Do bands have mixdowns?

jrisreal · Post by **jrisreal** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:18 pm

Well do they? I heard somewhere that guitar amps are EQ'd to work with the drums and bass and whatnot which is great for live performances, but what about studio recording? do they get mixdowns like we do in electronic music? because its do-able, especially if the drums are an an electric set and recording MIDI data. I wonder because those tracks are about as loud as professionally mastered tracks usually, which I don't think would be possible if the mix is messy.

PERCEPT · Post by **PERCEPT** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:23 pm

Wait, wait? Bands are mixed in both the live and studio environment.

slothrop · Post by **slothrop** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:25 pm

Those knobs and sliders and things are actually just decoration...

jrisreal · Post by **jrisreal** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:30 pm

^^^ oh lol. was just making sure. What about drums, do they compress their drums and add FX to make them sound better, or do they just eq it for mixing?

RandoRando · Post by **RandoRando** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:36 pm

they do everything we do and more

Shum · Post by **Shum** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:36 pm

I hope this is some sort of joke thread...

Sheff · Post by **Sheff** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:36 pm

yes, bands have mixdowns the same as all other music

blinx · Post by **blinx** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:38 pm

Yes they process drums and vocals and add fx just like you do. They want there tracks to be a good as you want yours to be and their drumset (even with the best mic setups aournd) will need some kind of processing in this day and age to sit "right" in the mix.

wizeguy · Post by **wizeguy** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:40 pm

fuckin Hippies with their guitars

wormcode · Post by **wormcode** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:50 pm

Most if not all of the more established "mainstream" type bands also have a live mixing engineer who mixes their music live with a desk+effects etc. Mainstream as in not punk DIY type bands, but someone like Foo Fighters or U2 or Slipknot or Metallica or something. During the St. Anger tour someone was brickwalling their songs from under the stage.

blinx · Post by **blinx** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:56 pm

wormcode wrote:Most if not all of the more established "mainstream" type bands also have a live mixing engineer who mixes their music live with a desk+effects etc. Mainstream as in not punk DIY type bands, but someone like Foo Fighters or U2 or Slipknot or Metallica or something. During the St. Anger tour someone was brickwalling their songs from under the stage.

Or perhaps their audio engineer was being a dumbass (i have seen too many "mainstream audio engineers" who are complete dumbass's)and was pushing the mix so hard that the amps to the mains where limiting the signal as to not BLOW UP the speakers. I have seen main acts with real production teams just beat up and destroy the events sound system, in an effort to be "louder" than the rest of the bands LOL!

slothrop · Post by **slothrop** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:09 pm

Quite how much they do varies a lot from band to band and (particularly) from genre to genre.

So a jazz band or a folk band or something will probably want the mix to be as clear and faithful to the original performance as possible, so they won't want someone slathering processing all over the drums to get them bare phat innit, while a top 40 rock band will generally want their stuff mashed to bits to sound good on a car radio and to get rid of any 'imperfections', and a psych band might get really into the whole 'studio as an instrument' thing and spend weeks processing stuff sticking on different effects and multitracking parts and playing things backwards and stuff while a punk band are more likely to want it sounding like a performance but louder and harder. And everyone else is a bit in between.

wormcode · Post by **wormcode** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:14 pm

blinx wrote:
wormcode wrote:Most if not all of the more established "mainstream" type bands also have a live mixing engineer who mixes their music live with a desk+effects etc. Mainstream as in not punk DIY type bands, but someone like Foo Fighters or U2 or Slipknot or Metallica or something. During the St. Anger tour someone was brickwalling their songs from under the stage.

Or perhaps their audio engineer was being a dumbass (i have seen too many "mainstream audio engineers" who are complete dumbass's)and was pushing the mix so hard that the amps to the mains where limiting the signal as to not BLOW UP the speakers. I have seen main acts with real production teams just beat up and destroy the events sound system, in an effort to be "louder" than the rest of the bands LOL!

