Frankly Audio

This blog will cover “mixing” audio not “re-mixing”. What’s the difference? The mixing we’ll cover here is the blending and arranging music sources like guitar, bass, drums, vocals, keyboards et cetera into a final complete song. Re-mixing is blending already mixed song segments into new arrangements, beat matching and scratching. There is another form of re-mixing that involves taking multi-track audio sources already used to create a mixed version and going through the mix process again to change the arrangement, sound and feel of the previously mixed song. There is a plethora of information on the Internet covering re-mixing but less covering traditional audio mixing. Again, traditional audio mixing is the focus of this blog.

We will also discuss “tracking”. Tracking is the process of recording the different parts of the song like the guitar, vocal et cetera. Tracking will include the selection of microphones, mic placement, equalization, punch-ins and more.

When I started in recording engineering we used razor blades to cut reel to reel audio tape when arranging and editing music. Today that process is much easier, safer (both to the source material and your fingers), and accurate. I guess you could call that and some of the techniques I still use “old school”.