Experience is the greatest helper here, listening to something that doesn't sound right—without experience—it's difficult to know what to do to make it sound right.

With experience from previous mixes, one will much easier think of things that can enhance the sound and emotional impact.

Prepare for Mixing

Prepare for Mixing at NFL Produksjoner

Prepare your song for mixing:

Export or render all tracks as audio files, where all files are starting from the beginning of the session, and then make an archive file, a zip file, of these files, and send the zip file to me. Include your current mix.
Remember to remove compression, eq and other effects off each track before making audio-files, except for those tracks where the effects are very much a part of the song.
If in doubt, send the tracks in question both with and without effects.
After you've sent your archive file, please also send me an email.

That's it!

When I receive the email and the files, I will contact you with a date for when the mixing will be ready.

There are two main paths for sending a song for mixing.

One is making audio tracks of all files, where all files are starting from the beginning of the session, and then make an archive file, a zip file, of these files, and send the zip file to me.
The second way of sending a song for mixing, is to send either the Pro Tools session, if using Pro Tools, or sending an OMF, XML, or OpenTL exported session from Apple Logic, Nuendo, or Cubase.

Pro Tools can also open OMF-sessions, and I use SSL Pro-convert to convert other exported formats into my own native one; Pro Tools, and I support exports from over 40 different applications.

The easiest way if not sending a Pro Tools session, is sending and OMF or individual exported 24-bits audiofiles, wav or aifs.

If you are sending the session or an exported session, it is important to understand that you will have to make audio files of all soft-synths and of all special plug-in-treatments you have on any tracks, like tuning, so what I get will be either a session consisting of only audio-tracks, or a collection of audio tracks from the song, all starting from the beginning, for easy line-up.

If in doubt, load up the files again after exporting, and listen and hear if they are playing back the way they should.

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Also, remember to include your current mix, as that probably will make it more easy for me to understand what you're after, and give a pointer to how much attention you'd prefer the track to have to some of the elements, and a general indication to what you like and what you are looking for.

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More about making audio tracks:

The most compatible way of sending and preparing, will be to export all tracks as separate files as described below.

Before starting, make sure you have your original session file intact.
I suggest you make a copy of your session file, either by saving it under a new name, or by copying the file itself. Then save the file under a new 'transfer-session' name, and use this file when you prepare for mixing.
For all tracks, take off all compression, eq, reverb and effects.
Make individual wav or aif files of all the tracks in your song, preferable at 24 bit 44,1 - all starting from the beginning of the song, for easy line-up.
Remember to name the tracks/files so it's easy to understand what it is.
Check the file sizes after exporting.
If everything works the way it should, all files would usually be the same size -although some software may export only to the end of the recorded information in every track (like Garageband).
Let me know if you have trouble figuring out how to do this exporting in your software, and I'll get back to you with help and instructions.

The rest of the instructions apply to all formats and ways of sending:

If you have any tracks with effects that is an integrated part of the sound, supply both the processed and the un-processed track.
Make audio files of all tracks with soft-synths or tuning plugins or similar
Make a zip-file of it, or any other common archive format you might prefer, like .rar, or if you prefer, a cd/dvd image.
Mac and Windows users have the archive functionality build-in. For Windows: use 'send to' and choose 'Compressed folder'.
Contact me if you'd like assistance and guidance in how to create such archive files (zip-files).
Send your file using the link for sending files, or provide me with a download link. I also offer full ftp-service.
In addition to commenting in the 'comment field' when uploading your song, send me also an email - so I know I have your correct email address, and - if possible, provide a link to a track that sounds similar to what you are after, sound-wise.

I also recommend to include a list over the files that is included in the transfer, so it's easy to spot if there's a missing file, - and also, feel free to include comments for the tracks, if there is anything special you'd like me to know.
Get response: I'll email you with a date for when the finished version can be expected to be ready.

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Note; When exporting the session, the plugins will not transfer in any way, it will just be the session with the audio-files with levels, fades and panning.
So: If you have a track with an effect that is very much a part of the song, you can bounce it down to a new track, and include both tracks in the session.
For midi-tracks/Instrument tracks, you would have to bounce it down to a audio-track before exporting.
(It you're not using Logic, as Logic makes audio of SoftSynths, automatically with exporting)

For users of Logic, Cubase and Nuendo:
Export as OMF or XML, zip the files and send to me.

For other software, send me an email and I'll direct you.

Also, if you have any difficulties when preparing for mixing, feel free to contact me, and I will guide you through the process.
You can use the form on the contact page or send me an email.

Send your files