Recording and mixing music is a collection of skills that can take a lifetime to acquire. But almost every composer needs to do their own mixing sometimes, whether for a demo, low-budget project, or other reasons. The equipment keeps getting better and is widely available, especially with the computer software packages most composers work with. Let’s take a look at a few ideas and concepts about mixing music for the screen.
Setting up your studio
First of all you need an appropriate place to listen and work. A deep discussion of room acoustics is too much for this article, but for a fantastic resource check out “Acoustic Design For The Home Studio” by Mitch Gallagher. The physical layout and acoustics of the room that you are working in really do make a substantial difference in whether you can accurately hear what is in your mixes.
To start with, make sure your workstation and speakers are set in a good relation to each other. When you’re mixing, you will need to be directly facing the source of the sound, so your screen, keyboard and mouse, and mixing controller or console (if you have one) can’t be off to one side. Make sure your speakers are exactly at ear level when you’re sitting in your comfortable chair, and that your head and the two speakers form an equilateral triangle. A distance of four to five feet between the speakers and from each speaker to its corresponding ear is usually about right for a personal studio setup. Ergonomics are important; if your arms, hands, shoulders, or back hurt when you work you will never make it through the long career haul, so don’t scrimp on a crummy chair or an awkward reach.
The best way to learn what good mixing really sounds like is to sit right there and listen to a lot of recorded music from a variety of sources, including big-name film scores, as well as pop and classical music. Learn to think about tonal quality and balances; the mix is not the time to think about melody, orchestration, performance, or any other compositional or production details.
Mix delivery
When you are hired to do a score project, you will ultimately need to deliver the finished individual cues in a single mixed track or group of tracks, usually a computer file such as WAV or AIFF. Bear in mind it would never be right to deliver individual “raw” unmixed tracks — it is not the filmmaker’s job to mix your music on the final audio dub mix, just to balance it with all the other sound elements, dialog, effects, etc.
Occasionally you may be asked to separate out a melody track or some other part; this is called a “mix stem”. The reason for this is, suppose in the final dub mix the filmmaker feels that a melody might be conflicting against a dialog line, for example. By having the melody on a separate track, this part can be turned down without having to turn down the entire cue. To prepare this, just make your mix as normal, and then record it twice (from the same start place): first all of the music but with the melody switched off, and then that melody track alone (including its reverb, etc.). When you listen to the two stems tracks together with equal levels it should sound just like you intended the mix. (For more about mix delivery, see my article “Technical Guidelines for Film and TV Scoring — Part 1“.)
Mix chain plug-ins
Recently I mixed a score for client in his studio computer, and afterwards he asked, why had I removed his “mastering plug-ins” from the master faders? He had previously done rough mixes, and his template included a compressor/limiter and an EQ. To start with, I had to explain what “mastering” means to an engineer:
Mastering is common in CD album work, and is a final processing step to make all the cuts on a CD sound consistent, and in particular, solve two problems. The first is that a contemporary album may have a number of different producers and engineers, and so the delivered mixes may vary widely in terms of level and EQ (top end/bottom end, etc.). A mastering engineer will use his tools to even things up and make every song match. However, a score mix is more likely to already be consistent in that respect (same engineer and the composer acting as producer).
The second task in CD mastering is level maximizing, using compression and limiting, in order to make the disc play loud and be “competitive” compared to other CDs. (This is usually demanded by record company people who don’t know much about good sound, or that good music can have dynamics.) Film score mixing is different in this respect — after the music is mixed and delivered then the film has its final “dub” sound mix in which all the sound elements are balanced. I guarantee, the music will NEVER be as loud as the dialog and effects. No matter how much you squash your music mix, that won’t have the slightest effect on making your music sound louder in the film soundtrack, or making your mix sound better balanced.
The filmmaker and the dubbing mixer make the choice of music volume. All pre-processing will get you is to hammer the life out of your music. Think of the dubbing mixer as your “mastering engineer”; he or she can make your music sound its best if you deliver good clean well-balanced mixes. (Tip: If you do intend to use any mix chain plugins, make sure they are bypassed while you are making your mix, or you will be “chasing your tail”, with unintended consequences. And ALWAYS check your mixes with dialog.)
Also, be wary of pre-canned plug-in presets, both as “mastering chain” and in individual instrument channels. A few years back, there was a popular device called a Finalizer, the misuse of which (imho) did a lot to damage perfectly good mixes and deceive studio owners. It had a menu of presets for rock, classical, jazz, techno, etc., which called up a chain of compressors, limiters, and EQs already set to certain parameters. But think about it: is your Rock mix exactly like every other rock mix that anyone ever created? Or, whatever style. The preset settings that might be appropriate for one example of a style are completely inappropriate for another example of similar style. There are simply too many variables that can go into production and mixing.
Plug-in presets are available in all the computer DAWs as well. For example, recent versions of Logic have these sorts of effect chains, in the “Library”. These are intended to take the mystery out of engineering for folks who don’t know much about it. But, watch out! Just like timing a scene or writing for the violin, there’s no excuse for not taking the time to really learn and understand how the tools of recording work, in order to get the most out of them.
In all the skills that go into creating great-sounding and competitive music, the more you know the better it will sound. And, best, your music will improve and you will know exactly why.