How to Successfully Mix in RiffWorks

RiffWorks is one of the easiest programs to get started recording with, lots of fun, etc. A lot of people get good results all on their own but find they can't get over the hump to a great mix. This overview will give you a few basic tips on how to make your RiffWorks songs better. I find RiffWorks to be the best friend a songwriter could have! Crank out a few Riffs, mash them together in order, slap a vocal and lead across the Songlayer and viola! A song is born!

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Sonoma Wire Works RiffWorks Software

1. Good Monitors
   “Come on Gator, I have some nice PC speakers and I already spent a couple hundred for the GuitarPort and RiffWorks. Can’t I just use headphones?” Well, yes, sort of. Headphones are great for tracking (recording), but when it comes to mixing they are not your best friend. It’s very difficult to judge levels and stereo field when the sound is “inside your head” instead of pushing air around a room.
   
   “But doesn’t everyone listen on iPODs these days? So shouldn’t I mix in headphones?” Almost anything you do in headphones will sound okay. A good “translatable” mix will sound good everywhere, and I’m guessing you don’t want to exclude cars, bars, PC’s, radio etc. when you distribute your music!
   
   What makes a good monitor? A reasonably flat frequency response, so that you can hear what’s really going on in the mix. All dedicated monitors are pretty flat (+/- 2db or less), but have slight differences so its good to audition several at the music store to see which ones you are most comfortable with.
2. Good Acoustic Treatment
   We're striving for a pretty flat frequency response, but the monitor is only one component of that. Your room gets into the mix (no pun intended!) too, and sometimes dramatically. In an untreated small home studio, the room can vary the sound as much as +/- 20db at different frequencies! Record a layer in RiffWorks, and vary it by 20db and you’ll get the idea.
   
   “Can’t I just eq my monitors or something like that?” Well that would be great, except it’s up and down at so many frequencies it would be impossible to equalize the room out. Also, it depends on where in the room you are, what the peaks and dips will be. Listen to a song while in front of your speakers, then go stand in the corner...notice the bass is louder? Cup your hands behind your ears at your listening spot...does the sound change, get clearer? Two impacts of all that sound bouncing around the room.
   
   There’s lots of references to acoustic treatment solutions (both cheap and expensive), but the gist is you need to dampen the sound at reflection points in your room to reduce this problem to a manageable level. A lot of the problems folks have with getting a good mix stem from the room itself getting in the way.
   
   “Yeah yeah yeah, enough of all that mumbo jumbo, I thought this article was about getting better mixes in RiffWorks?” Sure, sure. I just wanted to make sure we don’t forget the obvious point, that if you can’t hear what you are mixing, a good mix is more like a blind squirrel finding an acorn...it happens, but not easily!
3. Good Tracking
   We can massage all sorts of things in RiffWorks, but at the end of the day there is no way to really turn bad tracking into good tracking. What is tracking? That’s where things get into RiffWorks. Where you play every note as good as it can be. So if you mess it up, record it again. It’s also where you dial in your tone (be it guitar, bass, vocals, keys, etc.). Honestly, this is where you as the musician should spend the most focus. Good playing/singing and good tone are essential to carry through the mix and mastering to a great result.
4. The “Gator Methodology” to Mixing in RiffWorks
   
   I don’t advocate everyone follow how I record and mix in RiffWorks, but maybe there’s something in here that helps you get better results, and I’m all for that!
   
   Songwriting — I find RiffWorks to be the best friend a songwriter could have! Crank out a few riffs, mash them together in order, slap a vocal and lead across the songlayer and viola! A song is born! Now that the song is born, it’s time to start recording it.
   
   Tracking — “Start recording it? You nut, I just did that.” Let’s be clear, Buckeyes are nuts and I’m a Gator. Now where were we…oh yes, it’s time to record the song. In the first step we were focused on writing the song, not recording the parts the best they can be. So go back and work hard on each riff, each layer and make sure there’s not a note out of place...the tone is just right...which usually means re-recording each one. If there’s a “moment of inspiration” in there, by all means keep it, but odds are you can make it better.
   
