Their Mix Is Better Than Yours

This Is Why Your Mix Sounds Strange When You Use A Virtual Drum Instrument

Something I've heard time and again throughout the years is this:

Dude: Hey check out my new song I just finished

Me: Clicks link, youtube pops up and starts to play dudes song
Me: Spends next 3 minutes trying to think of a nice way to tell dude that the mix sucks.
Me: Dude, so yeah the song isn't bad but I see that you used Ezdrummer, which is fine but presents a
problem in that the drums sound way better than the rest of your mix. Toontrack spent thousands of hours and who knows how much money in their own professional studios, creating those drum sounds. They're pretty much perfect soooo... you need to match that with the rest of your mix or it ends up sounding like a Ferrari driving across a dirt road full of potholes. The Ferrari is awesome but everything around it is trash.
Dude: Screw you man

The above scenario not only happens quite often, but absolutely ruins your song and is a dead give-away that you moused in those quads and triplets in the drum track.

A great analogy to this would be that if you recorded your own drum kit, the mix you ended up with would be the same across all the instruments because you recorded and mixed them all. However, when you use something like Ezdrummer, Superior Drummer, or any other pro drum VSTI, the drum mix is instantly professional and close to perfect. So when you record your guitars, vocals, etc. You need to mix to match the drums. You cannot get a great all around mix if it sounds like two different engineers mixed the track without ever listening to each others mixes.

The video below illustrates my point nicely by using audio samples to contrast the two scenarios.

By now you're probably thinking "ok, but I'm not that good at mixing yet, so what do I do?"

Keep at it, you get better every time you mix. Utilize resources like Mixcraft University which quickly teaches functionality of the daw.

Watch videos full of tips and tricks, read blogs that give it to you straight, like this one.

Here's a video series on recording, mixing and mastering an entire song.

Join forums, facebook groups and talk to professionals wherever you can.

Mixing With Headphone vs Studio Monitors

As I was growing up in the music industry, I was always around people who were musicians, techs,

engineers, lighting guys, etc. Every one of them had their own opinion as to what I should be doing if I wanted to be one of them. IE: "Eric, if you want to be a studio engineer, you have to develop a professional ear and mix with headphones. I know because God and Mutt Lange came to me in a dream and told me".

Well now that I am older and have more experience than all those people combined, I call BS on that advice. Not only that, but when I run across one of those people on social media, I make sure to let them know what I do here in the studio and point out that Mutt Lange must have been pulling their leg :-)

The reason I don't mix with headphones...exclusively.

Headphones are great in certain scenarios. Such as if you are recording yourself singing, you'll want "reference headphones", which is a fancy way of saying "headphones". So that you can hear the music you'll be singing to without it being picked up by your vocal mic and recorded onto the vocal track in your daw.

Another scenario would be the recording engineer using headphones when checking incoming signals and sound before or during the recording process. The headphones isolate his/her ears from the acoustic sounds of the instruments being recorded so he/she can adjust the signal and tone easily and properly.

When mixing a song, I like to use studio monitors with a flat response, but with an equalizer on them

boosting lows and highs just as I do with my car or home stereo when I am just listening to music. Many engineers will tell you that you shouldn't do that (the eq) but my philosophy is this: Why would I want to set it up any differently than what I am used to hearing? That way I can mix until it sounds like everything else I listen to.

Using headphones will make the mix sound much different than it would on normal speakers, so if you must use headphones, at very least alternate between the two.

Checking the mix on multiple speaker sets

In my studio, I have three rooms in which I can listen to a mix. Each room has completely different speakers and sounds totally different than the others.

• Control Room - KRK VXT8 studio monitors
• Recording Room - In wall mounted stereo speakers. 8 inch full range.
• Lounge Area - MTX Audio - Old giant living room stereo speakers

What I do many times per session is play back the song I am mixing, get up and go walk to each room and listen for about 20 seconds in each. Move back and forth until the song is over, or until I hear something I want to change.

You might not have the luxury of multiple rooms to walk between when mixing, so burning a cd and going to your car, then home stereo or playing an mp3 on your phone may be your method. In any case, don't test the mix on just one or two devices, use multiple.

Hey Eric, what brought you to this awesome epiphany?

In my mid 20's I thought I was Mr. kick ass studio engineer mixing guy extraordinaire. I had mixed an entire cd (8 songs) over a period of months using headphones and thought it sounded killer! We had the cd's pressed and started selling them, etc. One night at a friends house, he put the cd on his outdoor stereo which had pretty small speakers but still sounded fine with everything he played on it. When our cd came on I was terrified at the sound.

The snare drum sounded like a wood block and was the loudest thing not only in the mix, but

seemingly the neighborhood. The entire mix was way too heavy on mid-range for that system. I took my embarrassment home with me and from then on I always checked the mix on multiple systems and aspired to find a happy medium between them all.

