Reference Tracks - Should I be Using Them for Mastering?

[tedtan]

No, that would not require a "different" approach. Its the exact same approach, just where you set things are a little different.

If things are “a little different”, then they are not the same. Maybe we’re talking past one another due to semantics or whatever, and I don’t want to come across as argumentative here, but that not a confusing statement, so I don’t see where the issue is here.

Changing a couple settings is not the same as changing your entire approach.

Here you go twisting what I said again. I’m not talking about reinventing the mixing process for every song you mix, I’m talking about different settings to reflect the different needs of each track.

You could change just about anything you wanted and as long as you are still in the same genre of music, my approach to mixing wouldn't really change (the settings of a lot of things will be all that changed).

One size fits all = one size fits none, as you acknowledge with your parenthetical. That’s what I’ve been saying all along.

I was not twisting what you said at all and what you are saying contradicts each other.

You did in your prior post and are still doing so here in this post. I’m willing to accept that we may well be talking past one another due to semantics or whatever, but you have repeatedly taken what I’ve said and exaggerated it to an extreme in order to argue against something that I never said.

Mixing them THE SAME is what MAKES them consistent.

Different inputs require different processing in order to achieve a consistent end result. Doing the same exact thing regardless of input will not result in consist output. If one track is flubby at 80Hz and another is muddy at 400Hz, you have to treat them differently.

What I was saying is that no matter how much you try to be consistent if you mix songs one at a time, most people's minds kinda drift. They focus on whatever is grabbing their attention at that moment instead of keeping a similar approach to every song. It's just a natural thing most people's brain's do if they don't stay focused.

If you jump from song to song making similar eq, compressor, saturation, fx choices then the results come out much more uniform. Yes you can do one song at a time, but that is what causes the tone match chase at the end.

This I don’t take issue with, as you say similar, which is different, rather than saying the same.

 

[tedtan]

There are a lot of Youtube mixer guys that will give specific numbers that they want things to be at in certain stages of mixing. He doesn't pay attention to that, and for him that way of thinking is not beneficial.

To remind everyone of the obvious, those are mostly YouTubers, not professional mixers.

The only time mixing by the numbers works is in cases like Chris Lord Alge where his assistants premix the individual tracks to a standardized starting point for him before he begins the mix.

 

[LeftOurEyes]

Different inputs require different processing in order to achieve a consistent end result. Doing the same exact thing regardless of input will not result in consist output. If one track is flubby at 80Hz and another is muddy at 400Hz, you have to treat them differently.



This I don’t take issue with, as you say similar, which is different, rather than saying the same.

If you think that I have been saying that every setting on every device and hardware should be the same in the mixing process then I might as well be talking to a door.

I said making choices from the same approach/mindset, not set every setting the exact same on everything. This is you twisting or misunderstanding what I am saying.

You did in your prior post and are still doing so here in this post. I’m willing to accept that we may well be talking past one another due to semantics or whatever, but you have repeatedly taken what I’ve said and exaggerated it to an extreme in order to argue against something that I never said.

You are certainly stuck in semantics as I understand exactly what you are saying but it seems like you have no idea what I am saying. We are basically saying the same thing just in different ways however you are stuck on the word "same" and taking it so literally.

For some reason you are saying that changing one value on something in the signal chain like a compressor or eq is a different approach to mixing. I think changing something like your signal chain for vocals, an instrument bus or master track maybe would be a different approach, but changing the ratio on a compressor or changing the frequency cut a little for an eq is not a "different" approach. I never said that every change you make should be IDENTICAL.

What I said originally about things being the same was:

When you jump from song to song at the same time, your thought process is similar as you work on all the songs (signal chains, how you set up parallel tracks, automation etc.) Making similar mixing choices on all your tracks is what makes them feel consistent.

Notice how I said making similar mixing choices, not EXACT SAME SETTINGS and I mentioned things like signal chains as an example. When I say mixing the same I am saying from the same approach/mindset, not literally the same settings on everything. When mixing something like snare for example, I could say I want a lot of snap. If you used different snares for different songs then obviously you would not use identical setting on everything to get the sound. If you use the same signal chain on all the snare though and adjust the settings to get a similar sound then that would be coming from the same mindset.

