I spent a couple of years in the early 1980s in Birmingham, working as a TV station production manager. The two dominant network affiliates in town were situated at the top of Red Mountain overlooking the city. It’s known for the city’s statue of Vulcan, a tribute to the steel industry that was formerly a key economic driver in the area. Our TV station was housed in a mansion-style building with parking on the sides and in the back. The 700ft-tall transmission tower was also located right next to the building.
Birmingham is far enough south that it rarely gets sufficient snow to shut down the city. However, that also means that when it does get that cold, traffic snarls. Rather than outright snowfall, it’s more likely to get mist and/or rain that freezes, making interstate and in-town travel quite treacherous, thanks to hilly roads with a layer of thin ice. Likewise, the station had not invested in de-icing hardware for the tower, given that this would only be an issue a couple of days each year, at the most. Therefore, when weather conditions included freezing mist and rain, the tower structure and guy wires would ice over. This was the case one of the years that I was there.
Naturally, when a tall structure like a tower ices over, that ice melts again as the weather warms. But it doesn’t all turn to water. Instead, the ice melts enough to break into chunks, which start to fall away from the tower. Some are like ice cubes, others are the size and weight of a brick – all falling from as high as 600 or 700 feet. When that happens, the conditions in the higher air will still be misty and foggy. So you can’t see the ice falling. You only hear the pieces as they fall – whistling through the air or through branches in the nearby trees.
That year we had a number of dented cars, which were parked in the small lot along the building. One vehicle’s hatchback window was completely shattered. The neighboring station had a large chunk of ice go through their newsroom roof. Fortunately no one was hurt at either station, but it really was a bit of a gamble going between your car and the building.
The snow and ice conditions made it hard for people to get to work. Even if they made it to Red Mountain, the car wouldn’t make it up the hill on the slippery road to the station. Essential engineering staff would spend the night, if needed. My main directors – the ones that directed the live newscasts – lived an hour outside of the city via interstate. Of course, they were stuck at home when the snow hit, making it impossible to get to work.
Fortunately, I had a fallback. My weekend director was a very talented high school senior who worked with us part time and directed the weekend newscasts. He lived in town, but couldn’t make the drive. Seeing as this was an emergency – no newscast, no ad revenue – I was able to convince the news department to send their helicopter (flying conditions were fine at that point). It dropped down onto his neighborhood cul-de-sac, picked him up, and flew him to the station. One excited kid, for sure! As expected, he did a great job filling in. Of course, I couldn’t help but rib him about it later, “Don’t ever ask me for a raise. You got to ride in the helicopter. Our other directors never did that! That’s your raise for the year.”
Are you aspiring to be the next Chris Lord-Alge or Glyn Johns? Maybe you just have a rock ‘n roll heart. Or you just want to try your hand at mixing music, but don’t have the material to work with. Whatever your inspiration, Lewitt Audio – the Austrian manufacturer of high-quality studio microphones – has made it easier than ever to get started. Awhile back Lewitt launched the myLEWITT site as a user community, featuring educational tips, music challenges, and free content.
Even though the listed music challenge contests may have expired, Lewitt leaves the content online and available to download for free. Simply create a free myLEWITT account to access them. These are individual .wav stem tracks of the complete challenge songs recorded using a range of Lewitt microphones. Each file is labelled with the name of the mic used for that track. That’s a clever marketing move, but it’s also handy if you are considering a mic purchase. Naturally these tracks are only for your educational and non-commercial use.
Since these are audio files and not specific DAW projects, they are compatible with any audio software. Naturally, if you a video editor, it’s possible to mix these tracks in an NLE, like Premiere Pro, Media Composer, or Final Cut Pro. However, I wouldn’t recommend that. First of all, DAW applications are designed for mixing and NLEs aren’t. Second, if you are trying to stretch your knowledge, then you should use the correct tool for the job. Especially if you are going to go out on the web for mixing tips and tricks from noted recording engineers and producers.
Start with a DAW
If you are new to DAW (digital audio workstation) software, then there are several free audio applications you might consider just to get started. Mac users already have GarageBand. Of course, most pros wouldn’t consider that, but it’s good enough for the basics. On the pro level, Reaper is a popular free DAW application. Universal Audio offers Luna for free, if you have a compatible UA Thunderbolt audio interface.
