Steven Wilson SW Mixing Process Discussion

[Plan9]

Adjustments are always made from the stereo mix to the surround mix.
It's never just about putting stems in various individual channels.
Some things work in stereo but don't work in surround, you have to recreate some of them or think them differently.
Obviously the amount of things you have to rework varies depending on the album, with some being straightforward and others more complicated.

 

[MidiMagic]

120+ sends? Do you have a picture or a diagram of this? I am having trouble imagining it.

I am used to doing surround with a 4-bus mixer and, for each channel strip, a bus pair selector (choosing front or back), a panpot (choosing left-to-center-to-right), and a fader (level). The buses feed an RM encoder. That's all I need to make a surround recording.

To place a channel strip sound image in Atmos, discrete, do you have 11 after-fader aux sends (for infinite preset discrete)?

Or is there an up-down pan, a left-right pan for up, a left-right pan for down, a front-back pan for up, a front-middle-back pan for down, and a fader for each channel strip????

Or is each of those 120+ sends programmed for a specific image position for the sound?

 

[sjcorne]

120+ sends? Do you have a picture or a diagram of this? I am having trouble imagining it.

There are no physical pan-pots, it's all done in software. You simply drag points within a cube, as pictured below:

 

[jimfisheye]

You could use a joystick with a height slider/lever if you wanted to perform some of your pans. Kind of simple as that. Two hands. As mentioned, many of us just grab the mouse and software features and never look back. Using an iPad for a remote control is a thing.

I'm still mixing in 5.1. I just grab the mouse. Ipad every once in a while. I'll do stuff like insert an automation item (saved bit of automation envelope) and stretch it into place to lay down a pan move.

I love watching old Pink Floyd videos and seeing Rick working his big joystick at his keyboards though! I'll still have the thought that I should get myself one sometimes. Maybe someone can recommend a good joystick?

 

[~dave~~wave~]

I love watching old Pink Floyd videos and seeing Rick working his big joystick at his keyboards though!
I'll still have the thought that I should get myself one sometimes.
Maybe someone can recommend a good joystick?

Likely not applicable directly to your studio gear, but this Eurorack synthesizer module is more fun than a barrel of monkeys with a four-bus mixer using mono, stereo or quad sources.

Photo of my rack, note the QQ sticker & Rick Wright tribute label below.

https://intellijel.com/shop/eurorack/planar-2/

 

[jimfisheye]

Haha...
Yeah, I should have qualified that! Kind of need a MIDI control code sending kind of device. With built in USB connecting MIDI interface for convenience. Circa 21st century. Blasphemy around here, right?

Every time I look everything goes from zero to 100. Either a toy or some full blown Protools aimed control surface for 5 figures. Must not be a popular demand. Probably because everyone grabs for an iPad now.

 

[zeerround]

Some of this does not make sense.

How do you pan up and down among channels when the main level has 7 channels and the upper level has 4 and they are not even at the same angles?

The mixing engineer would have to be an octopus and the board have how many panpots for each part.

Two joysticks and 3 sliders????

First there were/are consoles with motorized faders, where with each run through they would remember the positions, at each point in time, from previous runs. You could override/move them to update with each run through.

These days we have "mixing in the box", and modern "DAW" software has automation tracks, where any control on the channel strip or in a plugin can be automated. Automation can be recorded in real time, or edited when not playing/recording. There is also the ability to create virtual master faders, and assign any number of tracks to that master (and then automate that).

Those are just some of the modern options.

Oh, and you could of course control all this with "midi magic" as well ;0)

 

[jimfisheye]

Automated mute buttons was the first automation, I think. You'd have the source inputs split to multiple sets of channels on the big board. Dial up different parts of the song between different sets of the duplicated channels. Automate the mute buttons to only have the correct channels unmuted in the right parts.

 

[jimfisheye]

Going back further. A dime (US coin) is small and thin. Tape it down under a raised fader for a 'stop' for that position. Now you can push the fader up in a couple spots and return it to the exact same spot.

 

[Stephen W Tayler]

For many years now I always start my mix sessions using my surround template. How I proceed may depend on whether I am mixing a new project or a new mix of a classic album.

I am always starting from pure audio tracks, just like getting a traditional project on multitrack tape - I don't like to just get a session that has been started by somebody else using lots of live processing of plugins and effects.

My surround session has a permanent downmix to stereo so that the stereo and surround mixes can work in tandem as far as editing, processing etc.

On a remix of a classic album I will always start listening in stereo (usually on headphones) anyway to compare to the original, before I start to break away. How I proceed is all about working simultaneously in both formats. One inspires the other anyway.

On some new projects they might actually start in surround format first - my solo project Da Capo started life as a surround experience from the moment it was conceived.

Both the stereo and surround audio versions use a different set of processing on the mix buss in terms of equalisation, tube or tape emulation, compression and limiting. Once I reach the final stage some small differences might be applied to either the stereo and surround versions in terms of final balancing.

Oh and I work 'in the box' in ProTools - it means I can have multiple projects on the go at the same time!! Important in this day and age......

The implication has been that there is only one way to do this - but we all have our own ways!!

Anyway - just a few thoughts from my point of view!! SWTx