Natural EQ Without Plugins | Al Schmitt Mix Philosophy

0:00 - Intro
0:47 - Kick Drum
2:25 -Snare Drum
3:18 - Guitar
4:30 - Conclusion

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[christianmartinez]

Al restructured my engineering philosophy from the ground up. I always try to honor his love for audio every time I reach for a fader or a microphone.

[Mike_Benz_]

Level balance is always key, learnt this a long time ago while tracking as balance can really determine the vibe of the whole session/song or part being recorded.

[velvetratm]

Wow! Balance! Revolutionary technic of mixing! Hahaha)

[TimKaseyMythHealer]

Just got his audible book. He made an emphasis on making sure to set all microphones to Omni directional, and add in the room sound. You can do the same if you add in Ocean way studio impulses, and then the Capitol Chambers. It is difficult to do his philosophy of adding in the room ambience if your room sounds bad. Impulses are the only exception to his mixing philosophy. Go back to the 1966 moon river and listen to how, with a mono recording, he had to utilize the room ambience, or room chamber (speaker with microphone in an adjacent room) to get the instruments to sound larger. Again, don’t omit the importance of a quality ambience. His ambience was natural room with natural chamber, and then the Lexicon (in the later years). Not just one reverb, but several, and in some cases in layers.

[davejohnsonaudio]

It can sound like a broken record with all the talk about getting a good static mix, but you can really do so much with just volume and panning. The first thing I always do in a mix, is balance the kick and snare mics to settle on the tone. Anything with multiple sources, I will blend those to taste first, before anything else. I do the same with bass guitar, as I usually like to have 3 bass tracks to work with... DI/LPF, DI copy/HPF and a distorted bass. For me, this is one of the most fun parts of mixing because it's almost like sound designing. But, as the static mix progresses, you will find yourself adjusting the balance of a multi-mic'd source just slightly, to get what you need. And still, you haven't added a single plugin, but you're totally shaping the mix.

[ronson]

I see that you have Sound Radix Pi on nearly every channel. I have it too but years ago I discovered that it creates a moving sound on some sources. Did you ever recognize this as well? It´s rotating the phase constantly if I remember correctly.

[drummerpouk]

I agree with rafael below, nothing related to Al this is basic recording methodology. What would be more interesting is how you deal with your 3 kick mics that have all low end content to some degree. Because with the phase your low end information x3 will be a mess...

[RafaelBelor]

thats actually not mixing, but recording =D and not so much al schmitty here, this is just plain rough mixing. though loved your way of explaining how to think about multimicd instruments while rough mixing!!!