If you are going to mix one song at a time but for a whole album, templates will be your friend as using similar signal chains will help a lot.

I also posted the Andrew Scheps video to make the point of whatever works for you works, there is no "wrong" if it works. There are things that works better for most people which is why I even commented in the first place but there is no "right" answer here.

 

[Drew]

Once you had all the tracks where you want in the same project, I’m assuming you exported them all separately?

Also thanks everyone for the info!

Yes - sequence them all in the order, and with the spacing, you want, then export with the end time marker of your prior export as the start point of your new one. Remember that one of the very many things you're doing while mastering is setting up the "flow" of the album, how much space between tracks, any fadeouts, etc.

If you think that I have been saying that every setting on every device and hardware should be the same in the mixing process then I might as well be talking to a door.

I was reading both of your posts and wondering if this is what the issue was, and if you were mostly in agrteemebt but just accidentally talking to each other. And sure enough...

Honestly, old man shaking his fist at the clouds, but I blame "mix templates," and this idea that you just take a template, drop in your tracks, and export, and any "mixing" is maybe slightly tweaking your template and then saving that, and using that for all future projects. For a LOT of people that's just how they work these days, and to me, that's crazy. If your song is in standard tuning, key of A, you're probably going to be using slightly differen EQ settings than if it was Drop-D. You can have a song with very saturated gutiars, and another with cleaner, less saturated guitars, and you shoild be able to make them both sound like the same band and same project, even if the exact tones aren't the same - we all ixate on the guitars but honestly a fairly consistent bass/drum sound is going to "glue" a project together more than a guitar tone will, and drums especially can call for very different approaches between two songs just because of changes in tempo.

But, the upshot is, even if exact FX chains (or even overall approaches - the decision to sidechain vs not sidechain the kick/bass depending on performance and tempo, say) aren't the same between two songs, you should still be able to make those two songs sound like the work of the same band, from the same session, in the mix. And if they don't, then mastering isn't going to fix that either.

 

[LeftOurEyes]

Honestly, old man shaking his fist at the clouds, but I blame "mix templates," and this idea that you just take a template, drop in your tracks, and export, and any "mixing" is maybe slightly tweaking your template and then saving that, and using that for all future projects. For a LOT of people that's just how they work these days, and to me, that's crazy.

I don't think that is how the majority of professionals use templates, though I'm sure there are people out there doing this. The biggest purpose of templates is organizational; having all the tracks inserted, color coded and routed (from instrument tracks, to bus, to master) to save time and to make navigating the tracks easier/faster/consistent. They do have plugin signal chains set up that are their typical go-to's, but I think that most of the plugins in the template are set to default settings unless there is something set that is virtually never changed like maybe a Limiter on the end of each track to control clipping set to -0.3 or -1. The order of plugins are usually fairly consistent for a lot of people though (like eq->compressor->saturation or bus compressors on every bus and master track) and the template is just to speed up the process. Mixing engineers certainly should not be just dropping tracks into preset plugin chains and calling it a day.

 

[Drew]

I don't think that is how the majority of professionals use templates, though I'm sure there are people out there doing this.

I agree. And yet, the majority of "check out my mixtest!" threads around here are someone dropping new stems into a template and hitting export.

On my end, while I technically use a "template," it's a project with an instance of Superior 3 loaded, set to the default kit, but with multi-out routing into a series of tracks rolling up to a drum bus. No plugins beyond the VST, no presets, nothing, save routing that I'm going to want in place for almost every project I do.

Everything else I'll add on a case by case basis. I COULD set up a template that also has track(s) for bass, stereo rhythm guitars, a lead guitar track, etc etc etc... And did for a while... but honestly I found it more of a nuisance than just right-clicking and adding a track when I needed it. If a song genesis is just a guitar melody or just a riff, I don't necessarily want to have all those parts set up in advance if I'm just trying to get an idea down, and routing in Reaper is insanely easy.

