quick mixing question

please be patient with me since i know very little about mixing:

I opened a pro tools session of an old beat I made to see if I could clean up the mix

I had one track with the sample on it, and it was sent to a bunch of other tracks, one for the treble, one for the mids, one for the bass, and one "master" track that all of the above were sent to. this is probably not a good way of doing it but I was just experimenting.

so when I came back to it, I started muting tracks and realized that when they are doubled up like that (or tripled up), obviously the samples overlap, making it louder and thicker. I liked how it sounded without all of those tracks running at once. when they're all layered up like that the rest of the beat (drums, bass, one other sample) gets overpowered.

so how can i send my sample track to multiple places (I remember someone telling me that instead of putting the EQ, compression, etc. plug-ins on that track, it's good to send it through an AUX input for that. that might be common sense.

but how can i send my track through different tracks without the sample getting thicker and thicker? is there a way to do this? if not, what should i do?

also, i'm not trying to get a perfect BG-approved mix, i just want more control over how my music sounds

thanks in advance

You could bounce the tracks down to one track. Same tones, and you can control the gain.

Also you could lower your gains on the tracks if you want to keep them separated.



Sounds like a strange technique. Maybe you could tweak the pan of the tracks a bit to get a lush stereo sound with different eq's.

Definitely not a quick question!

peace

You got a good start from the way I see your doing your mixes. Thats how to do it, experiment until you succeed.

Anyhow, for what you are doing, I would filter the bass from the sample completely and then throw that on the bass track but remove all traces of mid and treble. For the treble and mid tracks just remove the bass completely and throw that on and tweak the eq of them from your DAW. That should do the trick, if you heard my track SWAMP SHOES from the first Symphony Sounds tape, thats what I did exactly. That whole song was from one 10 second sample, chopped and filtered.

A word of wisdom, get a tutorial on how to mix within PT. A bunch of tracks of the same source bussed down to one source usually will induce phasing issues or something to that affect.

You don't need to send material to the different bands of eq like you explained. One source and one bandwidth will work wonders better than a bunch of them.

But seriously, mixing takes time & patience and requires an understanding of how to paint a clearer picture regardless of how scrambled it may be.

If I am using 1 sample for 2 or more "layers' in a track, I usually start with 2 tracks of the exact same sample. For instance, in the track AK Ode on our album, which you can hear at 925ve.com, the vocal sample and the bass line are the exact same sample. All I did was send the sample through an outboard filter (lp) and record it, then I sent the same sample through the filter (hp) cut a few freqs above the bass line. This creates 2 completely unique tracks that do not phase.

If I were you, I would create 3 tracks of the sample, then eq them and carve out there spots in the song, then adjust the levels so they sit right within the mix. When I mix, I really only use eq on everything. I compress bass lines if they are a little spread out, and vocals if the performer moves around a bit. Other than that, eq alone will get you there about 90%. I mixed our whole album. I have been reading and experimenting for about 5 years before I felt confident enough to mix an album. I have to agree with dab, it takes time to learn to mix. Once you understand what you are trying to accomplish, and how to accomplish it, it gets easier.

Read up on mixing, record, mix, read some more, record some more, and keep it moving. It will click one day.

Peace