Most common mistakes made in recording/mixing?

[Luke K]

Hello,

I know there are a few really good engineers out there with many years of experience. Im also pretty sure when they started out that made some silly mistakes many of us newer engineers could learn from?

So what are the most common mistakes you have seen?done yourself?

What do you wish you knew more about when you were first starting out?

How did you learn to mix/record?


Looking forward to responses.

Luke K

[relaxo]

Haven't there been 189,454 articles written in the magazines and another 77,244 on the internet on this exact topic?

#1 Translation to the outside world. KNOW how your room and your speakers sound and how to make the mental adjustments necessary to make your mixes sound good everywhere. To begin with, listen to a lot of your lifetime favorite CDs in the room on the monitors. In particular, listen to where the bass sits and how much bass energy your room/monitors make playing your old CDs that you know so well. Make your mixes sound like your favorite store bought CDs in that room.

[albee1952]

Agreed. The most important thing is to have reasonably accurate monitoring and KNOW what is really going on(learn your speaker/room sound). Then its a matter of trial and comparison to commercial stuff you like. Your target is on a hundred CD's. Just don't be fooled into shooting for "radio sound" as broadcasters squash the daylights with broadcast limiters and most radio has restricted S/N ratio and bandwidth. Much of it has to do with taste(good or otherwise) and that can't be taught(either you have it, or you don't).

[jmitchell1532]

I'm self taught through books and the web and such. I had been recording for 2 or so years before I even knew what a "send" or "aux" actually did. I would put reverbs directly on tracks and such. Oh boy.

Years later, I still think that's a common rookie mistake.

Oh, and I can not stress the importance of buying the best monitors you can, above all else. If you have the dough, spend it on monitors before you spend it on the outboard gear or Waves bundles.

[TOM@METRO]

Even in great studios, over the years one of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen new engineers embrace is; to try to use effects and reverb to hide bad performances.

[jmitchell1532]

That used to be one of the deciding factors with my band if we were scouting studios. Some samples they'd play, you'd hear a snare with so much Church style reverb that you couldn't tell it was even a drum anymore.

Granted, I'm still an amatuer. I'd never compare my myspace stuff to anyone actually skilled. Still have lots of learning to do. Hence, my many trips to the DUC.

[TOM@METRO]

Yup, why do it right when you can just cover it up.

[cboyer1951]

I am a complete newbie.
I've written my midi songs on Propellerhead, then drifted up to Cubase Le, SE, SL, 4 and then 5 and wasn't writing as much as I spent my time learning mixing and tracks... grins.

Now I went to Pro Tools Le 8, and I'm floor'd. Wow!
Everything sounds so much more professional here than where I was. Oh well.

Now I want to get into mixing and mastering. I understand about 100 favorite cd's playing on speakers and getting the feel for the room space.

Question; why not have fx on individual tracks?
I understand that the cpu ram etc. gets used up, so that's the basis of it.
But I can't see any other way to do it in my usual setup.

So, my most basic song, regularly is;

midi track for bass
midi track for drums bass
midi track for drums snare
midi track for drums high hat or ride
midi track for lead/synth
midi track for rythym/synth

Ok, so there are 6 midi tracks.
Each track mixes down to an audio track, no fx.
(All drums down to a single audio track of course).

So, now I have 4 audio tracks.

I understand to put a reverb and settings on an aux track and have the routing setup for the audio track to use it. But I always want different compression, different reverb on each track separately.

So is there a way to accomplish this without having effects on each of my 4 separate audio tracks? No, right? so in my scenario that is just the only way to do it.

But I understand that on my last mixdown track I'd have an aux with comp and reverb on it and use that for my final audio to rout from it. Is that all? Or? I'm missing something?

Thanks a lot
Chuck

[mindnoise]

cboyer,

your are right, depending on what to want to achieve. Seperate FX on each track is totally ok, even for reverb!
Sharing FX on AUX tracks is good to save resources and giving some tracks the same flavour. That´s it.

And for the topic of the thread:
Compression is most misused and misunderstood.
There is no reason whatsoever on earth that forcing you to compress each and every track.

If there would be only one rule in DAW Mixing, I pick this one:
Question yourself about the reason, why you put an FX on a track.

best :)

[Fastermouse]

Read this thread. In fact go towards the latest page and download the PDF version. It made me quit my job and go full time in a studio. You will learn.