Tim Latham » Protools Gear

Listening to your favorite mixes

tlatham7 — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:38:42 +0000

As a beginning mix engineer, I found a few records that I loved the way they sounded. Some of them being Earth Wind and Fire’s “All n All”, Donald Fagens “The Nightfly” and Peter Gabriels “So”. You should try to find a record that you really love and use it as a reference when mixing. Don’t try to copy every part of I, because that is an impossible task. There are literally thousands of decisions that go into the sound of a mix, including all of the thousands of decisions that went into the recording process. Choice of mic, mic placement, mic pre, compression, eq, room, etc… on often 40-70 instruments adds up to a lot of decisions during the recording process. And an equal amount of decisions go into the mixing process. So to try to replicate what a mixing engineer has done to arrive at a mix is difficult if not impossible. I am suggesting using a song or a record as a reference of the overall balance, sound or mood. Also, it’s important to develop your own style. Pick your record and close your eyes and listen. Listen to a lot of records. Listen to the relationship between the rhythm track and the vocals. Figure out which of the harmonic instruments (keys, guitars etc…) are more “up front” and which are tucked in/back. These relationships are important because they create dimension. Borrow different sounds or uses or reverb that create these dimensions in your mixes. And don’t be too concerned about genre. It’s actually incredibly useful to be able to cross reference instruments across genre lines. I can’t stress the importance of listening to as many records as you can from as many genres as you can handle. (There are some genres I can’t listen to, but they’re very few). Happy listening.

Another decade as a Mix Engineer

tlatham7 — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:13:27 +0000

As this decade comes to its inevitable conclusion, I ask myself, well, how did I get hear? What a long strange trip it’s been I must say. It started out with me living in TriBeCa, actually purchasing my first cell phone (I can hear the laughs from hear) and using pro tools only casually, to finishing it with my own blog, a couple of cell phones, a website to run, and a full blown pro tools mixing studio in a house out in the burbs of NYC. As the next decade begins I find myself mid-way through my 3rd decade of life inside a recording studio. With nearly 24 years years of studio time, I realize that I’m starting to become a competent mix engineer. I said it. I, Tim Latham has finally become a competent mix engineer. I did resist the full switch to a daw until I was sure that I could get similar results from one that I could with tape. When pro tools hd was released and de-bugged, I was sold. Some have called it the home studio revolution but I think it was more evolution. With budgets sinking faster than Jay Lenos ratings and real estate prices skyrocketing combined with the cost of daw’s coming down to about 1/10th their digital reel to reel counterparts, it was nearly impossible for studios to keep their doors open. Home studios began to fill the void of the closed rooms. A few great tracking and mixing studios have survived to this day (thankfully) and a few new, smaller rooms have opened up as well. In a rare moment of foresight, I saw the end of big room studios coming to an end and dove head first into the industry standard pro tools, and built a mix room in my house in an effort to survive. Some of my colleagues weren’t too happy with my decision, claiming that I was becoming part of the problem (mixing in the box is still taboo to many mixing engineers) but I have bills to pay and I wasn’t going to throw away at that point close to 20 years of experience as well as years in college on principal. And I was wholly qualified to do absolutely nothing else. So I dedicated a lot of time money and effort to get my studio up to speed as well as re-learning how to mix. So as a new decade dawns upon us I am remiss to hazard a guess about what the future holds after seeing the tumultuous decade of the aughts. But I will guess that the recording studio business won’t change all that much, with a few big rooms managing to stay open and smaller rooms like mine will continue to offer great quality mixes. The monetizing of recorded music will figure itself out. And I can only hope that there is a cultural sea-change amongst consumers who feel that free music is their right. While I really want a Ford GT, if I took one off the lot of my local dealership because I felt that it was my right to have one I’d wind up in prison doing 1-5 for felony grand theft. I am hopeful. A bit nervous (nothing like a touch of fear for motivation!) And I am also very grateful that I’m still invited into peoples dreams for a living.

