Someone asked me how to mix horns combined with other instruments such as drums:
Hello, thank you so much for all the advice and tips you offer on this site…very helpful. 1 song, sounds like an old Chicago, horn driven pop tune: 2 trumpets, trombone and sax. It’s a horn driven tune. It all went into Pro tools well, plenty of bottom, horns sound great and blended them well. Let’s assume that I recorded, eq’d, and made minor cuts in each instrument. Horns are compressed. Sound great….when I turn the horns up to where you need them; the drums start to fade slightly but not badly. I can hear all the rhythm and drums still but they start to fade. How can I make them work together? Here’s where I have problems-compressing the drums. I don’t know how to do it on my own. And go by other people’s numbers. I’ve been working very hard on this one, if you did some material on mixing horns; there are tons of people on here who would listen. Horns can be tough, especially if it’s constant horns overlapping from one speaker to the next and thanks in advance.
Reply:
Thanks for your inquiry. First, your problem is most likely “masking”. This is where frequencies of different instruments overlapped each other. As a result, if one instrument increases in volume, it will dominate the other instruments in the mix resulting to fading and weakening sound of the other. In your case, you have your brass instruments and drums. If you increase the volume of these instruments; it affects other instruments such as drums. There is masking issue between these instruments. Solving the masking problem in the mix is quite simple. You need to understand the frequency ranges of those instruments are and then assign each instrument its own space in the frequency spectrum. For example below is the frequency spectrum of brass and saxophone:
brass instruments frequency
Credits: listenhear.co.uk
Meanwhile drums have the following desirable frequency range:
Kick: 50Hz to 100Hz
Snare = 800Hz to 2500Hz
Hi hats/Cymbals = 7000Hz to 15000Hz
You decide which instruments should occupy the different audio frequency range. The effective frequency range of audio mixing is from 35Hz (sub-bass) to 15,000Hz. No musical instruments should significantly occupy the same frequency range or else masking would occur. Supposing I have a brass instruments mix with drum kit that uses trombone in the bass, trumpet in (F-baritone) and finally saxophone for the soprano. Also I have some keyboards/organ on it. Below is my frequency assignment for these different instruments:
frequency assignments of different instruments in the mix
As you can see, I have assigned a specific frequency range for each instrument in the mix. For example, I would like the kick drum to occupy the very bottom frequency (< 100Hz) and then my Trombone bass line at 100Hz to 300Hz, so on and so forth. If you find it very hard to assign a frequency range of a specific instrument, you can confirm its dominant frequency range using an audio frequency spectrum analysis. Now you have clearly assigned which instrument would occupy that specific frequency what would you do next? The next thing is to EQ each of the instruments in the mix using a parametric equalizer. Low shelf and high shelving filters are also used. Using the frequency assignment chart above as the guide; below are the complete EQ settings for different instruments in the sample mix (the dB cut or boost are example only, in actual scenario you should be using your ears to judge if the setting is enough):
Kick drum:
Boost +3dB Q=1.4 at 75Hz (improve clarity of kick bass)
High Shelf filter of -9dB starting at 100Hz (reduce masking with trombone bass)
Trombone bass:
Low shelf filter of -9dB starting at 100Hz (reduce masking with kick drum)
Boost +3dB Q=1.4 at 200Hz (improve trombone bass clarity)
High shelf filter of -6dB starting 300Hz (reduce masking with the rest of instruments with frequency assignment above 300Hz)
Trumpet:
Low shelf filter of -9dB starting at 300Hz (reduce masking with kick drum and trombone bass)
Boost +3dB Q=1.4 at 450Hz (improve trumpet clarity)
High Shelf filter at -6dB starting at 600Hz (reduce masking with sax, snare, organ, etc.)
Saxophone:
Low shelf filter of -9dB starting at 600Hz (reduce masking with kick drum, trombone bass and trumpet)
Boost +3dB Q=1.4 at 800Hz (improve saxophone clarity in the mix)
High Shelf filter at -6dB starting at 1000Hz (reduce masking with snare, organ and hi hats.)
Snare:
Low shelf filter of -9dB starting at 1000Hz (reduce masking with instruments below this frequency cut-off)
Boost +3dB Q=1.4 at 1750Hz (make snare sound clear)
High Shelf filter at -6dB starting at 2500Hz (reduce masking with organ and hi hats.)
Organ:
Low shelf filter of -9dB starting at 2500Hz
Boost +3dB Q=1.4 at 4000Hz
High Shelf filter at -6dB starting at 7000Hz
Hi-hats/Cymbals
Low shelf filter of -9dB starting at 7000Hz
Boost +3dB Q=1.4 at 12 KHz
About compressing the drums, you can refer to the following tutorials for details:
Compressing snare
Compressing kick
If you have another wind or brass instruments, then you will apply the same concept in resolving the masking issues. Do not use track volume faders to solve masking issues. Instead tweak your EQ by trying to increase or cut the affected dB of those instruments. For example if -6dB cut is not enough, make it -9dB. Or if +3dB boost is not enough, try +6dB on that specific frequency range until maximum clarity is obtained. Use your ears.
Content last updated on June 15, 2012