Why Top-Down Mixing is the GOAT
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- Опубліковано 23 січ 2024
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Top-Down Mixing (or Backwards Mixing) is a fantastic strategy to help you get incredible-sounding mixes QUICKLY. If you've never played with it, you need to.
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I'm diggin it! Heck, I've just been placing my busses just to the right of their respective groups and revisiting the busses occasionally as needed...I'm liking the idea of bunching them together and starting with the busses...makes sense!
@@ErixSamson works for me. Maybe try a different browser?
@@HomeStudioCorner it works now.
Great info. I am enjoying my recording now and sounding better. March 2024
I always try to remember Andrew Scheps’ quote about only fixing the problems that present themselves and not go hunting for problems. The top down approach really helps with that by keeping your eyes (ears) on the big picture
I love that quote. He’s totally right. If you solo any track in a session, you could find all kinds of “problems” to fix.
This is what I was trying to say in so many less words!! Great quote
You can do that without top-down mixing. The best thing to do is to learn how to mix properly. Top down mixing is only for people who haven't learned how to mix properly.
@@HomeStudioCornerNo professional producer edits all the tracks individually in solo mode and only listens to what it sounds like at the end. You need to have a vision of where you want to go with the song right from the start. And you edit all tracks in context. You leave all the tracks that you have already edited running in the background and keep adding more tracks. Your approach was completely wrong. That's why I can understand that top-down mixing makes sense from your perspective. But absolute top producers don't use top-down mixing because you have less precision.
@@HomeStudioCornerYou can do this with the background voices because the tracks are basically all identical. But with the drums it's much more precise if you make a few small changes beforehand. That doesn't take long if you add a quick equalizer to each drum sample and get the best out of every single drum sample. and then you load the compressor on the bus channel . If I send all signals unfiltered into the compressor then the compressor will not work so precisely and the overall result will not sound as nice. Because the comp will also react on unwanted frequency. I'd rather take these five minutes more time and do it right instead of taking a shortcut and sacrificing precision & quality. If you start editing the individual tracks later, you will have to reset the compressor settings and everything else again. so you end up with more work.
I grew up recording, mixing, mastering, and producing through the era of tape and CD audio. Spent large chunks of my life sitting in front of a massive console and bazillions of rack-mounted hardware processors. Then graduated to DAWs. And I have ALWAYS worked this way - start with the big picture stuff, then only fiddle with the little stuff if it is still a problem when the big stuff is sorted. This video is the most common sense video and principles I have seen out of all the audio tech videos I have watched over many years. Thank you for confirming that the way I've worked all this time is valid.
And sometimes speed IS important - countless sessions cranking out jingles for ads with impatient ad agency blowhards sitting in the back of the control room has meant that I have got very quick.
One other trick - I had a big red button installed on the centre master panel of my console, that lit up when turned on. That was my magic "Master Mix" button for clients. Turning on the "Master Mix" button made so many people go "THAT'S IT...! That has made ALL the difference. Print it...!". And of course, the button did absolutely nothing. The only thing it was wired to was the low voltage supply to power the red LED. Excellent video - thank you so much for this. And you have a new subscriber.!
If only I had a big red button make music sound more good then I would finally be mix good
I started Top-Down mixing about a year ago and it totally changed my whole approach to the way I mix. It's honestly surprising how well the mix comes together with such a small amount of processing.
🤘
Best advice I ever got was to do this but also mix with a mastering chain already applied. Ozone with targets makes this super easy just pick a genre or load in a track that already has the sound you're going for. Then from there you work backwards and build into that sound. Way better than mixing normally then trying to use the Ozone presets at the end. Doing it this way I can normally get a good sounding master even though I don't actually know much about mastering. Just remember to disable your master FX when tracking lol.
Yes, I agree, I always have a pultec eq and bus compressor on my mix bus while I'm mixing
This videos help me a lot thanks for the gem
Would have believed you if you are releasing new music 😅 yaw rja3 la music khtiik mlballon
Started watching you about 6 years ago as a beginner. Thanks for still being here Joe!
Thankyou Joe, followed you for a long time and this latest tip is a total game changer every home studio recorder must see this. Thanks a million.
I just did a mix on this method last week. SO MUCH EASIER and BETTER RESULTS!!!! I cannot believe the difference, I fought previously trying to make things fit but this way it just sounded so clean!!! Thanks Joe!