Mixing Demos

tlatham7 — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 06:32:20 +0000

When mixing a demo, treat it like you’re trying to beat Sgt. Peppers or Pet Sounds or any of your favorite recordings. Any mix engineer worth their weight in patch cables should never put anything less than 100% into their demo mixes or rough mixes. There are numerous instances in my career as a mix engineer where the rough mix was as good as if not better than the final mix. As mixers, we tend to get in our own way when attempting to make a mix perfect. I find that it’s often the imperfections in demo mix or rough mix that give a record its charm. There certainly are instances where the arrangements are far too complex nail a mix when doing a rough. Mixing records that are complicated require much more time to realize than an hour or so. But there are plenty of occasions when putting together a rough mix that the mix kind of falls into place. Sometimes its unconscious and there is something to be said for that. It’s a good tool to have as an audio engineer, that tool being the ability to “get out of your own way”. Also remain conscious of the fact that there is always a chance that the rough or the demo might become the actual record. Never underestimate your own abilities when mixing demos. Mix every song, be it a demo, a rough mix or a final mix as if it’s going to be the one that get’s you the Grammy award.

Mix Engineer

tlatham7 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:35:47 +0000

The role of a mix engineer and how it’s evolved: When I was starting out in recording studios, the role of the mix engineer was fairly well defined. A few weeks of lock-outs (24hr. sessions) were booked at a studio of choice, the tapes arrived a day before starting, the multitrack machines were aligned, and all of the extra outboard gear was hooked up and tested. On day one the mixer would arrive, set up their effect sends and returns and the mixing would begin. Typically, a day to a day and a half were required to complete a mix. At the end of a mix, the assistant would document everything in the room. Everything. Every setting on every piece of outboard gear was written down. It was very tedious and extremely important to get all of it 100% correct because this documentation was used to recall a mix at a later date to make some very minor changes. There would be a recall or two and the mixes were then sent off to a mastering studio. The mix engineer mixed. There was an occasional overdub, but the mix engineer was just that. The role has now evolved to a combination of a few disciplines. The mixer now is an editor, a vocal tuner, arranger along with the role as mixer. I have embraced these extra responsibilities with gusto. The speed in which I am now able to work in pro tools is exponentially faster than the analog days. It is by no means cutting corners, but hours a day are saved alone by not having to sit idle as 2 24track machines rewound and locked back up. That time is now used for the editing and tuning which I feel gives me a bit more insight into each song. Digging into the structure of the song bridges the left brain to the right brain. For me, mixing is a battle between the two halves and having that occasional bridge to cross is beneficial in giving each half a break every once in a while.

Mixing pro tools in the box

tlatham7 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:48:41 +0000

I’ve heard from many mix engineers of varying skill that “you can’t mix in the box or shouldn’t”. And my response it that I can “mix in the box” only because I’ve retrained myself to do so. It’s an ongoing debate with valid points made on both sides. Mixing in pro tools is certainly not the same as mixing on a big console. Having spent almost 2 decades in the analog world, I have a different point of view then those who’ve started their careers in the pro tools world. In the early versions of pro tools, doing anything in it sounded like crap. When digidesign got the HD together, I was sold. Not just on recording in it. It was a great digital recorder that replaced reel to reel machines forever. But it also was a great editor. It changed the way in which records were made forever.
But it was a few years before “mixing in the box” became an issue. Technically, you should be able to do a much better job mixing pro tools files through an SSL or a NEVE in a big name recording studio. And at fist that’s exactly what I did. And then the budgets started shrinking, fast. I saw the budget tsunami on the horizon and built my own HD mixing studio with a ton of plugins as well as my analog gear. I spent a lot of time tuning my room and it’s pretty damn flat. Then I had to re-learn how to mix. This was a challenge, but I had my analog experience to draw from. One of the first projects completed in my new room won Best New Artist on the MTV awards, The Gym Class Heroes. There have been many since, including a Grammy Award for the Broadway cast album for “In The Heights”. So yes, it can be done without compromising quality. I would never work in a manner that would give my clients anything but the best that I could possibly give them. And I have successfully made the change to mixing in the box. For those who tell you that it can’t be done, I say that it cannot be done by them.

Live from AES

tlatham7 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:31:50 +0000

Hello from the AES convention in NYC. I spent a few days gawking at new gear There was plenty of stuff I wanted for my mixing studio, but only some of it practical. I ran into some colleagues from Battery Studios and my friends from Electric Lady studios as well. It was encouraging to see that the recording studio business is still alive. There were plenty of veteran engineers attending as well as some future mixing stars. There were a few Digidesign pro tools plugins that piqued my interest. I’m going to download the demo versions to see how they sound in my mixing studio. This week I’ll be doing all of the file management that I’ve put off for too long. I’m looking forward to mixing a few new projects with Bill Sherman ( producer from In The Heights).