Recording Vocals First Steps - Starting With A Great Source

Recording Vocals First Steps - Starting With A Great Source

Throughout my career as a musician and studio engineer, I consistently hear the same questions over

and over. Whether it's in person, through my social media pages or in support forums.

The typical noob vocal inquiry might read something like this.

"How do I make my vocal sound professional like I hear on the radio".

Or

"What plugin do I use to get pro sounding vocals".

Before I proceed, I would like to get something straight. There is no magic plugin that will turn you from Alfalfa into Geoff Tate. Even the overly depended upon pitch correction tools such as Autotune or Melodyne (Which happens to ship with Mixcraft Pro Studio) cannot turn doggy doo into caviar.

This is where my soon to be famous phrase "If you expect professional results, you have to start with a great source" comes in.

About now I am assuming I've crushed you into believing that your mediocre singing ability isn't going to cut it. Ok, sorry about that, but the truth is that I suck too but still have commercial cd's out and even in physical stores. So you can do it, I have confidence in you :-)

Let's run down a quick list of points

• Be able to sing, hold a note, recognize when you are off and re-record it.
• Record in an isolated room, free from screaming children, barking dogs, nagging wives (oh damn, I hope my wife doesn't read this).
• Use a high quality microphone, do NOT under any circumstances expect to yell into a laptop or smart-phone  and create the worlds next #1 hit. I like the AKG C214 for a middle of the road vocal mic. You can even use the old standard Shure SM58 if you are on a tighter budget.
• Use a decent mixer connected to an audio interface which has a good asio driver. IE: Don't cobble together adapters to connect your XLR microphone directly to the "mic" input on your cheap sound card that's integrated into your family room gateway pc.
• Use a hardware compressor in line with the microphone and compress before the signal reaches
  
  the computer. Many interfaces have compression built in for just this purpose. Two interfaces that I know of which have excellent onboard compression are the Presonus StudioLive 16.0.2 and the Roland Studio Capture. 
• Check your incoming signal by singing the loudest parts of the vocal you are about to record. Make sure you are not clipping the gain.
• Use a pop filter and sing past the mic rather than directly at it. I've found that 99% of the issues people have with the thump sound from "P" and "T" and the overly high-endy "SSSSS" from words like saplesippysumpin, shmoopy, simmerbangin, etc. can be cured by aiming your face to one side of the mic so it gets the sound and not the air.
• Once you have recorded the part, go check it out and if you find mistakes, redo it. If you find you've clipped the gain at some point, redo it. If your compression settings are causing a distorted sound, adjust the compression and redo it. The theme here is don't expect some magic plugin to fix your screw ups, just re-record it. 
  
• DO NOT use effects while recording, you want to record 100% dry, the effects come later in the mixing process. 
• Use high quality studio headphones so that 0% of the sound from headphones bleeds into the microphone while you record.

Now that you have recorded a great source, you can expect a much easier mixing session. You should easily be able to get the vocal to sit down in the mix while also remaining out front as a vocal should be. You won't have noise artifacts to deal with, there won't be leveling issues between sections and you won't need to search around for de-esser plugins, or high pass filters to get rid of thumps.

Check out the video below. It's a section from my 2013 "Mixcraft Master Class - Rock & Metal - Starting With A Great Source - Vocals" segment. The full Master Class DVD can be obtained here

The Dreaded "V" Word

Ok, let's just get it out in the open, I'm going to say the dreaded "V" word. Ready?

------ Virtual Amp ------

There, now I know as a guitarist you are probably cringing in your chair and about to click on that Sweetwater ad you got via email this morning, right?
Well as awesome as I think Sweetwater is, I ask you to give this blog entry a read and check out the video below featuring a guy who is/was just like you.

Brad (guy in the video) and I have been using real physical amps all of our lives. The ever popular

Marshall JCM800 head with a 4x12 half stack, or back in the 80's 4 full stacks and 4 JCM800's.
Sheesh was that expensive!
Among other heads, amplifiers, cabinets, pedals, etc.

Remember when you'd pack all your equipment in your 86 Ford Fiesta and then some wine-o at the club you were playing would tell you that you need a bigger tour bus? or did that only happen to me? In any case, Brad here lets us know just how tired of lugging amps around he is, yet also how reluctant he is to trust a virtual amp to come up with the right sound, feel, trouble free operations and characteristics.

Most people who are new to virtual amps have a couple common concerns.

1. How can this virtual amp possibly sound as good as a physical one
2. How about the ability to get controlled feedback from amp to guitar pickup?

For the first question, I usually give them this bit of info. These days, most guitarists use a processor pedal of some type, plugged into a power amp which runs the cabinets. Well, those processors are loaded with virtual amps, just like Mixcraft or other daws. So trusting their ability to sound professional is just a matter of getting used to the idea.