As a video editor, you might also be getting into DaVinci Resolve. Both the free and paid Studio versions integrate the Fairlight audio page. Fairlight, the company, had a well-respected history in audio prior to the acquisition by Blackmagic Design, who has continued to build upon that foundation. This means that not only can you do sophisticated audio mixes for video in Resolve, but there’s no reason that you can’t start and end in the Fairlight page for a music project.
The industry standard is Avid Pro Tools. If you are planning to work in a professional audio environment like a recording studio, then you’ll really want to know Pro Tools. Unfortunately, Avid discontinued their free Pro Tools|First version. However, you can still get a free, full-featured 30-day trial. Plus, the subscription costs aren’t too bad. If you have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, then you also have access to Audition as part of the account. Finally, if you are deep into the Apple ecosystem, then I would recommend purchasing Logic Pro, which is highly regarded by many music producers.
Taking the plunge
In preparing this blog post, I downloaded and remixed one of the myLEWITT music challenge projects – The Seeds of your Sorrow by Spitting Ibex. This downloaded as a .zip containing 19 .wav files, all labelled according to instrument and microphone used. I launched Logic Pro, brought in the tracks, and lined them up at the start so that everything was in sync. From there it’s just a matter of mixing to taste.
Logic is great for this type of project, because of its wealth of included plug-ins. Logic is also a good host application for third party plug-ins, such as those from iZotope, Waves, Accusonus, and others. Track stacks are a versatile Logic feature. You can group a set of tracks (like all of the individual drums kit tracks) and turn those into a track stack, which then functions like a submix bus. The individual tracks can still be adjusted, but then you can also adjust levels on the entire stack. Track stacks are also great for visual organization of your track layout. You can show or hide all of the tracks within a stack, simply by twirling a disclosure triangle.
I’m certainly not an experienced music mixer, but I have mixed simple projects before. Understanding the process is part of being a well-rounded editor. In total, I spent about six hours over two days mixing the Spitting Ibex song. I’ve posted it on Vimeo as a clip with three sections – the official mix, my mix, and the unmixed/summed tracks. My mix was relatively straightforward. I wanted an R&B vibe, so no fancy left-right panning, voice distortions, or track doubling.
I mixed it totally in Logic Pro using mainly the native plug-ins for EQ, compression, reverb, amp modeling, and other effects. I also used some third-party plug-ins, including iZotope RX8 De-click and Accusonus ERA De-esser on the vocal track. As I brightened the vocal track to bring it forward in the mix, it also emphasized certain mouth sounds caused by the singer’s proximity to the mic. These plug-ins helped to tame those. I also added two final mastering plug-ins: Tokyo Dawn’s Nova for slight multi-band compression, along with FabFilter’s Pro-L2 limiter. The latter is one of the smoothest mastering plug-ins on the market and is a nice way to add “glue” to the mix.
If you decide to download and play with the tracks yourself, then check out the different versions submitted to the contest, which are showcased at myLEWITT. For a more detailed look into the process, Dutch mixing/mastering engineer and YouTuber Wytse Gerichhausen (White Sea Studio) has posted his own video about creating a mix for this music challenge.
In closing…
Understand that a great music mix starts with a tight group of musicians and high-quality recordings. Without those, it’s hard to make magic. With those, you are more than three-quarters of the way there. Fortunately Lewitt has taken care of that for you.
The point of any exercise like this is to learn and improve your skills. Learn to trust your ears and taste. Should you remove the breaths in a singer’s track? Should the mix be wetter (more reverb) or not? If so, what sort of reverb space? Should the bottom end be fatter? Should the guitars use distortion or be clean? These are all creative judgements that can only be made through trial-and-error and repeated experimentation. If music mixing is something you want to pursue, then the Produce Like A Pro YouTube channel is another source of useful information.
