Remix

SpeakerSonic

My Trident 80B console has a setting called Remix. What is Remix? Remix is common practice in the art of making music. It means just what it says, you take a mix of your song that may need some improvements, and you mix it again. 

In the old days and more of a specialty now, mixing a song meant having all hands on deck, working together with the faders, buttons and knobs of the mixing board, watching notes to a time line while the song was bounced to 2 track tape. It meant hours and hours of making those notes, and hours and hours of putting them into effect using the analog console, while the song played thru from beginning to end. 

Now a days, with the help of computer based recording platforms, mixing or remixing can be much more simple. I use Pro Tools, but almost any computer based program comes with automation, multi effects processing, plug in inserts and easier ways of getting the perfect mix without setting up hundreds of thousands of dollars of gear, for the mix of one song only to have to do it all over again for a remix.

What's this button do?

Tech Talk: Automation is when you program the volume, panning, and effects levels to move on their own. Multi effects processing could mean compression, reverb, delay, flange, chorus, equalization, or anything that effectively changes the characteristics of a signal or sound-wave. A plug-in is a direct insert onto a digital audio track. This is also typically an effect of some sort.

More recently, I've been implementing board mixes into my process of mixdown. A board mix is basically a mix of the old and the new. You send all of the audio outputs from the computer back to the analog mixing console. This gives you the chance to add analog EQ and outboard gear to final mixing stage. Also, just the fact that the audio signal is passing once again thru an analog source, can really warm up the sound. In the business of recording music, warmth = "Awesomer!"

The time saving part, is that I've already applied my volume changes, panning, effect levels, inserts and multi effects, inside the computer. I could then bounce the track down to 2 track tape, or bounce it down to a 2 track digital audio file such as Wav or Aiff. 

I read in a book once, mix your song, remix it, remix it again, and remix it again till it feels right. But the reality is, you should be very careful how far you go in the remix process. You don't want to lose the magic of a first or second mix. 

A quick anecdote: Michael Jackson and the engineer for the Thriller album, Bruce Swedien are mixing Billie Jean. Its the end of a long day and Quincy Jones has left for the night. Bruce and Michael work late into the night on what they believe is an absolutely fabulous mix of one of my all time favorite songs. When Quincy arrives in the morning, they're wrapping it up. They exclaim, after mix 91, they've got the perfect mix and can't wait for Quincy to hear it. Quincy says, "Let me hear this piece of shit." He got real quiet and after a moment said, "Now lets listen to mix 2." Mix 2 blew it all away and that's what went out on the Thriller album, mix 2.

WATCH Bruce Swedien talk about Billie Jean