Fix it in the mix is a relatively modern expression, that suggests you can wait until the end of the mixing process to deal with any problem sound. We don’t think that’s the case and here’s why.
In Short
Fixing in the mix relies on compromises, it takes substandard recordings and/or performances and tries to correct them with editing or plugins. The results are never as good as getting them right at the start of the process.
In Depth
For a discussion about audio recording and mixing I’d like to use a visual example. That may sound odd, but some people find the visual medium an easier way to understand a subject.
Before I do, let’s just consider the ‘fix it in the mix’ philosophy.
We get it, not everyone has an amazing room, like Air Studios or Abbey Road for example. Then there’s the issue of microphones, one can’t possibly be expected to record an amazing vocal using a £200 microphone when big studios have microphones costing the price of a small car. Then you add into this the mixing console, the outboard gear. It’s enough to want to make you give up trying and use modern plugins, tuning and quantize later on down the road.
A couple of responses to this thinking. The first one is about the gear. When someone asks me what’s the best X these days, my response is any of them. Really? A £200 interface is as good as a £5000 interface? No, but the differences, compared to let’s say the difference in the 1970s and 1980s is much smaller, in some cases to the average listener it’s imperceptible. Modern recording gear is amazing. We’re generally an old bunch on this team, so we’ve been around the days of tape cassette portastudios, average sounding budget mixers and pretty crappy microphones. It’s not hard to buy good gear these days, in fact we would contend it’s a lot harder to buy bad gear.
The second response to the thinking is simple. Hand a £50,000 Strat to a good guitarist and then a £300 version to the same player and hear what they can do, both will sound fantastic. The same with an audio engineer. It’s not the gear.
Getting a good sound takes time and skill. Check out the video below where veteran recording legend Bob Clearmountain shows how to get a great drum sound with two microphones.
You might be thinking, there’s a £7000 microphone being used. However, Bob is showing the principles that can then be applied using other gear. He says in the video ‘you can use any good condenser’, which these days can be had for less than £200. Add in the Beta 52a and that’s £500 for the microphones and because of the joy of YouTube, free advice from the best in the business.
If £500 is still too much money, then check out this video using just one microphone costing around £300.
Now you might be watching both videos and thinking ‘there’s some serious talent in those videos.’ Yes, and that brings up a third point. You can’t EVER fix a bad performance in the mix. It’s always worth taking time to make sure you’re getting the best performance and taking the time to listen to the sound before pressing record to make sure it’s the best it can be.
A Lesson For Enthusiasts… And Perhaps Some Professionals
This entire article was conceived when I was trying to get something right when recording, but in this case it was video.
I wanted to record some pieces to camera for this blog. It’s not a cheap camera, in fact it’s one of the new Panasonic professional 4K cameras. My early efforts were OK, but when I looked at similar videos on YouTube and Vimeo, I started to question my purchase choice, my camera settings, and wondered to myself, it cant be that hard to get a great image. Some of these people are using gear that costs a tenth of the price.
I’ve been editing video for over a decade so I know something about how colour grading works. In short, it’s rare that the image shot in the camera doesn’t go through a colour grading process of white balance, colour and other tricks to make it look good. It’s standard practise in the moving image world and dates back to the days of using film when it had to be done as part of the conversion process.
These days, as with digital audio and plugins, there’s a whole industry built around doing this with picture, using tools within the video editor and third party plugins and LUTS. It is, for many, the video equivalent of fixing it in the mix.
Let me show you my four day journey of discovery.
Below are four takes of the same subject (me) sorry it’s the best I’ve got! Day one is on the left and day four far right, you can click on them to enlarge them.
The Day One shot was my first attempt at getting a better shot. I’m not a lighting professional, and not a professional camera person either. I’ve worked with great camera and lighting people, so I’ve always tried to garner some tips and tricks along the way. Suffice to say, I’m the enthusiast in the room.
However, as each day went on, and I watched a lot of online video tutorials, things started to improve.
I tested all the shots with my friends on social media, the Day Four shot got the thumbs up as the best shot and the most watchable. For example, check out the skin tones from the first to the last day, how much warmer and balanced they are, and how I pop from the much more interesting background.
My wife says I look older in the first two!
What made the difference? The lighting set-up. Day One uses natural light from a large window to my left and then some infill from a second LED panel on my right. As the days went on I tried more lighting set-ups. By Day Four I’d spent hours working out the lighting set-ups, but look at the results. If you are interested, I’ve made a short ‘Lighting With The Amatuers’ video to show you how I did it.
Another very important point is that the shot I tried to fix most in post using grading tools is the Day One shot, the Day Four shot has very little post processing, in fact just a little white balance.
An even more sobering thought is that I didn’t buy any new lights, I just learnt to use the ones I already own. Even better, I don’t have to relearn this lesson again, I just try and improve.
You Can’t Fix It In The Mix
In our fast moving, here’s a plugin to fix that problem, you can fix it in the mix, world of modern recording, it’s easy to believe those lies. Yes lies.
If this foray into lighting design has taught me anything, fixing stuff in the mix, or in the case of video, in post is a lie. You don’t fix it, you just compromise on what could have been better had you done it right at source. It’s the same with both music and post recording, be that dealing with a bad performance or noisy location recording.
This lesson proves another truth, it’s not about the money. Fact is, I had all the gear and no idea. Just look what this amatuer acheived by taking time to figure it out and improve it. I think it’s time well spent.
Getting great recordings takes skill and time. With YouTube and blogs like this, we can all get better, the question is, are we willing to take the time?