Sounds like a perfect solution for me. I've been doing exactly what you've mentioned for the past 8 years and mixing can take me forever. I got kinda comfortable with my method, but I'll definately try to change my workflow to this.
Hi Joe it's Ringo, firstly happy new year to you and your family. Great video once more, I think we all went through that stage at some time. I'm finding that doing a static mix helps alot before adding plugs in. Keep up the good work.
Wonderful, simple, well explained. Another JG epic lesson.
The way you talk about heari g all the "different" vocal tracks as just the one track is a massive eye opener. It makes absolute sense and I can't believe I have been mixing the way I have been. It's literally like playing a chord and then mixing the 3 notes separately rather than mixing it as a chord. You have changed my life and looking forward to my next mix, you have earned a new fan and viewer. Also keep the stories coming, they are very interesting thank you!
Another outstanding video Joe. Such a simple and sensible approach. Thanks!
Very helpful video.
I just watched a few of yours and I must say you do an excellent job breaking down the process. Thanks for the video!!
Joe;
once again absolutely on the money. I WAS struggling to mix, just as you stated on the video and was just about to pack it in. The top down is a stroke of
genius. This approach allows me to use ears first. I just got everything to 'sit' for the first time on this old cowboy ballad by Marty Robbins called 'big iron' .
By far the toughest simple song ever.
I can't thank you enough for these videos. I'm grateful and a subscriber.
An even better approach to Top Down mixing is “bounce and leave” mixing. Super quick and allows you to focus on just the music
I am mostly a self taught mixer and have always done my mixes this way. My songs are typically 90% finished after tracking stage. I really make sure all my sounds/tones are working first before I add processing.
Exceptional! Thanks for this Joe!
Just discovered the channel today Joe, I used to record and mix with my band mate a few years ago and can relate to everything you 'discovered' on your journey. It's great to have this reminder as I now work with big orchestral stacks (busses) and the principles you discuss here are exactly the same. Great stuff!
Makes sense to me. This dude knows his shit. Hear it first, then go down to individual tracks. Hear it as it was performed as a group. Start there and work backwards. Very logical. I've been wasting a lot of time on nonsense tech stuff when it may not even be good for the song. Thanks for teaching me how to mix smart Joe.
I’ve been mixing from top down for about a year now. I’m not sure why I began doing it that way, but it just made sense. So it’s great to see this video of you explaining to me just why it makes sense to do it this way 😅 Great video
Even though you know this already from me, the top down process I learned from you changed my musical life and is the reason I am releasing music. I was five minutes from quitting. Top Down gives me the formalized process that is flexible enough to allow individualization as needed.
Im so glad you made this video man one thing i have been struggling with is my mix. I usually end up with about a hundred plugins by time in done and it never sounds they way i want it to and after spending and that time it kills your motivation on the track. You have a lot of great tips for sure very informative and easy to understand. Thank you 🙏🏽💯
Always good to be reminded of these steps. It’s making me (and my ears Ha!) better at mixing and producing. #GIRATS
#GIRATS for life.
great tips, thank you!
top down mixing also displays the weaknesses in the mix once you crank it up everytime!, so its basically a trial and error of cranking it up to -4lufs, eqing->cranking up again, equing-> etc.. it goes full circle
Good stuff !
I learnt early on in my Mixing journey about top down mixing so I have always used this method. It makes logical sense to use this method. It's quick, efficient and easier on processing. Sometimes you have to tweek the processing on the Busses after adding processing on individual tracks but it's normally only minor changes.
It’s the only way I do my stuff,perfect take ,top down mixing done done done love it
Excellent method. It's faster, easier.
Great video format too.