   One very very important note on tracking: RECORD AS DRY AS YOU CAN!
   Please leave the effects for mixing if you can. I know it’s harder to feel inspired without all that chorus or delay or lush reverb on your guitar or vocal, but once you record with it on, it’s on and there’s no going back. When we get into the mix all the effects become “context-sensitive” meaning they have to interact properly with everything else in the mix (drums, bass, vocals etc.) and they need to co-exist nicely to create a good mix.
   Get that great clean or distorted tone you want with all the effects, then take it all off (except the distortion) when you record. Add it back in at the mix (not yet!). You’ll be able to hear what you are really doing under all that mess, and you’ll have full control over the mix when it comes time.
5. 148 not-exactly-easy steps to a great mix
   
   
   Mixing — Finally! You didn’t just skip to this part, did you? Good. It’s important to wear one hat at a time. There’s an awful lot to keep track of in each step, let alone be thinking about what comes next. Unfortunately mixing is not one of RiffWorks strong suits, because of the riff structure. Imagine your song bar has 8 riffs in it. Each layer in each riff is recorded separately, which might leave about 50 places to not get the mix levels or panning quite right, or the effects right. On that old 4 track, there were 4! So we have a challenge.
   
   First, it’s a great idea to record your parts across all the riffs at the same time. For example, record your rhythm guitars one riff after another. This will keep them consistent sounding throughout the song. Things like string wear, or forgetting exactly what pickup, volume or tone settings will affect the end sound! Same with bass, leads, etc.
6. USE THE SAME INSTANT DRUMMER SESSION THROUGHOUT THE SONG!
   Each ID session is recorded in a specific studio, with a specific drummer, and a specific kit. Each ID session has different studios, mic’s, drummers, kits etc. and they all sound very very different from each other! If you can’t find that “fill” you think makes the song, live without it or try another drummer. Changing the backbone of the song within the song is, well, not a good idea and terribly hard to make sound consistent.
7. Okay now that we have that straight, let’s set some levels. Pick a riff that’s in the front of the song. With the drums at 0db, turn all the layers down so you can’t hear them. Start with the bass, bring that up in the center to where it sounds good along with the drums. Now bring up the rhythm to where it fits okay. Have more rhythms or a bouncy lead? Bring those up as well to where they sound okay.
   
   Make sure you don't lose the drums when you do this, if you do back off and start again. The trick at this stage is to get things reasonably close. What we have now is basically a mono mix.
8. Let's do some panning. In a stereo mix we want to find a place for everything and not let instruments pile up on each other. We want each instrument to be distinct, even if some parts are to be less loud (i.e. the rhythm track). Close your eyes and picture the "band" in front of you on the stage, and put each person in a little bit different spot. Some good places to start:
   -Bass right up the center
   -Rhythm panned off to the left around 9 o'clock
   -2nd Rhythm or complimenting lead to the right around 3 o'clock
   -Main lead near the center, maybe a little off to the right
   -Vocals right up the center
9. Walk away and let your brain reset for a bit. Come back to it, and focus on each instrument. Can you hear all the drums distinctly? How about the bass and rhythm tracks? These are the backbone of the song, so you want them to be clear and cohesive with each other. Then make sure the leads are distinct but not overwhelming the rest of the mix. When you have that riff sounding pretty good, move to the next riff in sequence and mirror the levels and panning. Play the two together and listen for any little differences that may be there, though if you recorded straight through they should end up sounding like one happy continuous song. Continue through the riffs of the song matching the levels, until the song plays all the way through consistently.
10. A good song should build through out both in emotion and level, so we probably want to look at the arrangement and bump the levels (drums and instruments) a notch when we get to the first chorus, and maybe 2 notches at the climax of the song. Odds are your song has layers added as it goes, so the guitars may take care of themselves while just the bass and drums need to be bumped up to match. If you find the extra layers start drowning the drums out, you need to reduce them and remix.
11. Effects
    It takes a lot of work to get to this point...sure you don't want to just send it to Gator-Studios.com? lol Okay let's keep going then. We now have a dry mix which sounds okay, so it's time to start homing in further on the mix. Assuming the tracking was done well there shouldn't be too much we need to do with the effects. Primarily we'll want to look at the Compressor and the Reverb, and use eq if need be to help things fit in the mix better. "What about all that delay, flanging etc. you made me take off?" Put those on at the end to create that epic sound.
    
