So, you're making your own record. Making a record is a blend of art and science. With the basic building blocks of a recording studio getting more affordable every day, many musicians are electing to record and mix their own CD's. This month's column is here to offer a few pointers, with the same selfish ulterior motive as last month- I would love to have more local releases sound better, so I could enjoy listening to them. I'd also like to master good mixes and make them great, instead of trying to fix broken ones. As Muddy Creek Audio is primarily a mastering studio, we see a wide range of mixes. Some are great, some are good, some are steaming piles of crap. Often, less-than-stellar mixes fall into a few categories; many musicians stumble into the same pitfalls over and over again, and some of these are avoidable with a little thought and work. I'd like to address a few of these, and hopefully help some of you do-it-yourselfers out a bit in the process. 1) Making it loud as crap, sound quality be damned! The mix stage is not the appropriate place to worry about whether your mix is loud. Your job in tracking and mixing is to make sure everything sounds good, and more importantly sounds good together. It's fine to compare your mixes to already mastered CD's, but don't get caught up in trying to make your raw mixes as loud as commercial CD's. That's something best left for the mastering stage, and the very best thing you can do for your music is make sure that you have some headroom in the mix, so that whoever masters it has some room to work! 2) Overall frequency balance problems. Every set of speakers in the world change the sound to one extent or another, and so does every room you put speakers in. It's common to get everything great sounding in your room, on your speakers, only to burn a CD and realize it sounds like crap in the living room. If your room is boomy, then your mixes will be thin. If your speakers have a lot of top, your mixes will be dull. Learn these things about your room and speakers- you may need to mix a little boomy, or a little extra bright, or whatever, to make your mixes translate. Listen to your mixes in as many systems as possible. Move around the room and listen to the low end. Look into acoustics consulting or treatments if your room sounds or feels weird. 3) Big congested mess. Often, inexperienced mixers will slave over individual sounds, getting them to sound as good as possible by themselves before they listen to them in the context of the mix. Big mistake- who cares what your acoustic guitar sounds like by itself, if it's never going to be heard outside the full mix? Do most of your sound manipulation while you are listening to most of the instruments together, especially with the vocal. Don't be afraid to cut out whateverÕs not needed frequency wise (for example, cut all the bottom out of the guitars, or cut a notch in the bass where the kick can live). Also, remember when you get to mixing that the mute button is your friend- every track on there is a candidate for sacrifice, if it makes the song better. These are just a few of the pitfalls, but hopefully they'll get you started. Recording and mixing are skills that people spend a lifetime developing. If you're doing it yourself, you have time on your side; experiment, try new things, don't be afraid to go too far and screw something up. Just try and make each mix better than the last, and don't expect a piece of equipment to do anything for you. Knowing how to do it is easy. It's the doing it well that takes time, and there are no shortcuts, but you can make the journey itself a lot of fun. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------but yo Jon Best, owner of Muddy Creek Audio, is serious about you all making better records for him to listen to, and if you don't you will be in trouble. Feel free to contact him at 721-3264 or jonbest@cox.net