I started recording and mixing in the mid 70s. All analogue and somewhat challenged on how many compressors and equalizers, and effects, were available to use at one time. The equalizers were 2 to 4 band, sometimes semi parametric, but often fixed Q. Tracks were also limited, in my case to 4, 8 and finally 16 tracks. I could fill 8 tracks and mix them to 2 tracks, and then start to fill the remaining 6 tracks on the new 8 track tape. The first mixers I used had a number of busses that matched what the recorders were - so 4 busses out to a 4 track, 8 busses out to an 8 track and so on. A lot of the mixing had to happen during tracking or when bouncing tracks down to allow for adding more tracks of instruments. When it came time to do the actual mix to stereo, or mono, I would feed the tape deck tracks back through the channels of the mixer, with equalizers off and no external processors like compressors or limiters or noise gates and adjust the faders and pans for the best mix I could from the recorded tracks. I would use the mono and dim buttons consistently throughout the mix process. I would play some of my collection of reference tracks through the system to re-ground my brain's interpretation of the sounds. Only when I had what I considered a decent mix happening would I patch in an equalizer and compressor on the mix buss. The value in this was, the mix incorporated a much overlooked result of mixing - the masking of frequencies across every element of the mix. This is something that even starting with adjustments of the group busses, as you're doing around 9 minutes in, will miss. I would suggest that "top down mixing" is a rather confusing name to give, especially as it takes too many words to describe the process. I'd also say that starting with no processing and listening first to the master buss would be a more accurate way of fulfilling the otherwise confusing name. By all means, group the elements of the drums together through a stereo buss and do a very quick "levels and pans" only mix to that buss, but then quickly move on to background vocals and other groupings that will allow for bringing whole sections of the mix up or down in the master buss. This is assuming that what has been recorded on all individual tracks has been done well enough to not require medical intervention first - which I will consider before loading files into a mix being done of someone else's tracking. As a studio bass player, it became readily apparent that, for most pop music, or music with a lot of midrange instrumentation, doing eq or compressing to the bass on its own was pointless. Making adjustments listening to the bass sitting in the track most often resulted in a very unflattering sound when soloed. Compressing bass along with drums helps to glue the two instruments together, without killing as much dynamic in the performances. By all means, if one is shooting for an effect that hard compression does to either instrument, do some of that - but still, within the context of the mix as a whole.
As for the background vocals (or any instruments), we tended to make pretty consistent use of a high pass filter during the recording process. This would keep those frequencies out of the mix, but it also kept the signal path free of useless frequencies that ate up headroom in the analogue gear. Getting only the frequencies you want on tape or recorded to track means that compressors will work better, not requiring side-chaining an equalized version for keying.
Reverb. I will often introduce the reverb before I equalize any tracks, especially those that are feeding the reverb. Compression on the mix buss alters how the reverb is heard, and thereby also having a effect on the overall equalization of the mix - another reason to always be listening to the mix for context. In this case the mix is "the top".
The arrangement stage is my “stepping in glue“… it has always been such a daunting task as simple as it can be. I have signed tracks to a couple of my favorite labels so I know I’m capable, yet I’ve got piles and piles of projects that have sat on my drives for 10-20 years lol- if it doesn’t happen quickly, chances are it ain’t happening
Alright Joe. As a up and coming engineer and singer songwriter/composer/producer, and lover of the Top Down approach im going to put these 5 Steps to the task working on an ep to be released. once done.
Really great advice there!
I first started using multi-bus recording in a live looping setup that used a medium-sized mackie mixer's subgroup outs to control routing to a Boss RC-30 looper. Made a huge difference to be able to leave some instruments going while layering different ones onto the loop. Could do seamless/endless ambient stuff very fluidly with that.
These days I use a self-built puredata patch for midi and audio processing, and I use a larger mackie mixer's subgroups to make two stereo submixes, one that generally feeds a stereo delay these days. This video got me to think about possibly switching that up to make four separate mono submixes instead... but yeah, the submix-based approach is for sure the "correct" way to deal with larger numbers of tracks. I even have a mostly-working backup of this same mixer that I could use to feed two stereo channels of the main mixer, for a submixes-within-submixes approach lol. But I don't have enough room here for as many instruments as I'd need to use up that many channels.
I really like this idea! Def Going to try it
I used to use a 24 channel 8 group analogue mixer with a 16 track tape machine, so it was already set up for this. It even had convenient buttons to route channels to groups or the master. I miss that. Even with 16 tracks I ran out, so did bounce downs and multiple instruments on the same track. Most times I could get away with a single eq for the multiple instruments, but I made a small outboard switcher, to switch 1 track between 2 channels for different eq. Automation was starting to appear, but not at my budget, so some mixes got shelved 'awaiting automation'! 'Flying in' was fun too!
thanx a lot. great advice. subscribing💯
Thx much! Very Useful.
