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How has Mixing changed your playing?


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I am a jack of all trades master of none multi-instrumentalist. I will talk about acoustic guitar, but please comment about all other instruments.

Timing appears to be underrated, so I spend an embarrassing amount of time lining things up to a grid. My experience has informed me that great group timing in my world, is a very rare thing and as a master of none this is what seems to work for me*

More big open sound, less licks. I think more like a part of a rhythm section. Thinking a little less about the guitar tone and more of how does the sound and the part fit in a mix.

My big challenge is to change chords with a minimum of artifacts. Fast E - to C#m will be the death of me and I have been doing this for 40 years.

I have a "go-to" guitar setup. It is a Martin D-18 >Beyer M-160 >cloudlifter> Daking Pre-eq. recording with some equalization. I have been experimenting with a Maple back and sides 60's Goya M-24? as this sits in a mix in a way i like.

My awareness points to thinking like you are part of an audio play, where you are more of a character actor supporting the lead-be it vocal or lead instrument.

 

* I have chronic pain in my right shoulder and a type of R.A. Also left handed, I do practice to a metronome and practice parts to a click. At the end of the day it sounds better to me with a bit of nip and tuck.

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I am a jack of all trades master of none multi-instrumentalist. I will talk about acoustic guitar, but please comment about all other instruments.

Timing appears to be underrated, so I spend an embarrassing amount of time lining things up to a grid. My experience has informed me that great group timing in my world, is a very rare thing and as a master of none this is what seems to work for me.

More big open sound, less licks. I think more like a part of a rhythm section. Thinking a little less about the guitar tone and more of how does the sound and the part fit in a mix.

For me, it's sort of the other way around...playing has changed my mixing, but for the same reasons you mention. Playing live, or when doing studio work, I always felt my gig was to support the vocals. Then when I got involved playing with DJs back in the 2000s, I learned about the virtues of dropping sounds out and having space. Now, a lot of my mixing involves questioning whether a part is really necessary, and if it is, whether it supports the vocals and the overall thrust of the song.

 

I pay much more attention to my rhythm guitar parts than to my leads. My goal is economical, melodic leads, very much like a vocal line but on guitar - that also makes it easier to support. I always put one flashy thing on an album just to prove that I can :) but that's it.

 

My awareness points to thinking like you are part of an audio play, where you are more of a character actor supporting the lead-be it vocal or lead instrument.

Yes! When mixing or playing live, you have an ensemble. How well they work together is what makes a song happen. To carry you play analogy further, I saw "Knives Out" recently. It could have been done on a theater stage, and was all about the ensemble of characters and their interactions. I found it more satisfying than a movie that relies on big CGI effects.

 

My big challenge is to change chords with a minimum of artifacts. Fast E - to C#m will be the death of me and I have been doing this for 40 years.

I have to admit something. When recording, there are some changes that are just too difficult to pull off without artifacts. So I record the chords individually, and move them on the timeline. Don't tell anyone, okay?

 

 

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I see this is your second post, welcome Rocky!

 

First, since I am also left handed and play standard tuning on right handed guitars for the most part, I would like to ask how you go about it? I've seen left handed players use left handed guitars, flip right handed guitars over and play them upside down and I even met a gentleman who was right-handed but played fingerstyle guitar on a right handed guitar flipped over upside down so his thumb was doing what fingers would do and vice versa. I thought he was left-handed until I spoke with him. He sounded great, if you didn't see him you would never guess how he did things.

 

Humans are certainly versatile. The only technique I would caution against is playing a right handed acoustic guitar strung for a left handed player. Unless the saddle area is modified by somebody who knows what they are doing, you will have some intonation problems that cannot be adjusted.

 

I cannot seperate mixing and playing, somehow I've always heard the whole and the context of my part. I've certainly evolved, part of that is improved technique and part of it is enhanced awareness.

FWIW, I play (and own) acoustic and electric guitars - 6/12, steel/nylon, pick/fingers, frets/slide. I also play fretted/fretless bass, sing, write songs and I am learning percussion/drums. I suck at keyboards but do use them sometimes for simple parts. That is where I will most often use the trick Craig mentions above - tracking a complex part in pieces and re-assembling them in the DAW.

 

I've learned to think in terms of Tension and Release. A good song offers both, sometimes subtle, sometimes in great measure.

Timing is paramount, without it nothing else matters. You haven't mentioned what types of music you play? Some styles lend themselves to "gridding" others would be ruined by doing that.

I am now working on ways to avoid "flatlining" the tempo as it removes Tension and Release from that aspect of the music.

