Understanding Basic Mixing

team bbl


Mixing a song is the art of carefully blending all of the different sounds and musical textures into one cohesive, balanced piece of music. Arranging regions in separate tracks is easy once you get the hang of itin fact, you've been arranging songs since you started this book. Mixing takes a little more practice. It also takes some ear training.

Ear training means being able to listen beyond the basic music to analyze the full panoramic scope of a song. Chefs train their palates so they can taste food beyond the basics. For instance, an Italian chef can taste the full array of spices in a marinara sauce, from oregano to fresh ground pepper. Some chefs can even tell you what type of tomato was used and how ripe it was. It's great to be able to taste the spaghetti sauce and know whether you like it not. It's even better if you know why.

Throughout this lesson, you'll be training your ear, so that by the end of the exercises, you too will be able to hear beyond the music and notice the subtle elements within the mix of a song.

Let's start by listening to the finished song titled Highway Bound.

1.

Open 7-2 Highway Bound mixed from the Lesson_07 folder.

This finished song includes 11 music tracks plus an empty track at the bottom for you to record your own track after the lesson. There are also 2 vocal tracks at the bottom, which I've muted until later in the lesson.

2.

Press the spacebar to play the finished song.

I wrote this song about a nomadic Southern rock band that lives on the road traveling from gig to gig. They're always the opening act, never the headliner, and they never play in the same town twice. Might make for an interesting documentary, and if so, this would be the opening title music.

Now that you've heard the finished piece, let's compare it to the unmixed song.

3.

Choose File > Open and select 7-1 Highway Bound unmxd from the Lesson_07 folder.

4.

Play the entire unmixed song and listen for anything that stands out, in either a good or bad way.

As you play the song, listen for the following:

  • Are some parts difficult to hear?

  • Do some parts seem too loud?

  • Does the song sound and feel finished?

  • Is the overall volume of the song even?

  • Does it sound like something you'd buy, or does it sound more like something homemade?

What was your impression of unmixed song? My impression is that all of the musical elements (instruments and parts) are there, but the levels are all over the place. The unmixed song doesn't sound or feel very professional.

Now that you've listened to the unmixed song, let's save it in your folder so you'll be able to compare your work to the unmixed version.

5.

Press Shift-Cmd-S to open the Save As window.

6.

Change the name to Highway Bound and save it to your GarageBand Songs folder.

    team bbl



    Apple Training Series(c) GarageBand 2
    Apple Training Series: GarageBand 2
    ISBN: 0321330196
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 139
    Authors: Mary Plummer

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