Haha I was just joking, because of the whole St. Anger brickwall controversy (the album with 0 dynamics that sounded like shit).

samkablaam · Post by **samkablaam** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 11:06 pm

joke thread right?

wizeguy · Post by **wizeguy** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 11:17 pm

the mixing desk is actually used for cooking your dinner

jrisreal · Post by **jrisreal** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 11:33 pm

wizeguy wrote:the mixing desk is actually used for cooking your dinner

Makes sense. Lol jk.
Idk why so many troll responses. I had a legit question and am not familiar with how this type of music works. Got my answer so thanks to the helpful people.

wub · Post by **wub** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 6:42 am

Yes, bands do have mixdowns.

RandoRando · Post by **RandoRando** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 7:27 am

wormcode wrote:
blinx wrote:
wormcode wrote:Most if not all of the more established "mainstream" type bands also have a live mixing engineer who mixes their music live with a desk+effects etc. Mainstream as in not punk DIY type bands, but someone like Foo Fighters or U2 or Slipknot or Metallica or something. During the St. Anger tour someone was brickwalling their songs from under the stage.

Or perhaps their audio engineer was being a dumbass (i have seen too many "mainstream audio engineers" who are complete dumbass's)and was pushing the mix so hard that the amps to the mains where limiting the signal as to not BLOW UP the speakers. I have seen main acts with real production teams just beat up and destroy the events sound system, in an effort to be "louder" than the rest of the bands LOL!
Haha I was just joking, because of the whole St. Anger brickwall controversy (the album with 0 dynamics that sounded like shit).

I always thought the same thing. That that album mix down sounded odd . Then I watched some kind of monster and saw their producer looked like he was doing. Is it the producers fault or the mixing engineers ( I mean o boozing the mixing engineer ) but doesn't te producer overlook the final product?

Electric_Head · Post by **Electric_Head** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 7:46 am

jrisreal wrote:
wizeguy wrote:the mixing desk is actually used for cooking your dinner
Makes sense. Lol jk.
Idk why so many troll responses. I had a legit question and am not familiar with how this type of music works. Got my answer so thanks to the helpful people.

Just sit and think about what you`re asking.
You`ll know why everyone is surprised at your question.
How can you produce music but still ask if a band has mixdowns?
This is like general music knowledge.

wormcode · Post by **wormcode** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 7:53 am

RandoRando wrote:
wormcode wrote:
blinx wrote:
wormcode wrote:Most if not all of the more established "mainstream" type bands also have a live mixing engineer who mixes their music live with a desk+effects etc. Mainstream as in not punk DIY type bands, but someone like Foo Fighters or U2 or Slipknot or Metallica or something. During the St. Anger tour someone was brickwalling their songs from under the stage.

Or perhaps their audio engineer was being a dumbass (i have seen too many "mainstream audio engineers" who are complete dumbass's)and was pushing the mix so hard that the amps to the mains where limiting the signal as to not BLOW UP the speakers. I have seen main acts with real production teams just beat up and destroy the events sound system, in an effort to be "louder" than the rest of the bands LOL!
Haha I was just joking, because of the whole St. Anger brickwall controversy (the album with 0 dynamics that sounded like shit).
I always thought the same thing. That that album mix down sounded odd . Then I watched some kind of monster and saw their producer looked like he was doing. Is it the producers fault or the mixing engineers ( I mean o boozing the mixing engineer ) but doesn't te producer overlook the final product?

Not sure what you mean, there's some words missing! Haha
It varies... usually the producer will be telling the engineer and everyone, including the band, what to do.
Who knows, maybe it was the band who kept saying MAKE IT LOUDER MAN, I dunno. With a band as huge as that, I would think the whole studio would be trying to please their every wish. Someone from the band tried to advertise it as the "loudest album ever" (probably Ulrich). Ugh. I don't think Metallica ever worked with that producer again afaik. Their other album after that was thought to be worse, Death Magnetic which actually was clipping much of the time. Not a good look for digital audio.

That album was notorious for being insanely squashed though and audio nerds tore it apart with criticism, and rightfully so IMO. They had a real field day over on Gearslutz for both albums. There was a lot of analysis with comparisons and examples of the lost dynamics too. Like:
http://musicmachinery.com/2009/03/23/the-loudness-war/
http://mastering-media.blogspot.com/200 ... dness.html

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