A few years ago on June 16, 2008 I mixed an hour long set for O.A.R. at DeepRockDrive Studios Las Vegas where I was Audio Director and Mix Engineer for the innovative start-up company. This was a live “real-time” mix to HD video simultaneously distributed to viewers over the internet “as it happened”. DeepRockDrive was, and still is, the only live production internet concert providers that had a deep level of interactivity. It hasn’t been matched yet. Viewers at home were able to text the bands in real-time on some forty big-screen monitors positioned in front of the bands enabling them to pick and chose fan comments. Fans would text the band, band would reply over video. The delay was a mere two seconds so real conversations with fans between songs was the norm and the band loved seeing comments during the set.

As it usually happens for a live video music broadcast, the video team of 14, being much larger than the audio team of 2, took the lion-share of the time blocking cameras and lights. Me and our monitor engineer were lucky to get an hour with O.A.R. right before the prompt broadcast. It was a bit of a white-knuckler, but aren’t they all, lol. I mixed the broadcast on a Digidesign Venue console and mastered through a Waves L2 maxx bass processor to our codecs at 128kbps for audio.

When you’re ready to mix, don’t worry about studios or equipment so much, just concentrate on who will mix.

A killer mix is never actually from the studio it was mixed in or on what equipment it was mixed with. Of course gear can have distinct character and personality, but it still needs to be finessed much more than simply turning it on. Fact is, it’s the mix engineers experience and ability 100% There is nothing really crucially different about the best studios in the world or the greatest consoles ever made. No identifiable sound will be put on your music because of them. I’ve mixed and recorded in many of the best, what does make the music that comes out of them great are the experienced men and women that use its tools artfully and the experienced artists that can afford to use them. It’s that simple. But since the advancement in audio technologies of the last decade, it is quite easy to have the same audio and mix quality available just like the greatest studios in the world, “if” (and we’re back to the point again) you have a truly experienced mixer making smart decisions and good music flowing through the inputs. Great decisions make great music and great finishes, not machines or software. Look no further than all the great music made with sooo little equipment even 75 years ago. They only had the basics my friends, so somebody made some smart moves back in the day. That will never change.

Look at it this way, put an average or not so experienced mix engineer at the helm of one of these great studios with great consoles/best outboard and they will not be helped by them. Consider that a mix “recall” to fix a bad decision or to tweak a few things will not be possible, or will be very expensive at best. As a matter of fact these big studios and their monolith automated mix consoles are not completely easy to use unless one has an extraordinary amount of experience to be fluid on them. So because of that, a mix engineer has to have the experience of getting it right the “first time” in such studios, and that calls for some necessary big time experience. I’ve seen it hundreds of times, well intended people book a fine studio with fine equipment and hire a so so engineer last. It’s mainly because the well intended people that booked the session believe the magic is in the room and machines. They’re always disappointed and think all they need is more time, but experienced mix engineers get it the first time. They should have put their money and effort on the mix talent foremost. The shakers and movers do. Even if you don’t go with my services, search for your mix engineer first and foremost.

99.9% of my mix work is with ProTools (in-the-box) and .1% on analog consoles these days (with ProTools ), but It doesn’t matter what music program you use for writing and recording your music productions. Simply prepare the audio-files to be universal, useful on their own and not dependent on its session file. Next is how.

* All tracks need to be continuous individual files. Meaning: no edits in the audio. Each track needs to be one single file, or stereo file if that is the format your music program uses. Examples being GarageBand and Ableton Live among others work solely in stereo tracks. Before you buss record or disc record the file (also called: – bounce to disk – render – join – make continuous ) you’ll need to prepare the multi-tracks.

* All tracks you prepare need to have your mix plugins removed.I need your RAW un-proccessed audio tracks as they were recorded unless you have tracks with specific sound design elements from plugins or external manipulation. Simply record those elements onto discrete audio tracks. Separation is good. Remove EQ, compressors, reverbs and delays from “all” your tracks. If your program renders tracks through the stereo buss like GarageBand, then remove all stereo mix buss processing before you make the audio tracks for mixing. And just as a reminder while you’re recording, record your tracking with little to no compression. Keep your dynamics for me. If you have some cool vintage or vibey analog compressors, just tap it a half a db at peak.

* Stylized FX – Remember, if you have sound-design effects that rely on live plugins, render those as a separate sound file. You don’t want me recreating an effects move you’ve created, you want me mixing. Put it to its own track and all is good.

* All tracks need to begin at the same start-time or same time-stamp.Even if you have a sound event on one track at the very end of your song, the bounce or render needs to begin at the same very beginning of your song, before your intro, exactly at the same start-point as all the other tracks. The end of the files can all be different. When the sound ends for the song, the audio file can end there.

* Don’t slam the audio inputswhen recording/rendering/bouncing to disk. Slamming digital inputs will have no benefit sound wise and will cause problems for me so keep the levels within 80% of digital zero (the top) I rather have too low a signal than too hot.

