New User: Which Order Do I Use Plugins In?

[BrianCarchase]

Hi, I am wanting to learn about mixing and mastering after previously just making music using samples and not giving any thought to levels or EQ-ing or compression etc. After looking at loads of tutorials and reviews of plugins and the processes involved in mixing, I am both more informed and utterly confused.

I saw some of the Hornet Plugins could really help automate some of this process (particularly gain-staging which is something I didn't know even needed to be done in the first place) and so decided to buy a couple, well with the sale they have on at the moment, a couple turned into a whole boatload full:
ChannelStrip MK3
Tape
AnalogStage
Multicomp Plus MK2
Total EQ
Magnus MK2
VU Meter MK4
SongKey MK4
CLMS
TrackShaper
TheNormalizer
LU Meter MK2
ThirtyOne MK2
TrackUtility MK2
MasterTool
Hatefish RhyGenerator

I don't know if some of the plugins have become redundant if they have had their features incorporated into a newer plugin but I just got pretty much everything that sounded like it would give me a more or less complete package for mixing and basic mastering (although I am not sure if MultiFreqs or AutoGain Pro MK2 would also be useful or what to do with them).

Anyway, I will be using the plugins in Acoustica Mixcraft 9 Pro Studio and to learn how to use them I have set up a basic project file containing 7 tracks of loops included in the Mixcraft library; drums (one drum loop rather than separate tracks of kick, snare, hi hat etc), bass guitar, 12 string acoustic guitar, 6 string acoustic guitar, clean electric guitar melody, steel drums and a final track containing a loop of a dirty electric guitar. They are all in the key of G Maj and at a tempo of 124 bpm and last for 8 bars. It's just something short but with a little complexity to learn how to mix.

Hopefully once I get the basics down with this project, I can apply what I have learned to my usual musical style of weird, ambient/glitchy, time-stretched, droney, soundscape, instrumental things if that's not pigeon-holing myself too much lol.

I know there are quite a few tracks there, particularly 4 guitar tracks and some steel drums but all these really complement each other well and hopefully if mixed well, will sound really good and make the overall sound quite full.

So what I would like to know please is where do I start? Presumably the first thing is gain staging but which plugin do I use for this and does it go on each track? Then I guess would be some sort of EQ and maybe compression, but again which plugins and where? Do I need to create sub-mixes with say one sub-mix for the acoustic guitars and another for the electrics? Do I put the EQ, compression and any effects like reverb on the main sub-mix or each track individually?

Also, after adding EQ and compression etc, do I need to adjust each one's output to take into account any loss or gain in my initial gain-stage following the addition of an effect, is this something CLMS take's care of?

Finally once I am happy with the mix, how do I go about mastering? Do I need to mix each track and its effects down to a new audio track, export all these into a new mastering project and then start mastering or can I do it all from within the same project file as the mixing? Do I need to gain-stage the master and which of the plugins do I use to master (I was just going to stick MasterTool on and let it do its thing but is ThirtyOne or Magnus better?).

Sorry for all the questions and basic beginner advice I am after, I don't mind doing some research for learning things myself but it's a bit of a minefield out there and very confusing for a beginner as lots of people have different opinions. So I'm hoping someone here can advise me better or at least point me in the right direction.

Thanks for any help.

[hatefish]

Hi,

As you guess mixing is not an exact science, and there are plenty of resources (books, video tutorials, blogs) where you can find information and tutorial.

Gain staging is for sure a good starting point, it allows you to set the correct gain for all your tracks to stay around 0 dB.

During this phase, the VUMeter is a great (and inexpensive) tool that can help you.

So, right after you have imported your audio into your session in your DAW, be sure that all the fader’s tracks are at 0dB and then add the VUMeter to each of them, set the max peak to -12dB, the reference to -18dB and the target to 0VU.

Set the plugin to AUTO (you can also use the handy the “send to all”-function to switch the plugin to AUTO) and start the playback in your DAW.

The VUMeterMK4 will normalize the gain in order to have 0dB as the maximum level.

Once done, you can bounce each track with the new calculated gain, or you can leave the plugin in place and go ahead with the same project/session (the VUMeterMK4 will not recalculate the gain until you activate again the AUTO function)

Now you are ready to start the mix.

Also here you may find many different mixing methods, what I like to do (please let me point out that I am not a mixing engineer) is to pull all the faders down, loop the most important session of the song and start to increase the volume of the more important instrument and try to find a good volume keeping in mind that then you have to add other instruments.

In this -in my opinion- you have the chance to find equilibrium among the instruments without using any other plugin.

Once you have reached this point you can start adding eq (for instance the TotalEQ ) and compressors (for instance the Multicomp Plus MK2).

But anyway I would like to hear the opinion also from other members of this Hornet Plugin forum.

Maso

[BrianCarchase]

Thanks very much for your reply. I think I may have been better asking general mixing questions in another section of the forum but I don't want to use primarily Hornet plugins as they are very cheap and have great automation and seem relatively simple to use.

I have been doing pretty much what you described, putting VU Meter as the first plugin on every track to do my initial gain staging when all the audio is dry. I have also tried the Normalizer but I am not sure which setting to use for measuring; dBFS, VU -18, RMS, LUFS Mom, Int or Shrt. From testing each one, dBFS is slightly louder than VU -18 and the rest make the gain significantly louder, almost clipping sometimes.