 

[tedtan]

If you think that I have been saying that every setting on every device and hardware should be the same in the mixing process then I might as well be talking to a door.

Honestly, old man shaking his fist at the clouds, but I blame "mix templates," and this idea that you just take a template, drop in your tracks, and export, and any "mixing" is maybe slightly tweaking your template and then saving that, and using that for all future projects. For a LOT of people that's just how they work these days, and to me, that's crazy.

This is how I read @LeftOurEyes comment to which I initially responded, and agree that this is an issue. He has since clarified that he uses templates as a starting point to save time, which us a great way to use them; I can't take issue with that approach to templates.

But, the upshot is, even if exact FX chains (or even overall approaches - the decision to sidechain vs not sidechain the kick/bass depending on performance and tempo, say) aren't the same between two songs, you should still be able to make those two songs sound like the work of the same band, from the same session, in the mix. And if they don't, then mastering isn't going to fix that either.

Agreed.

Mixing is 90% volume (to include gain staging to avoid noise, add saturation, feature specific phrases, etc.), panning, EQ (to include high and low pass filters), and compression. Add in delay and reverb and you're up to 99%. Granted, I just pulled those specific numbers out of my ass, but they illustrate the point.

I don't think that is how the majority of professionals use templates, though I'm sure there are people out there doing this. The biggest purpose of templates is organizational; having all the tracks inserted, color coded and routed (from instrument tracks, to bus, to master) to save time and to make navigating the tracks easier/faster/consistent. They do have plugin signal chains set up that are their typical go-to's, but I think that most of the plugins in the template are set to default settings unless there is something set that is virtually never changed like maybe a Limiter on the end of each track to control clipping set to -0.3 or -1. The order of plugins are usually fairly consistent for a lot of people though (like eq->compressor->saturation or bus compressors on every bus and master track) and the template is just to speed up the process. Mixing engineers certainly should not be just dropping tracks into preset plugin chains and calling it a day.

This is how to use templates, and now that you've clarified, I am in agreement with you.

 

[Drew]

This is how I read @LeftOurEyes comment to which I initially responded, and agree that this is an issue. He has since clarified that he uses templates as a starting point to save time, which us a great way to use them; I can't take issue with that approach to templates.

Yeah this is a workflow optimization choice - one that doesn't feel optimized to me, but at least makes a lot of sense and certainly can and should to others.

But, @LeftOurEyes - I think my new theory here is you're kind of underestimating how prevalent the view is that mixing is just finding the right saved presents to run EVERYTHING through, and how reflexive a lot of us are around here about "god no, don't do that!"

 

[LeftOurEyes]

Yeah this is a workflow optimization choice - one that doesn't feel optimized to me, but at least makes a lot of sense and certainly can and should to others.

But, @LeftOurEyes - I think my new theory here is you're kind of underestimating how prevalent the view is that mixing is just finding the right saved presents to run EVERYTHING through, and how reflexive a lot of us are around here about "god no, don't do that!"

It makes sense that the workflow doesn't work well for you because you are still recording. If you were just mixing finished songs for other people (for a living) it would make more sense and the need to save time is more important then as well. People doing this as a hobby wouldn't have the time crunch that pros do and don't really need to copy all of their methods because of it.

There probably is far too many people wanting everything as "preset" as possible. It seems to me like an approach that many amateurs take when starting out as they don't know what to do, and can't hear the difference between a lot of settings when experimenting, so they want someone to just tell them where they should set everything.

There is no replacement for experience. I wanted to know other people's setting for things like compressors or eqs at first but I kept reading, listening and practicing and slowly developed a better ear and became more knowledgeable on what each control does. I picked up on some people's comments online and started noticing small things myself, slowly things become more and more intuitive. Now I like listening to general advice on how to set things but would never want someone else to tell me where to cut or boost eqs or something everytime. I still have a ton to learn but I can hear and appreciate small changes much better now than I used to and I can hear things that stand out in a bad way that need to be fixed better. Training your ear is crucial to mixing well.