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@ Gator-Studios.com |
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Welcome to the RiffWorks mixing overview @Gator-Studios.com!
Lets talk about mixing in RiffWorks. RiffWorks is one of the easiest programs to get started recording with, lots of fun, etc. A lot of people get good results all on their own but find they can’t get over the hump to a great mix. Hopefully this overview will give you a few basic tips on how to make your RiffWorks songs better.
There’s a few fundamentals we need to discuss first though:
Good Monitors “Come on Gator, I have some nice PC speakers and I already spent a couple hundred for the GuitarPort and RiffWorks. Can’t I just use headphones?” Well, yes, sort of. Headphones are great for tracking (recording), but when it comes to mixing they are not your best friend. It’s very difficult to judge levels and stereo field when the sound is “inside your head” instead of pushing air around a room.
“But doesn’t everyone listen on iPODs these days? So shouldn’t I mix in headphones?” Almost anything you do in headphones will sound okay. A good “translatable” mix will sound good everywhere, and I’m guessing you don’t want to exclude cars, bars, PC’s, radio etc. when you distribute your music!
What makes a good monitor? A reasonably flat frequency response, so that you can hear what’s really going on in the mix. All dedicated monitors are pretty flat (+/- 2db or less), but have slight differences so its good to audition several at the music store to see which ones you are most comfortable with.
Good Acoustic Treatment We're striving for a pretty flat frequency response, but the monitor is only one component of that. Your room gets into the mix (no pun intended!) too, and sometimes dramatically. In an untreated small home studio, the room can vary the sound as much as +/- 20db at different frequencies! Record a layer in RiffWorks, and vary it by 20db and you’ll get the idea.
“Can’t I just eq my monitors or something like that?” Well that would be great, except it’s up and down at so many frequencies it would be impossible to equalize the room out. Also, it depends on where in the room you are, what the peaks and dips will be. Listen to a song while in front of your speakers, then go stand in the corner...notice the bass is louder? Cup your hands behind your ears at your listening spot...does the sound change, get clearer? Two impacts of all that sound bouncing around the room.
There’s lots of references to acoustic treatment solutions (both cheap and expensive), but the gist is you need to dampen the sound at reflection points in your room to reduce this problem to a manageable level. A lot of the problems folks have with getting a good mix stem from the room itself getting in the way.
“Yeah yeah yeah, enough of all that mumbo jumbo, I thought this article was about getting better mixes in RiffWorks?” Sure, sure. I just wanted to make sure we don’t forget the obvious point, that if you can’t hear what you are mixing, a good mix is more like a blind squirrel finding an acorn...it happens, but not easily!
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RiffworksTM is a trademark of Sonoma Wire Works and used with permission! |
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© Copyright 2006-2008 by J.J. Falkanger |