* Sample rate, Sample Frequency, File Type- I can handle whatever rates you are using. WAV or AIFF are preferred. Don’t change or up-sample before your render, just give me the same rate and freq you’ve been using in your project.

How to deliver your mix session files

How to use the online mix system

Usually I communicate with most of my clients through email and sometimes a few calls when needed. Below is a basic how-to, to get us rolling.

1. Email an mp3 rough mix of your first song that needs a mix.
Sending a rough mix is the first best thing you can do for your mix engineer. What i’ll get out of it is what you’re looking to do no matter the quality of your rough mix. This really helps me interpret your vision and goal for the song.

2. I quote you a mix and mastering rate.
After I hear your song, know the amount of tracks and understand the scope of work, I’ll know enough to quote you a rate that fits the song.

3. You link me to a few similar popular songs for an additional reference point.
This helps me know a bit more about how you expect to sound. All artists have records they aspire and compare to. Just make sure the example songs you link me to are similar in tempo and track density like the instrumentation and vocal production. It may take a song or two to help you communicate those things to me but whatever works for you is great. Point being, the best way to communicate about music is through music.

4. If needed and if possible, touch up a few tracks before mixing.
Sometimes i’ll suggest a fix or an additional overdub or two that would greatly improve your final master if you have the means to do so in your home studio. If not, no worries. I’ll let you know.

5. Sign up for a free DropBox, upload your tracks, invite me to download.
Sometimes my clients have huge session file and slow internet upload speeds so they’ll simply mail a USB flash-drive with the session audio files. After that initial delivery, we’ll then do the rest of our file exchanges through DropBox and my Apple/Google servers.

6. I mix and master your song.
Average length is a little more than 10 hours of mix time before the first presentation of the mix to you.

7. You receive a full quality CD resolution mastered audio file for mix 1 review.
This is a real-world master first version. You can certainly live with the mix for as much time you need to review it plus you’ll likely have some adjustments and suggestions so just let me know.

8. If you do have adjustments, I make the mix adjustments, send it to you for review again.

9. Usually it takes 2 to 3 mix versions. Rarely a 4th. 
It’s usually little tweeks for last version. All mixed versions you receive will be “masters in consideration”

10. Deliver Final Master. Your song is now ready for broadcast and world domination!

How to prepare your audio tracks for mixing.

How to deliver your mix session files.

Here’s a simple trick I use occasionally when I’m having trouble dialing in a tricky mix with lots of tracks.

Simply get your mix close enough in mono and “then” spread your pans and continue to tweak. Be aware that you may have cut a little more lows and low mids than needed. Just sneak those freqs back in a little if needed. When you begin panning after getting it close, you’ll hear an amazing amount of space and clarity that would have been more difficult to achieve by panning very early in the mix.

The technique will force you to work your frequencies, dynamics and FX in a more disciplined way and will make your pan position choices a little easier to make. Remember that records up until the late 50’s were in mono, so this is not a difficult thing to do especially if you consider Count Basie’s Orchestra and the great bands sounded HUGE in mono.

After mixing a lot of home recorded material, the number one most difficult problem that I have the most trouble dealing with is over-compressed tracks. You must know that recording engineer professionals use no compression or very little compression when they record even for the biggest recording artists. If you’re doing it just to do it, don’t do it. You simply don’t need it on the recording side. Save the dynamics control for the mix and know that over-compressed tracks cannot be uncompressed or reversed. Many cool songs are rendered limp because of record side compression. Lay it down raw my friends and give us mix engineers an aggressive dynamic foundation to shape with….. Let me add that of course flavor can be added with some compressors and limiters that have character without adding compression. Set your attacks to long and realeases to short and threshold gain to barely touching. But,… I also have to say that compression fx on the record side is cool when it’s the right call and the right box. Sure, go ahead, mash stuff with a compressor, It’s fun when it works. But, my observation is that too much material is coming in with vocal, acoustic guitar and bass over-compressed. One more thing, there is rarely a time to compress drums on the record side unless you buss> then compress> to a different> track. I don’t want to take the fun out of experimenting, but get it as dynamically as you can on a separate track at least.

I get a lot of hurt tracks.

“Beat Yourself” from “Nuclear Sonic Punk” Japanese release. I wrote, programmed, played guitars, bass, produced mixed, etc. for Japanese artist Takui. Takui performed his amazing vocals on top of this mayhem at Bay7 studios in the L.A. valley. We mixed on a huge Neve 8058 with all kinds of wonderful tube and high voltage class A boxes. All that weird vocal FX is a Korg Kaoss pad in some spots.

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Other songs from “Nuclear Sonic Punk” produced and mixed by CJ deVillar

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“Must Be Strong”

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“Fairytale”

“I Wonder” I mixed several Tracks for LV of Gangterz Paradice fame for an unreleased production in 2004. Here’s a little sample. The man has amazing pipes.