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Arranging with the mix in mind


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Hi - I'm new to songwriting and mixing. I've read that layering multiple instruments achieves a fuller sound, i.e., stacking a couple performances of the same guitar line, etc. But I've been having trouble with my mixes being too quiet, and I stumbled on Lagerfeldt saying this here https://gearspace.com/board/music-computers/468170-loudness-when-producing-mixing-tips.html:

 

With a real life band playing in front of you, the more instruments you add to the band, the louder the music will be. That's because real life doesn't have an upper limit for volume. So more is more. In your sequencer less is more. The more different parts you play simultaneously in your song, the less headroom you have left before the master bus overloads. This means you have to lower your master level each time you add another instrument that plays at the same time as other instruments. Think of a musical arrangement as a conversation between instruments, not as an argument where they speak all at once. Short answer: use as few (simultaneous) instruments as possible to achieve your goal.

 

Can anyone help me reconcile these two ideas - that one should double or stack instruments to achieve a full sound, and that doing so can cause loudness or dynamic range problems? Thank you.

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I consider Lagerfeldt as a reference in terms of sound engineering.

 

I make the following distinction between loudness vs "full sound":

 

Loudness refers to perceived amplitude of the sound.

As he pointed out, in real life there isn’t a limit to same, besides the capacity of your ears to withstand the sound amplitude.

In a mix, the limit is dictated by the system through which the sound is emitted. (without elaborating into details…)

 

"Full sound" (as I understand it) has more to do with the space the sound is occupying over a stretch of time.

Saturation (via compression) is another word that could be viewed as a mean to achieve same.

However, there are other ways to occupy the sound space than compressing. Adding intentional frequency coloration could be an additional approach to fill the available sound space in a mix. Same is often achieved by adding coherent/similar sound sources (with reverb, delay or a track/recording duplication, etc).

 

However, as Lagerfeldt mentioned, different sound sources in a mix could (and will) eventually fight one against the other to occupy the same (limited) space spots (in term of time and/or frequencies). The art of mixing is to distribute/parse that (limited) sound space among the source in an intentional and coherent manner.

 

My 2 cents…

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Thanks! Maybe Lagerfedlt isn't talking about the same instruments playing at the same time, but rather introducing too many different instruments at the same time. In other words, maybe he's not actually saying anything about - let alone warning about - doubling or layering the same instrument to create a thicker or fuller sound.
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Thanks! Maybe Lagerfedlt isn't talking about the same instruments playing at the same time

That's exactly what I was thinking while i was reading the blurb you quoted. Two guitars playing the same line and summed together will not create the same effect as a guitar playing one part while a synth is playing another.

 

But still it's a complicated issue, because as pointed out there's a limit to what you can push out in a DAW, so that if you mix a 1 guitar riff and then you do a mix with 20 guitars playing that same riff in unison, you'll be able to push the 1 guitar much louder than each one of the 20 guitars in the 20 guitar mix. So in the end, which sounds loudest? Psycho-acoustics are involved too. Even though the 20 guitars are no louder than the 1, it may appear to the listener like it's louder because of the effect (of hearing 20 guitars playing the same thing together, which does not sound the same as 1 guitar playing that same thing alone, even if the resulting level is exactly the same).

 

You have to experiment and find what fits the song, the genre, what you want to hear etc. and you'll find out that in the end, there isn't one single rule that's always true like "2 guitars sound better than one" or "double-tracked vocals sound better than single-tracked vocals". It's something to experiment with and determine for yourself if it works for what you're trying to do.

 

Also I wouldn't think of it in terms of "problems" but in terms of limits. Because your container (your stereo mix) is limited in size, you have to choose between putting one big thing in there, or several smaller things. That doesn't mean one choice is better than the others, always, for everyone, at every point in the song, etc... That just means you can't have several things, each individual thing being as big as if you decided to put only one thing. With that in mind, you can take the best decisions for your arrangement and your mix.

 

But I do agree that yes, definitely, mixing starts with a good arrangement, and a good orchestration. Classical orchestrators (the ones who determined how many of each type of instrument would play each line in each different part of a music piece in order to create contrast, dynamic, interest, emotion etc...) were the first mixing engineers.

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  • 3 weeks later...
One way to achieve a fuller sound is by "doubling" the parts – more than one type of instrument plays the part at the same time. Or, strings might play long, legato parts beneath and behind other, more staccato instruments which are playing the lead. These instruments might never draw attention to themselves, yet they are there.
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  • 2 weeks later...

I look at it this way, engineering techniques are often employed to halve thicken up a sound or make things more present and larger than life... among other things. They are there, though, as remedies to a "sub par" arrangement. I use that term loosely here. If a project has been more fully arranged, engineers are less likely to need these tricks as the arrangement is doing a better job.

 

To put it in perspective a common way to mix an orchestral arrangement is to use minimal, transparent processing to help lift it little and add a bit more energy.. This is because of the arrangements and how the instruments are working together to achieve a more full sounding mix. Contrast that with a minimalist hip-hop production. There's usually lots of space and not many parts to full it out, so engineers empty their tricks do help thicken it and bring A LOT more energy into the production.

 

Take this with a grain of salt because there is often reasons for orchestras to include some of these engineering techniques, adding cinematic punch for example. And there is also reasons for a hop-hop production to opt for a more full sounding arrangement, but still want to use some of the techniques because it has a distinctive sound that is associated to the genre.

 

So really it's all a matter matching the approach to the sound and style that you want to achieve.

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