help with funk mix...

[jacofox]

hey all...
just need some advice on a mix (still newish to pro tools...this is my first one...)
So I've got a good sounding vocal mix just with the Joe Meek Compressor and a slight (5%) reverb with D-verb...electric guitars are also fine...I'm looking for advice on three things

1. Drums-got a good pan...but any advice on compression?...i've seen a lot of people saying not to use it on drums and others swear by it...its a funk piece, so i'm looking especially for a really sharp snare sound in particular...

2. Saxaphone-where should a sax stand in the mix...i've panned it 30 to the left for balance but what's the norm? Also...should I add reverb or compression to the sax?

3. Bass guitar-found a good compression setting already...its the EQ im having trouble with...looking for a really good sound to bring out the staccato syncopation...as I said its a funk piece so I really need the bass spot on.

Any advice is much appreciated...
thanks

oh...and just to be more specific..the kind of song is a bit like the band 'The Cat Empire'...

[paulreed]

try using parallel compression on your drums....hit the windows key and send the outputs of your tracks to another buss in addition to where they are going.....squash it good and blend in with the original, just be sure the phase is kept correct

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by paulreed

try using parallel compression on your drums....hit the windows key and send the outputs of your tracks to another buss in addition to where they are going.....squash it good and blend in with the original, just be sure the phase is kept correct

I do this by adding an AUX send to all the drum "shell" tracks and feed them to a stereo AUX track. I insert Waves SSL compressor on the AUX track and it works great. I used to use BF76 for the same purpose and that worked well enough(and didn't cost extra). Either way, those compressor plugins only have 1 sample of latency, which does not cause any audible phasing(1/44100th of a second)

[nst7]

Some of this will be mostly experimenting with what sounds good to you. For compression with this type of music, it's very dynamic and you don't want to squash it to much, but let it breathe.

For saxophone, if it's going all through the song, where you have it panned is probably good. If it's only there to do a solo, it could just take the place of the lead vocal and be featured prominently in the center. For compression on that, just experiment and find that place where it still has dynamics but nothing jumps out too much. For reverb, you should use an aux channel and put most of the instruments' sends in varying amounts to that reverb. For the most part, this type of music leans toward dryer sound. You want just enough reverb to give it a sense of space.

For the bass, if you want the attacks to come through, be careful with the attack time of your compressor (allow the initial attacks to come through). For eq, you'll want to focus more on boosting the high end to help it cut through.

[Stig Eliassen]

I do this by adding an AUX send to all the drum "shell" tracks and feed them to a stereo AUX track.

So you leave out only the hi-hat (if any), overheads and room mics?

[barismanco123]

Have a listen to a sax led funk track such as anything by James Brown with sax.

Usually dry sax, natural roomy drums with little in the sense of a reverb tail.

Compression wise I would lay off a typical compressor and try to use the Digi Reel Tape suite for some light analogue sounding compression of just a few dB's or so if you do use a regular compressor, just make sure it's a low ratio with only a few dB's of actual compression occuring.

It's more the instruments used and the playing style that will give it the funky sound - the types of drums parts used etc, guitar amp setting.

Maybe a distortion plug could give it some nice "dirty" sounds and I tend to find peircing high frequencies are part and parcel with funk.

[obiwan177]

Also, if you listen to a lot of funk (which I'm guessing you probably do) than use those records as a basis. You probably have a favorite funk artist, listen to what they do.