In Mixcraft, unity gain at 0 dB is the equivalent of -14 from what I have read so I have been setting VU Meter to -14 for the reference and leaving max peak at -6 and target at 0.

I have then been adding plugins like EQ and Compression but between each plugin I have another instance of VU Meter as I know they can increase or decrease the gain and another VU Meter helps to keep it in check. I have no idea what to look for or how to use EQ's and Compression etc so I just usually use presets and try to use something as close to the sound I am working on (such as drums or bass etc) or if I want to change the sound quite a bit, then something that gives it a particular effect.

I then usually add reverb last and a final VU Meter. I haven't been touching the faders at all.

I would really like to learn how to use an EQ etc but I really don't know what I am looking out for to know which knobs to turn. Total EQ seemed like it might help with a more visual representation but again I have no idea what I am looking at or what to do about it. I watched the Hornet YouTube overview video on this and some of the other plugins and while they do a good job of explaining the functionality of the plugin, you still really need to know how to use an EQ in the first place to know how the plugin is helping you or what it does differently. This is the same for other plugins except the one-knob plugins such as TrackShaper.

I did try TrackShaper on a cymbal track I had and tried the auto-gain feature for input and output but it seemed to make the track really loud and clip, so I needed another instance of VU Meter to reign it in. It was strange because using TS on other tracks such as drum loops or synths, didn't really effect the levels to this extent.

I also tried Master Tool on the master track once I had done mixing and was really pleased with the results. It was very easy to use; just press the learn button, play the track and at the end see the results. It seemed to do a great job of levelling things and making the track a bit louder without being too loud or hitting the limiters limit.

I am also wondering about whether I should use one of the channel strip plugins or the track utility plugin as they seem to be an all-in-one auto-gain, EQ and compressor solution but again I don't really know what I'm doing with all those knobs.

I am just playing around with loops and samples for now while I am learning before I move on to making my own music with VST instruments or recording my own audio. I have pre-ordered the new Cre8audio East Beast and West Pest synths, so I am looking forward to recording audio from those into Mixcraft and knowing what the hell I am doing when it comes to mixing and shaping the sounds.

[HoRNet]

Hi honestly you need to understand what does mixing a song means and what an EQ or a compressor does. Also dBFS, VU, LUFS, RMS all measures levels of an audio signal but do it differently. There is no shortcut to knowledge so you better start off learning how these things works, using you DAW's internal tools will be perfectly fine for learning, then you can come back to more advanced plugins if you need.

Saverio

[BrianCarchase]

Hi, thanks for the reply Saverio. I have been watching some Mixcraft videos on their channel and some from third-party channels to get an idea of what to do. Some of the information is quite good but a lot of it lacks detail and is quite subjective. They may explain what an EQ does and how it can effect the level of different frequencies and this may help when for example a track sounds muddy but then they don't really go into any specifics about how you would learn what muddy is or what to look for and which frequencies to be aware of. It's all based on you having an understanding of what sound you want in the first place and then to tweak it to match that but for a beginner, you wouldn't really know what sound you want. I certainly assumed a lot of the samples and loops I used were perfectly fine and didn't need any mixing at all, if they have been professionally recorded/created in the first place, then why would they need any more alteration?

The tutorials are quite short and quick and designed to get a general overview and this is a trend I have noticed on a lot of tutorials for music and specifically mixing or the use of plugins etc. There is an assumption the viewer already knows a lot of this and just needs a guide on the features of a plugin or a general overview but in my experience if there is no detail provided or in-depth step-by-step guidance, then you are still left just as confused.

I realise I am asking a lot from these tutorials and perhaps I would be better served with some kind of course or book that goes through things very specifically and perhaps has a project you can follow along with.

Another issue I have ran into is that Mixcraft itself is not one of the most popular DAWs and so a lot of tutorials etc just don't serve this particular DAW. Everything is catered primarily to Ableton, Logic, Pro Tools, Studio One, Reaper or FL Studio. That's not to say that a lot of the things being taught can't be applied to Mixcraft or any DAW but the other DAWs mentioned may contain features that Mixcraft doesn't have.

Anyway, I think I have taken up too much space and drifted away from the Hornet-specific nature of this forum. What I need is an understanding of how everything like EQ and Compressors work in the first place and why/when I would use them. Then as you say Saverio, once I know what I am doing in the first place, then I come back to the plugins and see how they work and apply the knowledge I would have of using an EQ etc to the new plugin and see how that works differently or how it improves things.

Thanks again for the replies and I apologise for going way off topic and perhaps asking too broad of a question which isn't really related to the Hornet plugins themselves.

[HoRNet]

No worries We've all been there (we have been beginner in the first place) I can suggest you to not look to audio software (or hardware) manufacturer videos on mixing because they tend only to show their product in context.

Try to find an online course on mixing or read a lot (that's what I did in the first place and for example I can tell you that the "mud area" is between 200 and 600 Hz usually, that part of the spectrum that can get easily congested because many instruments have there "body" in that area.

Saverio

[ralfrobert]

General recommendation: Mixing with Mike, also has a free course on YouTube. This helped me a lot at the beginning to get an overview.