 

Here is an inspiration for me, a simple yet complex masterpiece of tempo change used for expression:

 

As to the E to C#m changes, are you trying to play all six strings? If that is needed, putting a capo on the 4th fret would have you playing a simple "cowboy chord" C and Am shape, very easy.

I rarely play all six strings at once. Guitar can sound like 2 or more instruments if you start thinking of adjacent strings in terms of smaller sets. There are 2 sets of 5 strings, 3 sets of 4 strings, 4 sets of 3 strings and 5 sets of 2 strings. Depending on what else is going on in the composition, 2 strings might be enough to express or enhance the chord. Even a simple thing like alternating strums between the lowest set of 2 and the highest can change the sound of the guitar part in a profound way, suddenly you've left a "hole" in the middle.

 

Learning to transpose is essential and guitar is very well laid out for that. Every chord shape or melody pattern remains identical if you move it up and down the neck, the key you are playing in will change. This is very different from keyboards where each fingering of a major scale is different (makes my tiny brain hurt!!!).

 

Something I learned playing live (survival skill) is what I call the Theory of Contrary Motion. If somebody is playing an ascending line (and it's a request that you've never played before or something you have't gotten around to learning yet), play an descending line over it. If you are in the correct key it won't sound wrong and it won't make it obvious to the audience that you have no idea what you are doing. :- D

Tales from the trenches!!!

 

I could write a book but will pause here for now. Cheers, Kuru

 

 

 

 

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Thanks for the replies,

Kuru,

I play as if right handed and think that makes my fretting hand stronger. I can play the hell out of a western swing one chord for each quarter note and some jazz progressions. It is my right hand that is always in need of practice. I like the Justin Guitar exercises and endeavor to do more of that stuff. I am curious if anyone has some good right hand exercises they do? I guess it is less that example (E to C#m) I can get there pretty fast, but It is a habit to do some kind of artifact.

I have played 700 shows as a bass player and have always been more of a connect the dots player, I love James Jamerson, Paul Mccartney Joey Spampinato, and Carol Kaye, but my inclination is more conservative. I see those players as musicians who have so much game that their sound never feels to busy. They are great examples of musicians that are can hang with a click track, but really don't need one and It may cause stiffness. I am not in that class and could probably benefit by more time into right hand bass exercises. Practicing shaker with my right hand feels like a great exercise for over all motor control.

Best

Tim

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How has mixing changed my playing?

 

First of all, I create and mix my own backing tracks, playing all the instruments via various MIDI controllers. I've never mixed a record or CD.

 

Mixing refined by example a lot of the things I learned in theory, other classes and by being a musician in larger bands about the importance of each instrument in a song and how they should support each other.

 

Instead of just paying attention to how my single instrument part is mixing, blending, and/or contrasting with the rest of the band, mixing a backing track makes me think about how all the instruments are doing the same thing at the same time.

 

Mixing my backing tracks also taught me that mixing for live performance is very different from mixing for a record release.

 

Some of our competitors buy karaoke tracks and sing/play along. But the karaoke tracks are mixed like a record release, or the record release they are emulating.

 

I find that for live performance I need certain things more exaggerated in the mix than the original recording offers. I do things that I wouldn't want to do if I were to mix a song for play on my home stereo set.

 

Example: On rock songs exaggerate the groove, expand the dynamics and place the snare and bass up higher in the mix. Why? When you go out to hear a band, you hear the bass and snare backbeat in the parking lot, and on the dance floor the bass gives you the big bottom and that snare, slightly ahead or behind the beat (depending on the tune) adds a lot of energy to the song. I'll even sometimes mix a high timbale with the snare on certain beats, not loud enough to be obvious, but with enough ring to add to the shell of the snare drum's crack and ring when the stick hits the head and the rim.

 

That's just one example. Some ballads need more piano, some Reggae tunes need more syncopated guitar stabs, and so on. It's all song dependent with the goal to sound more like a live band than a karaoke track.

 

We play at an RV park where 400 or more French Canadians join a couple of hundred USA motor home folks. We play there more than any of the other bands. The owner asked why we sounded more alive than the other duos. I have him a short summary, explaining that I make my own tracks instead of buying karaoke tracks plus that I play my own instruments and balance them like a live band instead of a record. He said something like "Aaah, that's the secret."

 

Notes

 

 

Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

Style and Fake disks for Band-in-a-Box

The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

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Mixing my backing tracks also taught me that mixing for live performance is very different from mixing for a record release.

Do you also "thin out" the arrangement more for live? Seems to me you couldn't really get by with having lots of subtle parts.