The second concern is easy. You can walk up to your cabinet while running a virtual amp and get

controlled feedback no differently than you did with the physical amp head. Sound is sound, and if you loop an action and it's effect, it will feed back.

Enter the world of virtual amps! Yes, they actually sound great and are a fraction of the price of physical amps. Some are even free! Not to mention that many guitarists in national bands use them in favor of traditional amps these days.

I've created a video below which contrasts virtual amps with physical amps. I've recorded myself playing the same riff on four different setups.

1. Rocktron Maxe preamp>Peavey CS800 Power amp>Crate 4x12 cabinet
2. Shred running on a laptop>Peavey CS800 Power amp>Crate 4x12 cabinet
3. Line 6 POD HD500X Guitar Processor Pedal>Peavey CS800 Power amp>Crate 4x12 cabinet
4. Guitar>Audio Interface>Directly into computer running Shred

Check it out and see if you can tell which are virtual and which are physical.

Speaking of free virtual amps, Mixcraft from Acoustica comes with a virtual amp call "Shred" which

has loads of presets meant to mimic specific tones from well known guitarists, or the tones that you used to only get by purchasing a specific physical amp or head. I actaully use Shred more than any other virtual amp I own.

A few key points to keep in mind about virtual amps

• One suite (product) usually has dozens if not hundreds of combinations of heads, cabinets, microphones, etc. to choose from and customize , so the possibilities are just about endless.
• Any virtual amp that comes in the form of a VST2 or VST3 plugin, 32 or 64 bit, will work right inside a daw like Mixcraft. Most do come in these formats, in fact I have yet to run across one that doesn't.
• They weigh next to nothing and won't fill up your Ford Fiesta :-)
• The cost is a fraction of hardware costs.

Here's a list of my favorite virtual amp plugins that will work with daws like Mixcraft.

• Shred (Comes with Mixcraft)
• Amplitube
• S-Gear
• Guitar Rig
• Peavey Revalver
• Studio Devil VBA Pro (Bass amp)
• Cerberus (Bass amp)
• BIAS Amp

Here are a bunch of cover songs which use only virtual amps. I love recording covers to teach myself new mixing techniques!

Old School Guitarist with a New Found Love

Old School Guitarist with a New Found Love

Buddy: "Hey man check out this picture of me when I was younger."

Me: "Umm, every picture of you is from when you were younger."

The moral of that short joke is that we're never going to be younger than we are today, time moves

forward and technology changes. If you are like the guy in the video below (Jeff Payne), you might be a seasoned musician who once upon a time, recorded on a 4-track tape machine, or even an 8-track or 16-track reel to reel. Back when it was necessary to either pay out the wazoo for professional studio time, or buy loads of expensive equipment and try recording at home. How much would that cost you in equalizers, compression units, effects, mixer, A.D.A.T. machine, reel to reel... Ugg, I cannot bear to remember the home equity loan I took out for that crap in the 90's.

So what's my point with all this painful home equity loan talk? My point is that if you're like Jeff, you might be hesitant to try recording using your PC and a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), aka recording software, for fear of it being too complex or the notorious ID10T error (you might mess up your computer).

I'm here to tell you that it's much easier than you think and even you can produce some awesome tracks with minimal learning curves.

"Jeff is definitely more comfortable with a guitar than he is with a mouse". One of the quotes from the video that holds absolutely true, even to this day as he uses Mixcraft regularly. The good news that he's trying to tell you is that you can keep being terrible with a computer, but produce great mixes with Mixcraft at the same time!

Jeff Payne, starring in "Mixcraft For Guitarists - Reluctant Guitarist Changes Tune"

When I chose Jeff as the subject of that video, I knew he'd be a challenge but I also knew that if I could convert him, I could convert anybody. That means you, you old shredder ;-)

What you need

• Windows computer which uses Windows XP or higher. Preferable Windows 7 or Windows 10 (I never did like the number 8)
• Mixcraft Home, Studio, Reocrding Studio or Pro Studio 8 or higher.
• An audio interface.
• Miscellaneous cables, a microphone and your instrument.

Step-By-Step

Assuming you've already got the instruments, cabling and a decent PC.

1. Head over to Acoustica.com and grab either the free trial or a licensed copy of Mixcraft.
2. Get a decent audio interface. If you only plan to record your vocal and a guitar simultaneously, then any 2-4 channel interface will do. If you are going to record a drum set, get a bigger one.
3. Install both Mixcraft and the interface onto your computer. (Tip: Use the ASIO driver that comes with your interface)
4. Connect your microphones, guitar, keyboard, etc. to the interface
5. Arm as many tracks as you need within Mixcraft, using the various input options for your interface.
6. Hit record, and rock!

Bonus Video

Jeff is in a band these days called "The 99". Check out their video for a song called "Loud & Clear" off their full length studio album, done entirely in Mixcraft 8.