When you have recorded all the instruments you use in a song. How do you start to mix them. Let´s assume that you have the following instrument: channel 1 Bassdrum, channel 2 percussion, channel 3 bassline, channel 4 chords, channel 5 piano riff/melody, channel 6 vocals. How do you start to work with different channels. I mean do you first for example mix the drums/percussions and bassline to sound good, then add chords and eq/process that to have it´s own space in the song. How do you do the actual mixing. Any good tricks? do you know a website that has basic things about recording in a home studio.

thanx

-Akiskari

I have pretty limited knowledge bout this stuff but I was under the impression that you work all that stuff before you lay down the track.

ie. run drums through and work the eq till they sound right and stuff..
record..
then another trak, mix it, record etc..

NOTE: i have had no formal education in this area.

The rhythm section is a good place to start. If you can get a good punchy groove to start with then layering the other tracks will be much easier. And yes, as you bring in other tracks EQ them to avoid them fighting with other sounds. Try as much as you can to let each track have it's own frequency range and EQ accordingly. That way you will retain some separation between the tracks or things will sound muddy and jumbled.

I'm a studio enginner.
There isn't one good way to go, when mixing!
You should start setting the levels, and then using the panpots, so you can have an ideia about what you want to do. ONLY YOU know what's the final sound you're looking for.
At this time you can even burn a CD with the mix to compare with the final one. it's a very good trick.
After that first step you can start using EQ, Compression and then delay and reverb.

Of course you can, as said, starting by the drums and the bassline, but sometimes it's a bad choice, because you can't mix properly this channels with the rest. Never forget the lead channel! starting by it is a good choice!

I hope I helped a little bit.
If you have any question feel free to mail me at lois_santos@hotmail.com

Luis Santos