Incredible, now I just need to figure out how to set up the mix busses in logic. It’s a whole new world! Templates? Thanks Joe
Every choice you make contributes to the next choice you make when mixing. This is another approach to try. Happy mixing.
My master buss is 80% established before I do any mixing. Basically through the master I’ve already created the environment in which mix will take place the rest is just how I arrange the sounds set the levels and effects within the space
Very clever!!!!
I definitely use top down mixing for my drums. It allows me to get a really solid eq for the whole kit, so I just tend to do a little tweaking to the kick, snare and toms.
1st time i agree with some mixing and mastering tips on internet, very practical way to explain it, i learn to do this by following the concept of less is more, so how can i mix better with less ??? Well you have the answer mate!!!! Bigger and fat sound come from the interaction of a whole mix of sounds and space between every sound, and with your concepts its so easy to understand even more that when we say less is more.
I guess I can't speak for mix engineers who basically receive a block of stems that are already more or less set in stone, but this is the worst possible workflow for electronic music production, or any situation where you're "mixing as you go". My favourite mastering engineer Bob Macc describes mixing/producing into master processing as "baking a cake before the ingredients are blended properly", and it's so spot on. My mixes suffered for years because of this and have improved a ton since I stopped. Get the ingredients working properly together and you'll only need a light touch on your busses and master.
top down doesnt work for heeavy metal either
What you’re saying is actually completely compatible with this approach. Top-down doesn’t have to mean “heavily processed” at the busses.
@@TommyWashowyes, top down mixing works for metal too.
Billy Decker does it with his Template Mixing. You can check out his video course.
And I do it all the time when I mix metal and hard rock songs.
I’d even argue that it’d work mixing electronic music too. The problem that with what the OP commenter is doing is mixing when they should be arranging and producing. We have unlimited tracks now, so there is no need to mix as one go.
Write the song. Then Arrange/Produce the song. And when that it done…and only then should one enter the mixing stage.
Ultimately, whether you mix bottom-up or top-down, it all comes down to choosing the right sounds and tones for your track. The better your sounds work with the track, the less you have to do in the mix, regardless of your mixing method.
100%
Hey man, great stuff. I have been going top down for a few years now, as I’ve found that often listening to everything at once and saying “what needs to be heard less?” and cutting is not only quicker but leads to a better mix.
My master buss has a chain of effects already in a ball park area, and all of my busses already have similar setups. So when I add rhythm guitar tracks, for example, they already live in a buss with a high and low pass built in. I don’t have to deal with that every time. I just have to tweak. And so on for each other group.
I find that almost always I only have to do a bit of volume automaton along with a few tweaks of eq and compression here and there and the mic takes care of itself. “What am I hearing too much of?” and “What am I needing to hear more of?” are the two questions that make up 98% of the mixing process. The other 2% is just sweetening the pot.
(Of course, You got to get it right at the source for this to work, but you try for that anyway. A great performance captured well beats a poor one processed up any day)
I use top down mixing with just the master bus BUT, my process has been making the ultimate template for my music. So I songwrite and put in a presaved channel mix then when finished writing I tweak. This has been extremely productive for me. A large amount of templates from previous songs I’ve done.
I should probably say I have great go to mix bus saves for all my instruments as well and I’d say that’s close to what you’re saying.
Mix in place is the way to go - and it is an itratative process... going back and forwards. Very fast and fun. Don't focus on one sound but on how things work together. Having said that, I do come from the dys of tape and analogue desks and hardware kit.
