That helped me to assess some details of the mix that I hadn’t perceived until then. The most important being that the kick and the bass were too loud and the intro was too quiet, so sorted the problem by using a bit of volume automation on the intro and lowering a few dB’s both the kick and bass. Now everything sounds a lot more balanced.

That has shown me the importance of checking the mixes on as many systems as possible as the limitations of these can show details that weren’t audible or obvious before.

Remember my last post? I used Air’s Sexy Boy as an example of sound layering which I like. It turns out that yesterday I saw them playing live at Wireless Festival in Hyde Park. It was an excellent performance that I enjoyed enthusiastically and as a bonus I witnessed how the layering bass in that song is actually done. The “synth” bass is not “just” a synth bass, the trick is achieved using a vocoder. To me it wasn’t obvious just by listening to the recording but it was once I saw it performed live. This is another reason why I love going to concerts from my favourite artists, by keeping our eyes open while listening we can learn one or two tricks from them.

If you’re bored of using the same sounds as everyone else then considering layering sounds. It’s an extremely useful technique to achieve interesting results with little effort and investment.

Yesterday I created a guitar solo for the intro of the new song I’m working on and recorded two versions of it. The first one using an eBow and the second one using a tremolo effect with the pick. I couldn’t decide which one sounded better so I tried layering them to create a unique texture as the two sounds complement each other. The eBow’ed sound hasn’t got attack but rather sounds like an orchestra while the tremolo version has more dynamics and attack. If I used only one of them the sound would be more easily recognizable and mundane but using both in two separate channels with the same effects blends them and creates a unique sound. I used a similar technique in the song “Come back brighter” where the main bass line was created using a sampled bass sound and a sampled rhodes electric piano to achieve a thicker an more distinctive sound.

Many times when we wonder how some artist achieved a particular sound in a record and start thinking about buying new instruments or that piece of gear which will surely create that special sound consider instead whether the artist used layered sounds.

A good example is Air’s “Sexy Boy”. Throughout the intro and chorus there’s a layered bass (synth+electric) but once in the verse the synth bass dissappears to create space in the mix for other sounds which changes the song’s mood and we can hear the electric bass on its own. Combining the two sounds creates a thickness that otherwise would be difficult to achieve using just one instrument. The layering creates the sound that makes us instantly recognize the song every time we hear the first notes of it.

Boosting the kick, snare and bass, cleaning up the muddiness and using a couple of tricks like parallel compression and the whole track has come alive.

I’ve also added a short slapback delay to the lead vocals to make them sound more interesting. Another touch that makes the difference is boosting some of those adlib style voices like “yeah!” or “come on!” and bringing them to the front. Just by doing more work on the drums, bass and voice I’ve improved the mix so it’s important to get those three elements right.

Also, by mixing someone else’s songs I’m starting to appreciate the importance of a good mix. Two different mixes will make a song sound completely different.

And I’m very hapy with the quality I’m achieving, as I’m doing all this using Logic with my home setup.

I tried again the next day. However, that time I was able to add all the tracks I needed. This is how I found out that the parameter Max. Number of Audiotracks can be modified at any time but is only taken into effect after restarting Logic.

If you chose the synth keep reading.

Do you think achieving professional results is only possible with equipment only available in commercial studios (ie. a big mixing console)?

If you answered yes then keep reading.

I partly thought like you until recently. I believed that since audio equipment has become affordable it was a big chance for most people to be able to get decent results but that there was still “something” missing which makes the difference from an amateur band demo to a TOP 10 album. And I thought that “something” was a bigger/better console or piece of equipment.

But recenty I discovered that those are just excuses. Now I believe that you can achieve those results in most midrange home/project studios. Affordability has shown the underlying problem for achieving excellent and professional results, it’s education, experience and hard work.

So what made me change my mind?

I recently attended a mixing masterclass by Matt Foster at the London School of Sound. During the masterclass we took a blind test, he had previously mixed a sample song twice. First with an SSL console and then with a desktop computer, using Logic and the Waves SSL plugins.So he played both mixes to see if we could find out which one was done with each equipment configuration. I could hear differences as the mixes weren’t intended to be identical, but these were not affecting the overall quality of the mix, both sounded clear and professional to me but I picked the second one as my favourite, it turned out to be the one mixed with Logic.

The most important thing I learnt from that experience is that if my songs don’t sound as good as I’d like them to I should stop blaming my equipment and start blaming myself. Skill and experience is what makes the difference.

• composer (write music and lyrics)
• guitar player (electric, classical, acoustic, bass)
• keyboard/piano player
• singer
• recording engineer
• mixing engineer
• arranger
• producer

Obviously you don’t need them all if you’re working with other people or have a band or a team. Some people (successfully) concentrate at being good at only one of these but although it’s impossible to be good at all of them I believe it’s useful to know at least the basics.

How many of these do you own already?

Can you think of any missing skills?