 

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When we figure out how to adapt a well known studio recording for the cover we will play live, we do addition of noises, subtraction of noises, and movement of pitches to avoid collisions.

There is a desire for "more" in a live setting, to deliver more energy, but also the need to alter parts to prevent getting mud.

It is easier to keep "thicker" or dirtier sounds individually distinguishable in a studio recording than in a live performance.

 

The addition or noises might add "more" of something - some additional harmony backup vocals, or extra horn parts.

Subtraction is most often done by cleaning up a sound. Our cover of CSNY's Woodstock uses a clean B3 sound. There's just no room for CSNY's dirty organ sound in a live performance, with all the backup vocals going on (not just in the choruses - 2 of the 3 verses have backup vocals too).

We will move the octave where chords are played by a guitar or the keys, to get them out of the way of each other, or of other noises. I believe this is needed even more in a live setting than with a studio recording.

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Less is more.

 

But when you make it "more", make it "more".

 

 

More Less is More More? :-D

 

I am not afraid to play nothing, even in a duo. Sometimes nothing is the best choice.

When I saw Ray Charles with a full ensemble - 25 total musicians - most of them played nothing most of the time.

Georgia started out with vocals and piano and grew to a full crescendo, exhilarating!

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Mixing my backing tracks also taught me that mixing for live performance is very different from mixing for a record release.

Do you also "thin out" the arrangement more for live? Seems to me you couldn't really get by with having lots of subtle parts.

Yes and No. It depends on the song.

 

Some songs need thin, others thick.

 

Example: Because I like to play the "response" parts to the vocals on my sax, wind synth, or guitar I often exclude them intentionally. Other songs they are so essential to the song that they need to be left in.

 

Sometimes I'll do background vocal parts on a synth voice, (if I think they are necessary). Sometimes I'll leave them out entirely.

 

I don't have a strict plan. I start with a sketch arrangement (usually lengthening a 2 minute song to around 4 or a slow song closer to 5). Experience tells me that this is optimum for my targeted audience.

 

I'll decide where the solos go, which verses or choruses can be repeated, and usually shorten those long extended vamp endings that don't work so well in a duo situation. I'll put a real ending on the song - fade-outs don't work well live.

 

First I play the drum and bass track. It's the groove and the foundation, Drums first, bass next, this part of the process I rarely deviate from. I might touch up or change some of these parts later, but without the foundation I can't do the rest well.

 

I don't consciously think about what to add after that, I've done about 900 of them, so I go on instinct and experience. And yes, plenty of subtle parts that I don't think will be noticed in a live setting and are not that important don't get included. Other times I want to hear them so I'll mix them softer. Sometimes I add parts of my own because I get an idea and if it works, I leave it in. If not I nuke it.

 

On the gig I'll pull them out "on stage" and decide balance issues that need to be tweaked. Playing live is different from listening at home. I watch the audience's reaction and evaluate what might need to be done. I think the most re-balances I've done is 5. More often than not the first try nails it, when it doesn't' it usually takes only two.

 

Sometimes I try to cover the song close to a famous recording, other times I reinterpret it, again it depends on the song and what I think my audience wants.

 

Since 1985 I have targeted the yacht club, country club, and retirement development market here in South Florida. It pays better than the night clubs, for fewer nights per week, and there are no "Thursday nights when the club is empty except for a couple of traveling sales people who would rather watch TV". It's been good to us. I haven't done a cold call since the mid 1990s - repeat business and referrals sustain us.

 

I'm lucky that I can play drums, bass, sax, wind synth, and get around on keyboards. That way I can build the backing tracks myself to my own liking, in our best key, and the bonus is that since I know every part, every substitution chord, when it comes to improvise I play fewer poor choices (wrong notes). ;)

 

It's all fun for me.

 

Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

Style and Fake disks for Band-in-a-Box

The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

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Singing in my studio has been a huge eye opener. I try to do warm-ups record and then analyze the performance. I use auto-tune to help learn about pitch.

This is a little off-topic, and I've mentioned it here before, but I used to have no vibrato in my vocals...I just couldn't do it. Eventually I started using modulation plug-ins to add artificial vibrato sparingly. When I sang along with the parts to do an overdub or harmony, somehow my voice mimicked the vibrato and out of nowhere, I could do vibrato...I didn't even try, it just happened.

 

I've also learned a lot about pitch with pitch-correction software, and my rhythmic chops improved dramatically when I started playing to drum machines. All those skills that happened as a result of recording have translated into playing live.

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