I always think of that as the monitor mix. Thats the logical start point for a mix. Back in the day you used to use the demo as reference
my approach is like this: for particular instrument, like drums, I'll create a buss, then I adjust the levels of the drums so they play good and are leveled, and in the mixer itself, I completely hide the tracks and leave only the buss there... same for other instruments, and then I have a mixer with only 5-6 tracks ( busses ) and I arrange these by the taste ( and add some FX if needed ). if something pops up, going to sequencer and tweak it... but, the FIRST thing I do when starting the session, is to have some basic gain stage, and I directly put Glue or other compressor on the master mix track, just a sliiiight compression, sometimes even a little bit of EQ as well, so I can hear the overall sound without ANY adjustment of the tracks or busses... but, everyone has their own approach, this one is how I do it :)
“I make music better when I make music quickly”
I feel this, so hard. I’ve been trying to make music exclusively in the DAW for so long, no MIDI keyboard or anything. And nothing kills the flow like plotting notes for what feels like hours. Overthinking kills creativity
Did "upward", then "top down" and then I do some sort of mix of the both because top down mixing didn't got me real better result. It even destroy some mix as I tried to fix some issues on bus where it was to be fixed on individual track. Today, I start with the rough, then I work on the overall 2-buss if there is no big problem to fix. If there is problem I fix the big problems then work a bit on the 2-buss. The I work on some tracks or some busses depending on the prod, then I move to the busses. Looks like back and forth but it truly is the better way to mix for me as I can go quicker than ever and have way better result. I personnaly think it is more a problem of perception about bottom-up mixing that make it "less effective". This approach have a name but don't I don't remember it
I like the idea of starting at the bus and processing the bus since the tracks are most likely double/triple tracked parts. I always wanted to save cpu and since I’m relatively new to mixing I was scared of over compressing the whole mix by putting a compressor on every track.
Now that my ears are getting better I try to do minimal comp on each track and really minimal bus compression on the bus as well. I think both methods can work well imo. Getting used to hearing compression was the most important part for me.
Brilliant
Makes sense to me!
preach, thank you
Treating 10xBGV like each is just a note within a chord on a keyboard...great analogy!
I like this video. It's all about the paralysis of analysis. Over the years I've watched plenty of videos where top mixing engineers say they mix a song in a couple of hours. That where i want to be.
Tq tq tq sir..i used this method but i dont know what to call it until i saw this video..tq sir very much sir..
I feel personally attacked by your description of your early mixing endeavors. I just spent 4 hours chasing down an eq on my solo’d vocals and I’m pretty sure it sounds like trash. Hot gaahbahge. Can’t wait to strip it down to zero and start over lmao thanks
Couldn't agree more.
No one will ever hear it in solo! It's like painting the details in a painting that you know will be covered up, you don't know it, but you are inventing problems.
3 things I wish I would've been taught 10 years Ago: 1.Try to make it sound like it did in the room first, then make it "better." 2.Mic placement IS eq. 3.arrangement & performance IS dynamics & balance.
Everything we do after that is extra. Keep it simple, cause it really is.
I dunno. I think listening in solo is important to listen for faults, such as clicks, hiss, noises, etc. Sure, you can bury those with the mix, but they may get in the way or be heard by someone with better hearing. :)
Yeah there's a balance here. I use solo for WHEN I hear things I don't like in individual tracks. Otherwise, you could spend hours "fixing" things that no one would ever hear.
I kind of combine both, some correcting from the top but I also like having more control in individual tracks.
This is what I do too. You can’t make a snare pop more without also affecting the kick, let alone the cymbals, from the drum bus. Some things have to get done on the track by track level, and after making peace with that, I developed the process of going track to track, soloing and listening in the mix, just focused on one question: “is there anything I can do to this track right now to make it the best version of what it is… the best, cleanest, most balanced, clearest snare top, or bass amp, or what have you. I’ll do all my cleanup, some parallel processing, effect routing, etc at this phase, and make everything just the best starting place I could have for the mix. Then I solo the busses and set them up like mini mixes, just get the drum bus to sound like how an unaffected isolated drum set should sound with as few steps as possible. Little compression, little corrective eq if needed (I might go back to the individual track that is the source of the problem at this point though and eq there). Then I get the guitars balanced, the bass balanced, etc, so all my busses work in solo. Then I’ll level my busses against each other to truly set up my static mix. Once everything is leveled and all my individual tracks are cleaned up, that’s when I truly start the mix, which will involve a lot of various compression moves, saturation, color eq, creative fx, etc, but now I’m just working on the busses. I love this process, just clean up and make the individual tracks the best individual tracks they can be, and then mix the song through the busses, it’s almost like I’m making stems and then stem mixing, that’s probably a better analogy than comparing it to top down, which it technically isn’t. I save the creative and big moves for the busses, but I still do a fair amount of balancing, leveling, eq-ing, etc at the track level FIRST. I don’t work in a studio at the moment, so I don’t have the freedom to impact the recording process, so perhaps a lot of that cleanup wouldn’t be necessary if I could make sure I gave the best snare top possible in the recording phase. But since I don’t, this strategy has saved me a lot of time. I like using folder tracks in daws that offer them like protools, reaper, logic, cubase, etc, I’ll usually set the drums up inside a folder track that will be used as the drum bus, and then once my individual tracks are all set, I fold them back into the drum bus folder track, and I only have to see and worry about the 5-7 bus tracks rather than a whole session of 60+. It’s very fulfilling to close a folder and be like “that’s 15 tracks I’ll never have to look at again, and meanwhile, I now have MORE control over my mix by getting rid of them, not less”
@@zwsh89 Nice workflow man, pretty much sums it up. I specially agree with what you wrote at the end, once you close the folders the session simplifies and this gives me some peace knowing that some of the work is done.
