So much theory runs through our heads. It's incredible how much information we musicians have to learn. Information that is often foreign to music itself: hardware, software, compression, decibels, input signals, noise, group mixing, subgroups, returns... truly chilling, but necessary. Every musician's dream (I imagine): "to devote ourselves to composing, to bringing out our particular way of understanding life through sound, rhythm, melody, volume... tears or euphoria capable of spreading through the ears of our many or few followers."

For some, that moment arrives when we no longer have to worry about the little knobs, the cables, the mixes, the effects. In other words, when all the feeling in our soul is faithfully captured in a recording (or at least something close to what we imagined when we conceived the song), or sounds "the way it's supposed to sound" live.

Others feel pride and satisfaction at the success of some of their friends and/or musicians who fought alongside them in the early days, while in the meantime they slog away at all the manuals for the "gadgets," synths, modules, cards, software, multi-effects, dynamics processors, etc... that they have to master to record in their own home studio.

Some people become increasingly involved in this whole learning process and even tend to abandon their own creative work to devote themselves to recording and/or producing others. Others, on the other hand, feel that this whole "earthquake" of information steals time from composing and becomes a more than tedious task. That's why it's necessary to work with tools that are comfortable, easy and effective... in two words (as a certain well-known personality would say), tools that don't steal time from true creation (from two to eight, it's not that big a deal).

Having set out the reasons that lead me today to "chew over" these tips, I now move on to a completely practical chapter, which aims to put insatiable theory away in a drawer and lend a hand to those exploring the mixing possibilities of their computer setup.

/estudio19_1.jpg" width="230" height="167" hspace="12" vspace="8" border="2" align="left">Tools
Today we are working with a setup based on:

a) A computer (as the central system).
b) Software: CUBASE VST or LOGIC 3.6, WAVE LAB 2.0, SOUND FORGE 4.5 and SAMPLITUDE 5.05 (or later versions). As you can see, it isn't always necessary to use the very latest versions (although, truth be told, it helps).
c) A sound card with reasonably decent specs.
d) The amp, monitors, cabling, modules, multi-effects and other essential bits and pieces.

Issues to solve
Well, the moment comes when we take the CD with the recorded songs down to the car, to a friend's stereo, etc...

a) The bass has peaks that pound us.
b) The highs have no sparkle.
c) The snare sounds like a tin can of Orlandeich tomatoes.
d) The kick has no punch.
e) The compression we used makes the songs louder but wrecks the guitar distortion.
f) The whole song sounds very quiet, with no bite, despite having kept the signals under control.
g) You can't make out the vocals at all.
h) The sound is strange, very different from other CDs, too far away, too close.

To give some examples, these could be some of those annoying details that make our song sound like "burnt horn" and not resemble in the slightest what we had in mind. When a painter executes a work, he usually calculates in extreme detail the lighting conditions that cool or warm his creation; that's how he takes care of the details, the nuances, the colors. If those who later "contemplate" it do so in a dark place, or under unsuitable lighting, all the painter's efforts with warmth, coolness and nuance will be in vain. Something similar happens with musicians: that open hi-hat that can no longer be heard clearly in the mix gave the song its special touch; the ride cymbal is higher up than the medicine bottle that children mustn't reach; the bass has lost all the body that gave the song its life, etc... etc... etc...

Our future listeners will have no idea what we had in mind when we recorded the song, since what they hear isn't even remotely similar.

In this first chapter on "optimizing the digital mix in our home studio," we'll offer some possible solutions to these "proposed problems." Likewise, and "interactively," I invite you to send me (by mailing your letters to the publisher: Revista Instrumentos y Sonido Profesional, Home Studio Section, or through this website) problems you usually run into in your mixes or solutions you've come up with for common "bad mixing situations."

The bass has peaks
/estudio19_2.jpg" width="236" height="184" hspace="12" vspace="8" border="2" align="right">Problem.
We have tried to record a powerful, round, thick bass (a real one, not MIDI) and we find peaks that overload the speakers, but if we lower the track volume we lose body.

Alternatives
The problem may be caused by a couple of excessive peaks in the signal. This means that if we raise the track, when the peak frame arrives, the signal goes off like a firecracker. If we lower the track volume so that it doesn't distort at that moment, the rest of the sequence will be low, dull and lacking body.
General solution: balance the signal across the entire track to achieve a neutral average level, that is, neither too high nor too low.
Well, first of all we can go to the bass audio track in our main program, Logic, Cubase, etc....

Double-clicking on the (recorded) bass audio track will bring up the audio editing window (the case shown here is in Logic). At first glance, by enlarging the window, we can see the entire track and check what the signal looks like overall, whether there are any pronounced peaks and when they occur.
Now we can select the part where the input "spikes" and lower its gain so that the impact drops. That way we avoid an unbalanced track.

/estudio19_3.jpg" width="277" height="94" hspace="12" vspace="8" border="2" align="left">Next, we reduce the gain.

Once we've done this at every point where a sharp jump in level was recorded, we can try to improve the quality of the sample. As a first option, we could compress the bass track from within this same program.

If we want to complicate our lives a little more and get more powerful results at the same time, we can take the track into an external editor, such as Wave Lab, Samplitude or Sound Forge. In any of these editors we can treat the track thoroughly, EQ it, add some "cool" effect, compress it, etc... and then import it back into the "sequencer" program, leaving it "up and running" and "super-polished."

In Cubase VST, we have the option of directly associating an editor (our favorite) so that when we double-click on the audio track, the predefined editor launches.

Now our bass track is balanced, compressed and reasonably equalized. We have solved the signal peak problems, achieved consistency and raised the track volume without any headaches.

As you might expect, we'll need to touch up the EQ and volume of our bass track to have flexibility in our final mixing sessions. Now, to achieve a perfect blend with the rest of the tracks, we'll make adjustments with our program's mixer (Logic or Cubase).

/estudio19_5.jpg" width="207" height="190" hspace="12" vspace="8" border="2" align="right">Without belittling CUBASE, since it's an extremely powerful tool, below I show you a photograph where you can see the total control we have over our track, in terms of EQ, effects and, of course, possible plug-ins.

In the next chapter we'll tackle the other problems suggested at the beginning of these pages. Likewise, the invitation remains open for you to take part by sharing your headaches and the solutions you can and want to share with the rest of the readers.