Recording & Mixing

Mike Senior's Expert Tracking & Mixing Tips

Distortion can be a surprisingly useful mix effect, if you know what you're doing. Mike Senior reveals several common applications, and explains how to get the best results in practice.

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:49 - Distortion for tonal change
01:27 - Bringing sounds up front
03:30 - Combatting upper-spectrum masking
06:07 - Distorting rock lead vocals
09:56 - Distorting bass
13:16 - Practical implementation tips

Credits
This month's episode features audio examples from the following productions:

* Alex Giddens: 'Get Blown'
Read about my mix of this project in Sound On Sound's October 2009 'Mix Rescue' column at https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mix-rescue-alex-giddens

* Flags: '54'
Download the full raw multitracks from https://cambridge-mt.com/ms/mtk/#Flags
Read about my mix of this project in Sound On Sound's March 2011 'Mix Rescue' column at https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mix-rescue-flags

* Zeno: 'Signs'
Download the full raw multitracks from https://cambridge-mt.com/ms/mtk/#Zeno
Read about my mix of this project in Sound On Sound's March 2010 'Mix Rescue' column at https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mix-rescue-zeno

* Actions: 'Devil's Words'
Download the full raw multitracks from https://cambridge-mt.com/ms/mtk/#Actions
For lots more mixing tips and audio examples relating to this project, listen to the February 2018 Cambridge-MT Patrons Podcast for free at https://www.patreon.com/posts/17201141

Mike Senior Biog
Mike Senior is a professional audio engineer, regular SOS contributor, and author of the best-selling books Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio & Recording Secrets For The Small Studio. He runs the Cambridge-MT educational resources site (including the web's largest free multitrack download library) and hosts two monthly independent podcasts, Project Studio Tea Break and the Cambridge-MT Patrons Podcast.

Catch more shows on our other podcast channels: https://www.soundonsound.com/sos-podcasts

Creators and Guests

Host
Mike Senior
Mike Senior is a professional audio engineer, regular SOS contributor, and author of the best-selling books Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio & Recording Secrets For The Small Studio. He runs the Cambridge-MT educational resources site (including the web's largest free multitrack download library) and hosts two monthly independent podcasts, Project Studio Tea Break and the Cambridge-MT Patrons Podcast.

What is Recording & Mixing?

Welcome to the Sound On Sound Recording and Mixing podcast channel where you’ll find shows packed with Hints & Tips about getting the most out of the recording, mixing and mastering process.

More information and content can be found at www.soundonsound.com/podcasts | Facebook, Twitter and Instagram - @soundonsoundmag | YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/soundonsoundvideo

Mike Senior
Welcome to the Sound On Sound recording and mixing podcast channel.

I'm Mike Senior. There are plenty of situations where we audio engineers try to minimize distortion. For example, when you're recording acoustic ensembles, you know, styles like jazz and bluegrass and classical. Or when you're setting up a monitoring system or a PA. Or when you're converting signals back and forth between the analog and digital domains.

At Mixdown, however, distortion can actually be a positive thing, as long as you know how to turn it to your advantage. So in this episode, I'd like to illustrate some of the ways distortion processing can help with your mixing. And I'll also pass on some practical tips about how best to implement it. The most important thing to realize about distortion is that it adds new sonic information.

In the case of something like a heavily overdriven electric guitar, the impact of these extra frequencies is obvious. And it should also be clear that they're changing the tone of the instrument in a way the EQ can't. So at its simplest, distortion can be seen as a powerful alternative method for tonal transformation.

A way of changing a raw recorded track into the sound you actually want to hear. From a mixdown perspective though, more subtle and targeted distortion processing can serve a number of more specific technical goals. For instance, most distortion processing tends to make a sound's upper spectrum more harmonically complex, which frequently has the psychological side effect of bringing things closer to the listener and making them feel more upfront for a given subjective mix level.

Have a listen to this section of rapt vocal for example, which has plenty of compression and EQ, but no distortion processing. On a level when you sym for me, y'all leave you mentally unsettled. 'cause I'm sitting sick and sick. Devil said, as Afic on the street says she gave me a medal. Now, while this seems plenty bright enough in isolation like this, within the context of the full mix, all we really hear of that brightness is the consonants.

Whereas the body of the vocal tones still feels a bit buried in the balance.

Applying some distortion to the lead vocal in this case, can add extra complexity and density to the upper midrange harmonics of the vocal tone, in order to bring that element of the sound further forward in the mix. Let me demonstrate the kind of thing I mean. I'll first play that lead vocal in isolation as it was, and then I'll follow that with a version where I've added extra high midrange harmonic density to the sound using distortion.

On a lyrical level, when you send for me, I'll leave you mentally unsettled Cause I'm sadistic and sick of the devil So acidic, I'll be liquid as a metal I'm prolific on the streets if you give me a medal On a lyrical level, when you send for me, I'll leave you mentally unsettled Cause I'm sadistic and sick of the devil So acidic, I'll be liquid as a metal I'm prolific on the streets if you give me a medal And now let's do that same comparison within the context of the mix.

On a lyrical level, when you send for me, I'll leave you mentally unsettled Cause I'm sadistic and sick of the devil So acidic, I'll be liquid as a metal I'm prolific on a medal On a lyrical level, when you send for me, I'll leave you mending yourself Cause I'm sadistic and sick of the devil So acidic, I'll be liquid as a metal I'm prolific on the streets if you give me a medal In that case, you'll also notice that the extra emphasis on those high mid range vocal tone frequencies has reduced the emphasis on the slightly over prominent consonant sounds.