Yep. This is literally top-down mixing. You focus on busses as well as individual tracks.
Gr8!
I have been mixing for over ten years. Trust me when I tell you this: my mixes only got better when I started doing this. Now I use a big picture approach to mixing. Listen to the song, decide what the emotion you are going for is, mix the vocals only, start processing busses until the whole thing sounds good. Then identify specific problems with tracks and fix them. Mix comes out sounding full (no high passing everything lol), dynamic (no over compression and EQing), and the emotion is retained!
Nice, this was really interesting, around 12min when you mention 10 tracks being one part with the bv vocals, I can relate to that, I can't live without busses, to me it makes it simple, your focusing on the whole or at least a few parts of the whole and how they talk to each other in the spaces they belong. even with drums, i hear that as a whole too, if a songwriter is singing a song with a guitar, that's a whole too, when you have a stage with lots of actors, they gotta have there lines, or there script so the people in the audience get a sense of what the play is about, each of those actors have characters, then you light it all proper, do some neat design on the stage, your just trying to get across the idea or the context, no matter the style it's always about that container of the moment in which the song exists, well, i see it like that, also like making food but that's another story. but cheers for sharing your thoughts, great things in here, nice, J
ty!
I suppose it's. combination of top-down and bottom-up. First, you have to get a decent bottom-up mix through busses (levels only) so you can then approach it from a top-down perspective. Then you do the bottom part of the mix again to fine tune. Makes sense because it prevents people from making fine tweaks to each channel, ending up 2 hours later with a mix that isn't cohesive, resetting the mixer! We've all been there!
Man, I'll have to give this a go. I mean, I do actually do a similar thing to this in reality, but will certainly think about mixing the busses more heavily first. That's something I don't really do.
Thanks for the vid. Really appreciate it. 👊👌
subbed ... cause you are pretty honest
i have 18 years of making beats on and off, and the thing thats kept me from not finishing a mix is having to do the mix itself and being lost or starting over after hours of work :( ... but the amount of mixing courses available online and those free, allows me now to actually have a real shot for a career
Should discuss mixing under cans, while engaging a plug like abbey road studio. Most people have an awful sounding room, so mixing under GOOD headphones makes it easier to hear and make good decisions. Sonys are the best I’ve used.
THANKS Joe! That's me, I am stuck in the cycle. I have so many songs written...and only a few finished 😞
Great video as always! Question: In this model, would you still start off from a static mix approached the usual way? Would it be fair to think of this rather as top-down *processing*?
I've just started using fx tracks/sends and aux tracks. I only use about 6 midi tracks that I bounce to audio. Plus around 15 to 20 audio tracks. I don't play a instrument and just make 90s style hiphop and trap beats. Would you recommend doing top down mixing rap vocals as a whole or do you have any further advice recording and mixing rap/layers or would you do the same sort of thing as singing vocals. Eg panning and EQing reverb compression etc
This is a some of what I do. I get a basic mix going to my buss with no effects, just balance. I then lay the bed of the song with kick drum/bass gtr/synth pads. After that I get the lead and back ground vox 90% once again without effects. Then everything and finally leads. If it sounds good this way I start adding effects mainly at the buss level. I then finish getting everything to final mix without changing the low bed or vox level. Everything else should be able to be put in the pocket and we are done.
I learnt this method from you! Sometimes I overdo compression with this method
Yep. That’s one of the side effects of this method. It’s easy to try to overdo things and do too much from the bus level.
