Mixing without a DAW

The Lounge General Discussion
#114

omg this thread, OP just wanted some workflow ideas

I recorded, produced, and mixed in DAWs for well over a decade before I ever touched a hardware setup, and I think I learned more in a year of mixing on hardware than I ever did in software - for me it all had to do with developing discipline and economy of tools; understanding how to do more with less, committing to decisions, and focusing on the most important aspects and the overall picture rather than getting lost in detail. Mixing on hardware continuously hammers home that the vast majority of important mixing decisions boil down simply to more or less gain.

doing a mix entirely inside the OT is awfully cumbersome though, unless you have a fairly simple arrangement you’re going to end up doing a lot of printing your processing and FX and bouncing things down in order to create stems to mix from (as some posters have shown to some extent in their workflow descriptions)

you’ll get a much more powerful, fast, and flexible workflow if you get a multitrack recorder/mixer or similar, but if you don’t want to go that route a couple quality stereo processors can help speed things up a bit so that the octatrack doesn’t have to do all of the processing all of the time and maybe you can save a bouncedown step here and there. For example, the FMR audio RNC is a decent stereo compressor for virtually peanuts (I bought one used for $100 once), and ofc on the higher end there is the Heat, which was basically tailor-made for this purpose

thinking more about it, some of the older digital multitracks or even a 4-track tape can be had pretty cheaply and many of those offer very usable EQ and sometimes other effects, even if you are not ultimately using them to record the master (presumably doing it internally on the OT) it would also speed things up by providing another resample/mix layer to work with outside the octatrack, even if it might be a ‘lo-fi’ layer

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#116

You mention mixing sub bass, which in my experience is really hard/near impossible to get right when mixing in a small studio/room with a small set of speakers. There’s some interesting points in this article and it highlights some of the problems with masking that you encounter when mixing bass https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mixing-bass

If you are planning on gigging, I would try and test your mix on a bigger sound system maybe a rehearsal studio with a decent PA at least and get the volume cranked. Wouldn’t want to play a gig and find the sub bass is heavy killing the mix.

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#117

4 track tapes. Ive still got mine and with the overdub trick we managed to get 8 tracks down. Happy memories

#119

I wish i had room enough for a 32 channel, 8 group console w/ at least 4 aux sends. Parametric eq and dynamics on every channel…then I could commit to mixing w/out a DAW!

#120

I think we just try to respect each other and generally be nicer than the rest of the Internet…

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#121

I like turtles

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#122

All good mate.
Think we have all given our opinions on the matter, and nothing more to add
Hopefully OP now buys a daw
Haha just kiddin mate

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#123

whoa cool, fascinating article, and the initial talk of real-world bass guitars then shows some relevance to later descriptions of potential phase issues of dual synth bass parts.

in particular, the later section on a supportive second bass line is a way cool idea.

"A simple sine-wave sub-octave can be mixed in underneath the existing bass line, but if there’s any frequency overlap between the synth and the existing part, things get more complicated. First, you have to decide how much of the sub-bass synth’s upper spectrum reaches the mix, and how much of the original part’s lower spectrum will remain. For ‘black ops’ applications, I low-pass filter any non-sine sub-bass waveform fairly severely to keep the more characterful upper frequencies from blowing the ‘sub’ synth’s cover. However, in many cases some low mid-range frequencies from the sub synth do help add warmth to the combined bass tone, which is why I more regularly reach for triangle waves rather than sines for remedial applications.

The other issue is that there’s a potential for phase-cancellation at low frequencies if any of the added synth’s frequencies end up in unison with those on the main bass track. The tricky thing about this is that it’s usually sporadic — you might get a troublesome bass-dip for only one note in a dozen, and that might vary with each playback pass if you’re triggering the MIDI synth live in the mix. My first response is to bounce my sub-bass synth’s output as audio once I’ve got it mostly working the way I want, so I don’t get live-triggering vagaries. Then I solo the combined bass sound (with the sub-bass addition), check through the track for any low-end holes from phase-cancellation, and shift the timing of any offending sub-bass notes to effect a remedy."

something i think is interesting to remember about the mixing part of track production is that the mixing engineer is aware that they could only take it so far, and then the master stage where the single stereo file is worked with hopefully takes the track next level.

although it isn’t the most pro nor the most highly respected of applications, T-Racks could be fun to explore as regards bass reinforcement of a track export. they’ve been working on the software for a long time now so i would imagine that it’s better than it used to be, and the interface really is quite friendly, moderately simple.

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#124

I think bass is the hardest thing to get right for the home studio. I have 8" drivers on my monitors and they don’t quite get low enough, my room could be treated better and I can’t mix at an appropriate level for bass frequencies for any length of time or I will be really pi$$ing my neighbours off!

