Mixing with Priority!

Robert Scovill gave some excellent insight in his audio breakout at Willow of something I already do that has always set my mixes apart. Think about this: no one ever went home humming the bass drum. Seriously. There are several trademarks of my mixes, one of which is a strong, gutsy (some say ballsy) foundation with a nice solid, thick, in your face low end. But I’ve always been a vocals guy. I’ve been blessed to mix for some amazing Christian and secular vocal groups and it’s always been my thing. Robert masterfully detailed the need, especially in the church world, for the central focus of mixes to be the vocal. I’ve listened to many mixes over the years where the vocal was unintelligible, distant, or just didn’t fit, all the while the engineer is spending effort on a killer kick/snare tone or mesmerizing verbs. Vocal first, then build everything else around it.

How do you initially judge the tuning of your PA? How do you build your mixes? Most start with the kick drum or the drum set as a whole. Robert suggests this is completely backwards, and I have done this for a long time. Start with the vocal – make the vocal sound great…present, detailed, intelligible, etc. Once the vocal sounds great, build the rest of your mix around it. Since the message of the vocal is the most important element, it has to be priority number one. Working the other way often leads to awesome band mixes, but it takes a VERY experienced engineer to be able to build a mix in the band and still leave the right amount of room for the vocal. Robert even suggests building monitor mixes in this way if you can…get everyone the right amount of lead vocal, then build the rest of their stuff around it.

There’s one caveat for me, and maybe for others too, based on our rehearsal process. On the weekends, I start out with a 2 hour band rehearsal where we get mixes working for everybody and then they work through all of our material for the service ahead of the vocalists arriving for full element rehearsals and the service run-through. Because of this, I don’t have the luxury of starting with the vocal – it’s 2 hours before I have a vocal – but you can still make it work.

Here’s my process, in steps, for a weekend full production song:

• I get the band mix happening the way I want in that rehearsal.
• Once the vocal is in, I drop out the band with the DCA’s and start the mix with the vocal, then add guitars/keys and make all of that work together.
• Once that’s done, I then drop it all out, again with the DCA’s, and check the kit and bass relationship to make sure it still works.
• Last, blend the two big chunks together – the meat and my foundation.