Let me leave you with some pro tips. At a minimum, make sure to mix any complex project on quality nearfield monitors (assuming you don’t have an actual studio at your disposal). Test your mix in different listening environments, on different speakers, and at different volume levels to see if it translates universally well. If you are going for a particular sound or style, have some good reference tracks, such as commercially-mastered songs, to which you can compare your mix. How did they balance the instruments? Did the reference song sound bright, boomy, or midrange? How were the dynamics and level of compression? And finally, take a break. All mixers can get fatigued. Mixes will often sound quite different after a break or on the next day. Sometimes it’s best to leave it and come back later with fresh ears and mind.
In any case, you can get started without spending any money. The tracks are free. Software like DaVinci Resolve is free. As with so many other tasks enabled by modern technology, all it takes is making the first move.
Every nonlinear editing application has strengths and weaknesses. Each experienced editor has a list of features and enhancements that they’d like to see added to their favorite tool. Final Cut Pro has many fans, but also its share of detractors, largely because of Apple’s pivot when Final Cut Pro changed from FCP7 to FCPX a decade ago. That doesn’t mean it’s not adequate for professional-level work. In fact, it’s a powerful tool in its own right. But there are ways to adapt it to workflows you may miss from competing NLEs. I discuss five of these tips in my article Making Final Cut More Pro over at FCP.co.
Any editor who’s been in the business for a few decades has certainly accumulated their share of oddball anecdotes and knowledge tied to techniques and processes lost to history. I’m no exception. And so, I’ve decided to start posting a few of these. However, I’ll start this first one in the land of AM radio.
My first official job in media was as a part-time disk jockey during my senior year of high school. It was a small central Florida 1,000 watt AM radio station that covered a range of musical programming – country in the morning, MOR (middle of the road) midday, Top 40 early in the evening, and more album cuts at the end of the night. That last part, 10PM-midnight (our sign-off time), was my shift.
AM radio, like shortwave radio, transmits a signal that bounces between land and the ionosphere. Sunlight during the daytime excites the atoms of the ionosphere, which blocks the penetration of the radio signal, thus limiting its distance. As a result during the day a 1,000 watt AM station signal can’t be heard too far past the county line. Stations in different cities are able to occupy the same frequency without interference.
With the sun gone at night, the ionosphere is now less excited. The radio signal can punch through to a higher level and ricochet a greater distance, thanks to a phenomena called skywave, aka skip. If the transmitter continues to operate at full power, the signal will then travel far enough to interfere with any radio station on that same frequency in another city. To mitigate this effect and reduce interference, the FCC requires most AM radio stations to reduce power at sundown – down to 250 watts in our case.
The exceptions are clear channel stations, which are allowed to operate at full power – typically 50,000 watts. These stations are assigned a frequency that is not also allocated in another market and, therefore, won’t create interference. In central Florida, we routinely picked up a station from Nashville at night. Such stations in the US and Mexico play a key part of rock ‘n roll history and radio lore – think Wolfman Jack, American Graffiti, and ZZ Top.
At our little station, one of the DJ’s responsibilities during morning or evening shifts was to raise transmitter power at 6AM sign-on and lower it at sundown. During the holidays, shifts were re-arranged to accommodate Christmas and New Year programming. So on Christmas Eve, I was on the late afternoon shift and got off right at the time of the power change. On this night, our country music morning DJ, who was a bit of a local celebrity, was on until midnight doing his annual special Christmas Eve program. He was a rather jolly old elf who arrived for his shift ready for the night – a tray of brownies, a loaf of bread and cold cuts, and some libations.
On schedule, I reduced the transmitter power to 250 watts, did my end-of-shift paperwork, and prepared to turn things over. On my way out the door I reminded my colleague that I’d already taken care of the power shift. “That’s OK, I’ve got it,” he replied. To my surprise, he walked back to the transmitter and switched it back up to full power. A nice, strong signal for his Christmas Eve special, I suppose!
The rest of this story is second hand. As I understand it, the station GM was driving around later that evening and realized the station had a much stronger signal than usual. He immediately knew what must have happened. The conversation went something like this (insert your own expletives to taste):
GM: “What are you doing! They must be able to hear us clear up to Georgia!”
DJ: “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
GM: “Yes you do! Bring the power down right now before we get into serious trouble.”
Dj: “OK.”
As far as I know that’s what happened. Just one of those experiences that point to the fact that the radio business is (or at least was) a truly crazy place.
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