Another scenario where this kind of added harmonic density can really help is when you're trying to prevent some element of an instrument's sound from being masked within a very complex multi layered mix texture. Take this acoustic guitar part for example.

It's got some nice warmth and stereo width, plenty strumming too.

Within the context of the mix, however, the upper strings are getting quite heavily masked by other instruments, so we lose some of the impression that the player is actually playing chords, which makes the instrument feel a bit papery and percussive.

The way targeted distortion processing can help here is by adding harmonic complexity more to the mid range of the instrument, which makes it more robust when it comes to resisting masking by other instruments. So, for example, let me play that original acoustic guitar track again, and then I'll play a version where I've used distortion to enhance the mid range density.

And here's that comparison again, but now within the mixed context,

gone.

These two characteristics of distortion processing, the ability to bring a sound up front in the mix, and the way it can make a sound resist frequency masking in the midrange, are probably most useful when dealing with rock lead vocals. You see, one of the essential challenges when mixing rock music is that distorted guitars and loud thrashy drums are both very good at masking vocal frequencies.

And that's before you add things like horns, keyboards, backing vocals and any other percussion. Furthermore, you can't really afford to turn the vocals up too loud because the moment you do, you undermine the illusion that the band's powerful. The more space the vocal takes in the mix, the smaller the band will feel by comparison.

For example, have a listen to this processed rock vocal

track.

There's plenty of processing going on there, dynamics, brightness, widening. But if I put it at the level I want it to be in the mix, You can hear it's being heavily masked. It just sounds dull and a bit recessed.

But if I turn the vocal up, it feels like it's taking too much space in the mix and the band is beginning to sound a little bit small.

So this is where distorting that vocal can really pay dividends. Because it increases the harmonic density in the areas that the vocal really needs it to sound bright and forward. But without the overall vocal level needing to be too high in the mix. So let me play that lead vocal track again, the one you just heard.

And then I'll follow it with a version where I've added quite a lot of distortion, particularly focusing on that high mid range area where the vocal's being most heavily masked. So first without distortion, and then with.

And now listen to the difference that makes within the full mix context. Again, I'll play it without the distortion first, and then with the distortion.

This is the vocal tone sounds obviously distorted in isolation, within the context of the mix, that distortion is a lot less obvious, and you perceive it more as a tonal change than as the vocal sounding broken. Now this mismatch between how a distorted track sounds in solo, and how it sounds within the context of the mix, is often even more dramatic in another very common application of distortion processing at mixdown.

And that's where you're applying distortion to bass. For example, here's a processed bass part.

Now on the face of it, this seems like a pretty reasonable sounding part. You know, it's nicely controlled dynamically and there's a good, solid low end. But now let's hear it within the context of the full backing mix.

With all those drums and guitars powering away over the top of the bass, pretty much all you hear of the bass line is the very lowest frequencies. And fundamentally what this means is that the bass line is going to be pretty much wasted on anyone who isn't listening on a playback system that's got good bass extension.

In other words, a lot of people really aren't going to hear what the bassist is contributing musically to the production. Now one possible solution to this might be to just boost the upper spectrum of the bass to make it more audible in the mass market friendly mid range. Like this for example.

But within the context of the mix, that approach doesn't really blend the bass as well with the rest of the guitar texture, and also makes the pick noise a little bit overbearing. Have a listen.

If instead you use distortion to make the bass more audible in the mid range, it blends better with the guitars and doesn't emphasize the pick noise. Here's the distorted track on its own.

And in the mix.

And now for the sake of demonstration, let's compare the mix without the bass distortion to the mix with it.

As in my rock vocal example, the difference the distortion processing makes here to the bass tone isn't nearly as obvious within a mix context as it is in solo. Okay, so we've looked at a number of different ways that distortion can prove helpful at mixdown. But implementing those kinds of changes isn't just a question of slapping a distortion plugin on the track and turning it up to 11.

The problem is that when you add drive on any kind of distortion processor, it makes the added distortion components not only more numerous and dense, but also louder. For mixing purposes though, it's much more useful to have independent control over those two variables. So you can add, for example, a very low level of very dense harmonics.

And in addition, it's really useful to be able to focus the harmonics into just the frequency range that you want. And most distortion algorithms don't provide you that kind of control. So my number one tip for getting the best out of distortion effects at mixdown is to run the distortion plugin as a parallel effect.

In other words, not inserting it on the track you want to process, but sending from the track you want to process to the distortion, and then returning the distorted sound to the mix alongside the unprocessed signal. Doing it that way means that you can drive the distortion plug in as hard as you like to get the density of harmonics you require, but still have complete freedom over how much of that distortion you add back into the mix.

And of course, if you only want those added harmonics in a certain frequency range, then it's simple to put an EQ into the distortion channel and filter out the bits you don't need. A couple of words of warning with the Parallel Processing approach, though. Firstly, it's worth making sure that your distortion channel isn't changing the phase response of the sound at all.

Because if it does, mixing it back in with the unprocessed track may have damaging tonal side effects on account of phase cancellation. And secondly, when you're using a Parallel Processing configuration, the more distortion you add, the more you'll inevitably increase the processed sound's perceived loudness.

And it's very easy to get fooled into thinking you're doing the right kind of processing when actually you just like it because it's louder.

That's all for now. Thanks for listening, and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode, where you'll find further information including web links and details of all other episodes. You can also download a 24 bit WAV version of the show from there, if you'd like to hear the audio examples at higher resolution.

And just before you go, let me point you towards www. soundonsound. com slash podcasts, where you can explore what's playing on our other channels. I'm Mike Senior, and this is a Cambridge MT production for Sound On Sound magazine.