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#125

it’s a cool idea to go rent a band room … even for one hour a month, that would be like $35 or something and the benefits as regards preparation for live performance would be immeasurable.

just a sense of preparedness, a sense of “yes, the bass is working and is not going to rearrange the architecture nor will it disappear or be weak sauce” would then lend a sense of confidence in going forth in a totally rocking fashion.

anyway i’m very much thinking about going to rent a band room and blast the tracks-in-production for an hour. was going to play a couple of talent nights just to experience playing through a medium size sound system again, but really the vibe won’t be appropriate to push the bass riffs very much whatsoever. could be fun all the same.

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#126

Indeed. We are nearly finished working on a set and the next step is going to some rehearsal rooms and trying different PA’s…just to get a sense. Hopefully it won’t make things even more confusing. At least if the tracks are consistently off in the bass department the sound engineer can fix that to soem degree - hopefully!

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#127

lol yes hopefully is not an overly confusing nor confronting scenario.
who knows maybe it will be totally perfect.
worthwhile checking anyways.

it would be nice if everything lines up but then again even after practising with a couple of different PA systems, then a room with people in it changes the air pressure responsiveness.

i’m preparing song part content with and without basslines, and separate bass, drum, synth parts alongside that. more as part of the song production cycle, although with the idea of realtime improvising with partial arrangements.
the easiest thing would be if the song part loops with all the sections just sound great, then it is easy to mix and create song structure realtime at a gig.

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#128

That sounds kinda like how I would setup if I was doing a solo set but as there are two of us, improvising arrangements is harder and need to be wary of bringing in parts in different keys.
Can’t play something that has no room for movement/some improv either though!

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#132

Testing on a bunch of different speakers and rooms and vehicles, etc. is always a good idea, imo. Unless you have very nice monitors in a perfectly treated room, it will always be a nice idea to try out your mix in different listening situations, take notes, try again, and again, until you are satisfied.

Realize, as soon as you buy a nice pair of monitors, people on forums will tell you that you wasted your money because you haven’t fully acoustically treated your room. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

But… your sound is already very nice. I’d say you are ahead of most hobbyists and even ahead of some who will vocally advocate you change this and change that and spend a ton of money. I’d make small incremental changes in your setup, and try to determine if more and more expensive changes will be worth it (keeping an eye on the law of diminishing returns), and keep trusting your ears and common sense. Good luck and keep up the good work, and most of all keep having fun.

#133

But what is a proper room-treatment?

I just came back from my new office. I hooked up on my AR and A4 and i was quite astonished how different i recognized my sounds and tracks I’ve made. I just started to do some basic adjustments.

Since it is a room where i talk to my clients, i cannot overdo the room treatment with acoustic elements, so it should have some minimal style and nothing which make my clients uncomfortable.

#134

Its cool, whatever works is best, be that daw or no daw, and I guess there are plenty of people who are just as comfortable flipping between. I do think it has become trendy to proclaim ‘dawless’ and no doubt some people are just following the trend, so I kind of get what you were saying, but I also think many people just don’t enjoy DAWs, despite the huge advantages they offer, in those cases it is a tough choice and definitely not a fad.

Nice of you to follow up anyway :thup:

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#135

I mainly use DAW for audio editing at now.

#136

Thanks for this! Any recommendations for an outboard compressor?

#137

FMR RNC or RNLA might work for you. The Strymon Deco in stereo mode also works well for some people, but doesn’t allow much control.

Maybe the Stam Audio SA-4000 if you want to get fancy without paying a lot.

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#138

very interesting topic!!! Sometimes I´m looking back the days when I had my old Studiomaster mixing desk bought from a 2nd hand shop.
A lot of interesting points were said before. You can do very clean sound in todays DAWs. But it´s always that what you are looking for? I also work in Logic with 96K and 64bit (natural phase) mixing to have a clear sound base … and then add some flawours and colours to the sound by using tape plug ins or LA2/LA3/1176 compressor and special eqs like the pultec etc. … but when I remember back I come to some points

Recording with an analog mixing deck OTB can give you:

  1. special flavour when driving the input hard - aka soft satuartion. Also the eqs have different tastes … so Soundmaster mixing desk will not sound the same as an API or a simple Mackie or a SSL or NEVE
  2. you can perform automation per hand. that CAN sound much more lively then drawing automation in a DAW
  3. you can create feedback loops with your fx chains … which then hits the op amps of the mixing desk and CAN give you some unique fx … great for sound experimantations
  4. it´s much more fun … if you enjoy live performing your tracks and it will not be always on point with automations by hand … which is also more emotionally because you turn the knobs when you feel it
  5. when it´s done it´s done

Many many great techno tracks from back in the days where recorded this way. Not sure if all the Basic Channel stuff would sound the same if they had worked ITB. Wanted to ask Mark Ernestus that at tha Supertalk at Superbooth … but time for the talk was over bevore I could ask :disappointed_relieved:

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