The process of mixing a variety of audio sources, such as dialogue, music and sound effects, is also called RE=RECORDING.

There are pre-stage and post-stage.

The pre-stage is to do the overall effect, such as mixing, making the EQ of vocals and musical instruments, and positioning each instrument well! This sounds like an overall mixing mode!

The later stage is the most important procedure, that is, mastering. It mainly compresses the music mixed in the earlier stage before release. This compression does not reduce the audio, but makes the whole audio sound even, and then adjusts the EQ of the music synthesized in the earlier stage again!

mixing is not only an art, it is also a key step to assemble audio tracks into final music. An excellent mix can show the highlights of your music to people, which can be considered as the most important detail of your music, adding another surprise to the already very excited audience, and at the same time ensuring that no matter whether the music is listened to on a transistor radio or released from an enthusiast's "dream combination", there is no sound to say.

Theoretically speaking, mixing should be a very simple thing: all you have to do is adjust some knobs until all the sounds sound good. But generally not so good luck. Mixing can be as difficult for a mixing engineer as playing an instrument. So let's take a closer look at every step in the mix.

You can start by analyzing the excellent mixing recordings of some top mixing engineers and producers, such as Bruce Swedien, Toger Nichol, Shelly Yakus, Steve A1bini and Bob Clearmountain. Don't focus on the music, but pay attention to the mixing. You should try your best to recognize the sound of every instrument, even the "sound of the wall", because every element in music has its own acoustic space position. At the same time, we should also pay attention to the balance of frequency response in music. You should try to make the sound have enough high-pitched parts without making it scream, and also have enough bass to pave the way, but don't make the mixing a mess. Of course, it is also necessary to ensure a clear and obvious middle frequency band.

one of the best reference tools for mixing is a CD player and a reference CD with excellent mixing (among the rock music CDs, my favorite one is the album Damn the Torpedoes by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, and the wonderful thing is that no matter what sound system you use to play it, its sound is very good). Connect the CD player to your mixer, and then often compare your mix with the reference CD. If your mixed sound seems dull, harsh or uninteresting, then you should carefully monitor and isolate the signal sources that produce these adverse consequences. A reference CD can also guide you in many aspects, such as the relative level of drums, voices and other sounds.

Observe the level meter of the mixer, so that the level of the music in the reference CD is as high as that of your mixed music (so that their peak signals are as high as the level meter). At this time, if the overall volume of your work sounds very small, even when its peak electricity has exceeded the level value of the reference CD, it means that the music in the reference CD must have been well limited, so that the dynamic difference of the whole music will not be too great. In fact, compression is always one of the few things you have to do when mixing. At the same time, a regular studio should have at least one first-class pressure limiter and one first-class user.

appropriate monitoring level

too loud sound will make your ears tired. The low mixing level will keep your ears in a "sensitive" state and not easy to get tired: too high mixing level can make your whole body blood boil, but it is not conducive to detecting subtle changes in the level.

Many music studios have noise problems, so it seems a good idea to use headphones when mixing. Although headphones are excellent for capturing details that are difficult to hear in the speaker, they are not the best choice for mixing, because they will exaggerate some details in the music. Therefore, it is the best way to check the mixing results with headphones instead of mixing with headphones.

don't let the equipment "dirty" the sound

prepare for mixing when you start recording. One of the most important elements to obtain excellent mixing is to make sure the sound of each track is as clean as possible when recording. Remove all the equipment that can be removed between the signal source and the tape recorder. In most cases during the recording process, the "bypass" switch on the signal processing equipment should be turned on, so that it will not add any effect to the signal, but keep the original flavor of the signal. If possible, it is best to input the sound signal directly into the recorder (for the microphone, an independent ultra-high quality preamplifier is needed at this time), and put the mixer aside.

for a single timbre, you may not hear the difference between direct recording and recording through a mixer and other equipment, but a piece of music is composed of many tracks, and the superposition of unclean components in each track will definitely affect the clarity of the music when mixing.

music arrangement

the problem of mixing should be considered when arranging music. The typical problem in personal music studio is that it is easy to confuse the works. In the early days, the structure of the music was filled up, so that as the recording went on, you had no room to add new ideas. Remember one thing: the fewer notes, the greater the impression each note will give. As Sun Ra once said: "blank is also a manifestation."