Seven-Time Grammy Award Winner Roger Nichols focuses on mixing style, tips and tricks. Digital Audio Workstations have changed the face of recording and mixing forever, but the underlying principals of recording and mixing remain the same. By just listening to a finished product, you cannot tell where it was recorded or how it was mixed. It ultimately boils down to the song and the production. If modern tools can help you -- fine, but the new tools can also increase the magnitude of the disasters.

During the class Roger uses original multi-track sessions from Grammy winning projects. He discusses the need for compression, EQ and other effects, set the panning and relative levels of tracks and discuss level maximizing on the master fader. Mastering the final product will be covered. Can you do it yourself? SHOULD you do it yourself? What are the advantages of using a quality mastering facility over using the guy next door who has all of the same equipment?

• How do I start my mix? Which instruments do I start working on first? I end up going around in circles, chasing my tail, if I had a tail!
• How do I get the ultimate drum sound on my record? Can I make a lousy recording of drums sound good in the mix? Can I make good sounding drums sound bad in the mix?
• Should I always record the bass with a direct box, or should I mic the amp? How come I can never get the bass to sound the way I want in the mix?
• Does it help if I double-track all of the guitars? How about 12 tracks of guitars?
• I record lots of percussion on my records, but I can never hear what I want in the mix.
• I am stumped when it comes to panning. I usually just spread out all of the stereo tracks and put the solos in the center. Is this the right way to do it?
• I keep doubling and tripling the background vocals, but I just can't get that big vocal feel I like.
• I record the tracks myself and then the producer sends the session out to someone else to overdub drums, or guitars, or horns. How do I know if I can get everything put back into my Pro Tools session properly?
• Should I use compressors on the stereo bus to make my mix louder? Do I need to make my mixes so loud?
• How come I have to use so many external reverb units and reverb plug-ins, and the reverb still doesn't sound right?
• How do you make sure that the vocal parts that I fly around to other sections of the song line up correctly?
• Is it ok to use AutoTune on the entire vocal track? How should I go about tuning tracks that need it without things getting out of hand?
• What is the best microphone to use on lead vocal?
• What are the real differences between 16 bit, 24bit, and 32bit floating point?
• If I send my mix to a mastering facility, what format should I send to them? If I want my mix loud should I make it loud, or should I let the mastering house do it? How is he going to know how much louder I want my mix if I don't do it before I send it?

Intermediate audio recording knowledge and Pro Tools familiarity. These prerequisites may be met by taking ProMedia courses or from prior audio knowledge.

1 Day (8 hours)