Creating a sonic sandwich

When recording a full band or large ensemble of any style one of the most critical processes that needs to be handled with care is the stereo or spatial imaging done while in mix mode. So, youve just finished your recording session, things went well and youve got possibly many many trax to work with and find appropriate space for in a mix. As a general rule of thumb I think of a mix as a big sonic sandwich, what i mean by that is that things need to be layered in a way that everything has its appropriate place in the mix. Failing to do so results in problems like masking, phase cancellation, and unwanted build up of certain frequencies that becomes really noticeable when the whole mix is played together. Here is a couple of ideas to help you avoid such pitfalls. There are several ways to mix an ensemble and there are always exceptions to any given commonly used mix moves, I personally like to try and mix an ensemble as though you were looking at them playing on stage. One of the main things we want to avoid when mixing a band is a build up of sound right down the center. For example, if you have multiple guitar tracks experiment with panning them out, doesnt have to be hard right and left, maybe one is further out than the other. If you only have one guitar track consider doubling it inside your DAW panning them and then eq them differently to make it sound like separately recorded tracks. You can also nudge one of them back about 25-35 milliseconds, this will make the guitars sound huge, like you double tracked it. Just remember to check for phase issues when doing this as well. In addition to using our right and left field to create an space for all our tracks we can also utilize depth. Try adding a bit of reverb to a track you want to sound further back in a mix, like its at the back of the stage. The trick to a great mix is to find a little space for each of your instruments so that they are not competing with each other. Here is a short list of tools you can use when mixing to achieve this: panning, volume, EQ, and time based effects to do this. try doing a couple alternate mixes as well and finally give yourself time breaks and always mix with fresh ears whenever possible. -Andrew