    The Compressor's job is to squeeze the levels it is presented, so that the layer's amplitude varies less. Distorted guitar by nature is compressed, but you may want to bring a little more sustain into a layer or smooth out some inconsistent playing with it (tame peaks, bring up some weak notes etc.). Sonoma has a good guide on what all the knobs do so I won't repeat that.
    
    Reverb simulates the sound bouncing off walls. Why would we want to do that? Because your brain is used to hearing sound bouncing around walls and interpreting it as distance. So we need some reverb to show our brains how far things are away from us, how big the "room" we're listening is, etc. Even if we want that "in your face" sound, a little reverb is in order on most everything, more on things that should be back a little further (like rhythm guitar) and less on things up closer (like leads). Reverb helps with the "front and back" and "size of the room" like panning helps with the "left and right" part of our mix...completing the 3D picture of the band in your brain.
    
    EQ should be used to help things fit in the mix. For instance, that deep crunchy guitar tone you recorded might fight with the bass and create some strange phasing. The bass may fight with the kick drum. Look at "rolling off" the bottom (first knob on the eq) at 160 or even 300 hz on the guitar track if things start sounding muddy. You might want to roll the bass off at 80 hz if the kick loses it's distinction. If things sound fine, try these anyway to see if they sound better or not, you might be surprised. Once things are sitting well, then go ahead and put whatever delays, funky filtering, etc. you want for distinction.
12. The Rough Mix
    Now that you have the first riff sounding reasonably tight, replicate the effects across each riff. Two easy ways are either with the "Store" and "Load" buttons or by saving presets. To use Store and Load, hit "Store" on the layer you want to copy the effects settings from, go to the next riff and the appropriate layer, and hit "Load" which will paste those settings. Do this across the riffs, one instrument at a time. When all the effects have been applied, you should have a good rough mix done.
    
    Now it's time to put the mix away for a while. Things are pretty close but it's been a lot of work to this point and your brain will lose perspective. In fact it's a good idea to take frequent breaks from listening, and also to listen to a song you feel has a good mix in between. That will help your "processor" understand what a good mix should sound like!
13. The Final Mix
    Tweaking the final mix usually requires hard listening, trying to make sure things are tight relative to each other. Some things may be a hair low or too loud, you need to find those things. Or an instrument may need to be panned a little more out or in to fill out the soundfield. Pick 2 elements of the song (bass and guitar for example) and listen specifically to how they sound together. Do they compliment each other yet are distinct? Don't listen to the song, listen to the interactions going on, and make sure they contribute positively to the mix. If they don't, some combination of eq, panning or levels needs to be tweaked.
14. Summary
    The mix is as much an expression of art as writing the song is (mastering is as well, though I’m not even going to try and explain that!). There is a huge amount of decision-making that goes into mixing, and there can be several ways to mix a song that are all good, just different. The key to a great result is still getting fundamentals right. Good tracking makes mixing a lot easier, good mixing makes mastering a lot easier.
    
    Make sure the tracking is good, the mix is clean, the levels are tight, and everything has a distinct space to sit. Oh yes, and a lot of practice too! The best part, you can mix and re-mix over and over with RiffWorks on your PC and all it costs is time.