@@HomeStudioCorner thanks for the reply! Your channel is a great help
I only do vocals since I'm doing it off already-made tracks as a hobbyist. I feel it doesn't affect me as much since the instrumentals are already mixed.
I love buses. A lot of people that don't do a lot with computers seem to not like them. I sometimes have to split my own voice into other parts (sometimes I change singing styles that need slightly different mixing). I almost always start out with a bus, even if I don't use it. I think I start out with one vocal and apply FX.
I then copy/paste the FX chain in Reaper to another vocal track. It's often around 66-100% of the way there if it's my own voice. If it's someone else's voice, maybe 25-75%. That means I can turn it into a bus. That last part can be individually fixed. What this also does is that I don't have to update FX chains on all vocal tracks. That last bit often doesn't need re-adjustment. What often lives in the bus is a chain like some compression, reverb, and any EQ to compensate for the compression and reverb plugins.
One beauty I learned about digital is that it's incredibly easy to reuse a plugin over-and-over. So, you can sometimes overshoot, but you can also undershoot and then compensate easily. I have used 5 EQs before (maybe from inexperience). You can't do that easily with *analog. I do want to sing live, which is why I have a small set of analog gear. (The limited analog gear probably helps me learn to get it close)
* I say analog, but there's probably digital processing involved
I feel the biggest revelation for me was the ability to use the plugin more than 1 time on a track, and that it didn't make things sound bad when I did it. That concept helped me a lot when it came to buses
When you focus and mix the busses, do you first go through with LCR method by pan and level everything then go through with top-down method? Or would you use them in different scenarios?
Joe when I do vocals I will overdub each part. 1st, 2nd, 3rd harmonies. Then I would lay down the lead vocals (overdubbed as well). I would bus each separate, background then lead. I do this because I want the background a Little softer then the lead and then bus all vocals. Is that overkill?
Mixing = dark forrest you never come back from ... man, so well put! 🤣😅
I like Top-Down very well. It allows me to focus on the whole song, rather then single tracks. for example: how much lowend the Kick needs, is not determined by me, it always a relation between the other elements. So if i have a realy Lowend heavy bass, maybe the kick needs to be more klicky, and vice versa. For me I fund a way that works realy well. After I did all the Volume, panning, and automation stuff, I like to engage my Mixbuschain (carnaby EQ, Dione, BiG). All my decisions for now on, are alle determent by the processing on my mixbus. The processing itself is more like a preshaping, so NO haevy stuff.
Nice vid Joe. Im always tyring to learn and have been...for 40 years. In the end...its about muscle memory and doing stuff they way that works best...but ultimately its the sound. Would you have some links to examples that you regard as your best with this process? Cheers and keep up the great work
P.S.
I think that having a strong vision after the initial listen is paramount as its not just preset surfing...rather than random events...you tend to have reference which prob both botup and topdown are part of. The song definitely steers that...sometimes eg you dial a whack of presence and mids for the bass and other times the vision dictates that its almost invisible but just felt so that other stuff has focus...and thats what its really about no matter which way you mix. Humans do well with max 3 grades ie front/mid/rear and walking the depth of field along the way is the mixers responsibility.
Also important are the actual tracks...its hard to polish poo...great tracks generally already have the magic, esp group recordings where the magic is in the room.
As far as examples, everything I do is top-down. Search up artist Joe Gilder for examples
I feel like this technique is the best for mixing with a ‘natural’ sound as the goal. This is what you want 99% of the time. BUT, this requires a great actual song & performance to carry the listener along.
Then there’s ‘stylized’ mixing used in certain genres like dub, retro, lo-fi, ambient, etc… Then I like to ‘hear the mix’ just as much as the song.
I get my drum mix in the ballpark and then do top down mixing from the master bus. I guess this would be like your 3rd stage. I do hip hop so sometimes I need to get below 50hz and I don’t get good results doing to much of that on the Master buss. On the master buss I get better results tweaking around 100k on the low end and the typical smily face pultec settings. My 2 buss has some console emulation, Eq, ssl comp, stereo widening and M/S Eq , and tape emulation.
Do you start mixing with low freq.. first or hight freq. first? I used to start with the sub bass and go to the hight. But now I'll start with the hats and work my way down and for me that seems to work better. That way by the time I get to the bass I can raise the bass until it sounds good with the rest of the mix.
