Mixing/Mastering a track

Task 1

Setting up a project

 This is how you set up a new project in Cubase, by clicking create at the bottom right, which will give you a blank new project where you can then add tracks and go from there. 

 Grouping

 

This is where you group your tracks so that you have all your different parts such as vocal tracks, drum tracks etc. I also Grouped my tracks by colour coding them as well as organising a suitable order.

Limiting

I have limited mostly the brass part on my track as they played into the microphone very loud and it was too overpowering so I have limited them by reducing the volume of their track. We also removed parts out of tracks where it was still recorded but there was no singing/playing at that time. This could be said to be a manual way of limiting. I removed parts of the track where there was no singing in the vocals, but I kept the breaths before they started singing just so that it did not sound unnatural.

Equalisation

Equalisation is used in nearly every song around nowadays, often referred too as ‘EQ’. This is where you can raise the bass of a track or dampen it and raise treble, to whatever you prefer. I have used equalisation on my kick drum track and make the lower frequency higher which gives it more ‘bass’.

Compression

I have added compression so that the kick drum stands out more, and I used it on the vocals so the voice doesn’t sound distorted.

Pan/Balance track out

I have balanced my track out so that no tracks are overpowering others, and some parts for example the trombone stood out a lot more than others so I balanced that track so that it fitted in well as like filling in texture/accompaniment. On the guitar solo I made this track louder than others that played at the same time as this should stand out more. I have also panned mostly all my tracks evenly so that it gives more of a stereo feel from R and L. Panning is basically changing whether you want a track to be louder on the left or the right, and doing this to all my tracks evenly has given the entire song more of a stereo feel.

FX- Reverb, Distortion

I also added reverb to the guitar solo for more effect, but also this makes the track sound like it was recorded in a large room or live, and also makes the solo sound more impressive. I have also used distortion on my cymbal track as this bring out the cymbal more, but also gives it a more dry feel to the sound just like I think a cymbal should.

Expansion

Expansion is basically the opposite of compression. This is the act of making notes louder in a track, and we are expanding the dynamic range of the track. I did not use this in my track.

Mastering a track

After I had finished mixing everything on the track, I then bounced down the track and made all the parts form together into one mastered track.

I then added a compressor and did some final editing to equalisation to the mastered track to ensure overall that the sound was its best, basically sweetening the sound. I also made sure the track was as close to 0dB as possible to avoid the whole track being distorted and clipping.