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Connected by Creativity

Chapter 10 of 13

Mixing

Mixing is making room. When every part is loud, bright and in the middle, they bury each other. Small moves with level, pan and filters let each one be heard, and the whole song sounds bigger for it.

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With sound.

The mixer

Open Mix (tab 07). Under MIXER there is one strip per channel: PULSE 1 is the Lead, PULSE 2 the Harmony, TRIANGLE the Bass and NOISE the chip-noise drums. The expanded studio adds strips for its parts and for synthesized drums. Drum voices also have their own level and pan in the Drums tool.

Each control

ON and MUTE
Switch a channel off and on without losing its settings.
SOLO
Play only this channel, to hear it up close. Press it again to hear everything.
VOL
Level, from 0 to 100. Zero is silent and 100 is full level; most parts start at 80, the Bass at 100.
PAN
Position between left (−100) and right (100); 0 is the centre.
W
Stereo width, 0 to 200. 0 is mono, 100 normal, 200 extra wide.
HAS
Haas delay: delays the right side by up to 30 milliseconds. Too short to hear as an echo, it makes a part feel wide. Check it still sounds right in mono.
CHR
Chorus depth: a slowly moving copy of the sound, for a thicker, shimmering part.
HPF
High-pass filter: removes everything below its frequency. Raise it on parts that do not need low end, to leave room for the bass and kick.
LPF
Low-pass filter: removes everything above its frequency. Lower it to soften a harsh or fizzy part, or to push it into the background.

A simple mixing routine

  1. Start with every VOL low, then bring up the most important part (usually the kick or the lead) and build the rest around it.
  2. Pan the supporting parts a little left and right. Keep the kick, bass and lead in the centre.
  3. Use HPF on everything that is not bass or kick. Start around 150 to 400 Hz and listen for when the part thins too much.
  4. Use LPF on hats and bright parts that sound harsh.
  5. Solo a part only to fix it. Always judge the result with everything playing.
  6. Listen at a low volume. If the balance still works quietly, it works.

TipIf something is too quiet, try turning everything else down before turning it up. Mixes that only ever go up end up distorted.

Effects in the expanded studio

With the expanded studio on (Enable expanded studio in Mix, or Add expanded sounds on the shelf), Mix gains effects. Creative effects and sidechain are saved with your project.

CHANNEL INSERT FX
Effects on a single channel: DIST and DRIVE (distortion), CRUSH and BITS (bitcrushing to a lower resolution), CHOR (chorus), FOLD (wavefolding), SAT and S.DRV (warm saturation) and VERB (reverb).
SIDECHAIN COMP
Ducks a channel whenever chosen drums hit: the pumping sound of dance music, and a way to let the kick cut through. TRIGGER picks the drums (KICK, SNR, CLAP and so on); DEPTH, THRESH, RATIO, ATK, HOLD and REL shape the duck.
MASTER BUS FX
Eleven effects on the whole mix: DISTORTION, BITCRUSHER, CHORUS, REV. REVERB, RING MOD, FILTER SWEEP, PITCH SHIFT, TAPE WOBBLE, STUTTER, SIDECHAIN and VINYL.
TAPE STOP
STOP slows the whole song to a halt like a tape machine losing power; START brings it back up.
A/B
Switches the master effects off and on, to compare. KILL ALL resets every effect.

What reaches an exported WAV

Level, pan, width, Haas, chorus, both filters and the channel insert effects are all included when you export. The master bus effects and sidechain are live effects: as the Finish tool says, they are not included in WAV and mastering renders.

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