You left a nasty sounding transient on that kick first off
I definitely think it’s the faster way to get to a finished mix and I always have my go-to mix bus chain ready to do some heavy lifting. Definitely think it’s the way to go if you’re doing your own music but if you’re a professional mixing for clients that have anything that resembles a live career or stems for sync licensing (which is pretty much every project I work on) you come unstuck pretty quick and loose all that “time you gained” top down mixing as soon as you have to process your stems through your mix bus at the end of project. I’m trying to figure out a way to sit somewhere in between by moving most of my “mix bus processing” to my instrument group busses.
Yeah I tend to do very little on the mix bus with this approach. To me the "top" is the busses" and the "down" is the tracks.
With this method, how do you approach effects that are usually on an aux like reverb or delay?
Do you set that and sum that to the mix buss for that set of tracks too?
Quoting certain Metallica song related directly to soloing all tracks with obsessed problem hunt atmosphere - "SEARCHING ... SEEK AND DESTROY!" 🧐
Subscribed - your approach is super hands on no yada-yada straight to bone - very valuable approach
I mix before I record anything. I’m not kidding. I don’t even use multitracks anymore. I record everything coming out of my master channel, then arrange my songs with these chunks of master audio.
I would call this "Macro vs. Micro" mixing. "Top Down", as I understand it, implies that you load your Master/2 Bus/Mix Bus (whatever your regional equivalent may be) then working backwards from there.
I like to look at it as more of a tournament bracket. Though instead of things being eliminated, they're combined. So it's all moving toward a common goal. Macro being addressing groups as a whole, and micro being track by track.
I don't typically get to micro in my mixing. I typically get multiple captures of the same performance and blend them to get the sound I'm after, and put those on a bus should further processing be required.
The only time I typically get micro is on bass guitar as I process the "rig" and "D.I." channels ala Warren Heuet. I'll have any bass synth parts on the same buss as it typically is used to enhance bass guitar. Beyond that, micro mixing is reserved for one-off midi instruments (which I typically address in the VST itself the rest is panning/fader riding) or event effects.
10:27 ok that last pretty amazing, and I’m listening on a phone.
Question for you:
Are you saying that each drum did not have its level adjusted?
0:16 I appreciate the “nyyeeao” transition
Doing the Lord’s work over here
Ive been looking to adopt topdown mixing but how would it work with exporting stems? Wouldnt it make the stems sound very different if they go through the chain one by one?
It's almost like getting to the point of mixing live. I'm a FOH guy who has done a tiny bit of studio work. When mixing live you might make fine adjustments from time to time, but it's simple and you have to build shortcuts into your workflow in order to mix it while it's happening. In a recording studio you have the opportunity to get the best signals you can recorded. You have the opportunity to take your time to make it sound right, but if you're going to have a profitable studio, you can't spend all day on a single mix. If you build the busses and shortcuts in, you can get a great sound quickly, even better than if you had to do it all on the fly like we do at FOH.
Somehow all the other explanation on youtube always start with the mixbus, putting what eq,comp or whatever character they think they'll need. However here really is to get the static mix working first by concentrating on individual groups of audio. Am i missing something? cause i think static mix the most important first..Thanks for the great advice over the years though!
Just redid a mix from 2021 to see what this method can achieve. Copied the session and threw out every plugin and got rid of every bus. Then I regrouped the tracks and got to work.
It took me less than an hour to come to a mix that is a lot clearer and in my own opinion better than what I did in countless hours back then.
Soooo this is a huuuuge deal for me.
ROCK. ON. DUDE. 🤘
would using a de-esser on a vocal group bus remove harshness with the same result? cause some tracks might be quieter.
also won't a gate remove some of the vocal content or with a tradeoff leave in unnecessary breaths etc?
For vocal groups ambience and additive operations I would use the bus for sure, but never tried anything that's subtractive, except high passing
Awesome Joe... My wife is getting jealous cuz I have been spending so much time with you lately!! (between Presonus vids and YT vids - but I am learning a ton)... Can you please link me to a very basic issue - how to actually set up busses for individual tracks?... Seems elementary I know - but I cannot seem to find this - specific to Studio 1 Pro ...... TY!!
What about the panning of the individual background vocals for stereo spread?