Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio by Mike Senior (book to read).
Comping and Arranging:
- Whatever style of music you’re working in, if any of your most important parts are recordings of live performers, you should consider recording several takes and then comping together the best bits. Lead vocals in particular are routinely comped from many different takes in a commercial context. How you go about recording and compiling the takes can have an enormous impact on the quality of the outcome, so don’t be afraid to adapt your techniques to suit the particular part and performer you’re working with.
- Reducing clutter (f things lying about in an untidy state) in an arrangement not only makes it easier to mix, but also helps the product appear more varied to the listener. One general-purpose approach is to think in terms of restricting yourself to a maximum of three main points of interest at any one time and then to weed out as many parts as you can that don’t make up this main trio. but do bear in mind that the relative appeal of individual instruments can vary from moment to moment, so the identity of three primary parts may change frequently. Also, try to alter the arrangement to give each new musical section its own sound – this will better maintain the listener’s interest and support the buildup of the product as a whole.
- Boring arrangements usually suffer from too much repetition, so consider adding some kind of fill if any part plays the same thing more than three times in a row. If you can aim a fill in one part to grab attention from a less interesting moment in another part, then that’s a bonus. If you’re working in chart oriented styles, then try to provide some new musical or arrangement diversion every few seconds to keep the listener’s attention. Treating the bass line as the second melody is surprisingly effective in improving musical momentum.
- If your song ends with a double chorus, but the second of the choruses seem like it’s treading water, experiment with your mute buttons to see whether a drop chorus might bail you out.
Building a Raw Balance
Compressing for a Reason
- From a mix perspective, the primary purpose of compression is to achieve a stable balance. If a track balances fine without compression, then don’t feel you have to compress it at all. When compressing you need to ask yourself two questions: Is the compression helping the balance?; and do i like the subjective sound of the processing?
– Beyond Compression
– This doesn’t apply to everything. Its music-based, but it teaches stuff about workflow in post-production.
Making Music – 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers by Dennis De Santis
It’s a great book for electronic music producers in terms of the thinking processes and ways to approach the Ableton as an instrument. It is split into 3 different sections: Problems of Beginning, Progressing and Finishing.
Milo showed the class is a work in progress. It’s a piece accompanied with AI imagery, that reminds me of an SMPTE colour bar. The sound is compelled with a wavy drone with different tempo ratios. The piece reacts to the sounds played, making it feel alive and ongoing. He used playform.io (https://www.playform.io/) – a browser application that creates Art with an AI at a cost of 15 dollars. Milo’s Instagram @sasinswn.aka – he made awareness to understand our current possibilities as artists in terms of showcasing our work and talked about Instagram art pieces.