# Alan Meyerson Mixing Tips



## composerboy (Jan 3, 2017)

I've compiled some very useful quotes from the master himself. Hope you find them useful.....

*Balance and Imaging First*

_“My approach is to mix and get the balance as fast as I can and then polish the mix with EQ, compression reverbs etc. I rely on getting the placement of the instruments right.”_

_“For me, its is always about the imaging. If the imaging isn’t right, it isn’t really possible to clear things up with EQ or Compression because you are trying to clear a crowd rather than spreading it.”_

_“I want to get my balance as fast as possible. This allows me to think about what I can do to extend the mix rather than trying to fix the mix for the main part. I am a firm believer that the spectral and positional balance must be right. The first thing I look to is to move instruments out of the way with the position.”_

_“I build my session with stems through Auxes and VCAs. The Auxes are the ones that have the EQ or the compression or harmonic exciter on it. Not the individual tracks.”_

*Stereo Imaging *

_“One of my favorite tricks is to make use of the __Haas Effect__. So, if I have an instrument that is stereo in track but a bit mono in sound, I delay one channel of that track by usually between 150 (3.4 ms) and 250 (6.2 ms) samples. I use the time delay plugin in Pro Tools for this. What this gives me is an apparent shift in the position of the sound in the stereo field without doing a pan”._

*Reverb*

_“I also don’t like to EQ reverb returns. But I do roll off the low and high frequencies to the send of the reverb. This is important so that the reverb doesn’t become cluttered. There usually is a lot of low mid and low-frequency buildup that happens in a reverb. I don’t want to add to that with sounds that have it in the first place.”_

_“I also use multiple reverbs per stem and have the stem reverbs independent. So, my strings would have a set of reverbs, brass another set, percussion another etc. This gives me a lot of space to play with and build the movement. I don’t like having a static mix. Music has to move and the instruments have to play in the space and interact. So multiple reverbs help me with this.”_

_“I almost never send reverbs from the spot mics unless it is really needed”_

_“Now, when I send to the reverb aux, I send it from my room mics. I get a lot of body from them and use that to extend the room rather than trying it with the spot mics, because they don’t usually glue well in the mix that easily as they have more mid range content.”_

_“I sometimes add a devil loc or a __decapitator__ in the return of the front or surround reverb just to give it a bit of grit and definition”_

_“I don’t use the pre-delays on the rooms and never use it to place the instrument in space. I use them only to get a definition for the reverbs. And for a long time, the New York pop world pre-delay value was 120 ms. That is what I use for most of the pre-delays to get that delay a bit separated from the main sound if I want it as an effect in a dense mix.”_

*Processing*

_“I also have a 20 percent rule. When you are EQ’ing or processing something, do it to a setting you like and then back it off by 20 percent.”_

*Sample Instruments*

_“Sampled sounds almost always have a bump at 250 Hz and 2.5kHz, that I take off.”_

*Mastering*

_“Once I have my stems and levels set and my sounds were done, I proceed to do a final mastering on my stems. I use the __Kramer Tape__ from Waves and __Manley EQ__ from UAD to achieve this. I also use a tiny bit of limiting with the __Fabfilter Pro-L__ to take care of the peaks.”_


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## synergy543 (Jan 3, 2017)

I wonder why he would say samples almost always have a bump at 250Hz and 2.5kHz? Tape decks have head bump frequencies but samples are digital, and not all are recorded through tape decks.

A larger issue IMO is the low frequency buildup you can get with samples and how this can be multiplied with reverb. He does say he EQs the reverb sends. Though cutting the rumble on sample source can often be a big issue too.


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## desert (Jan 3, 2017)

composerboy said:


> _“I don’t use the pre-delays on the rooms and never use it to place the instrument in space. I use them only to get a definition for the reverbs. And for a long time, the New York pop world pre-delay value was 120 ms. That is what I use for most of the pre-delays to get that delay a bit separated from the main sound if I want it as an effect in a dense mix.”_



So he only uses pre-delays on spot mics not room mics? It isn't quite clear


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## afterlight82 (Jan 4, 2017)

synergy543 said:


> I wonder why he would say samples almost always have a bump at 250Hz and 2.5kHz? Tape decks have head bump frequencies but samples are digital, and not all are recorded through tape decks.



Could be something to do with Air. Every stage has it's particular "hotspots", even the very best...



synergy543 said:


> A larger issue IMO is the low frequency buildup you can get with samples and how this can be multiplied with reverb. He does say he EQs the reverb sends. Though cutting the rumble on sample source can often be a big issue too.



Depends on the sample and the context of course, but one has to make sure that the cut does more good than the damage done to transients etc...


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## composerboy (Jan 4, 2017)

synergy543 said:


> I wonder why he would say samples almost always have a bump at 250Hz and 2.5kHz? Tape decks have head bump frequencies but samples are digital, and not all are recorded through tape decks.
> 
> A larger issue IMO is the low frequency buildup you can get with samples and how this can be multiplied with reverb. He does say he EQs the reverb sends. Though cutting the rumble on sample source can often be a big issue too.


I'm not sure why he says this but in my experience I generally scoop at little out around 250-300 Hz if I need the orchestra to have a bit more edge. I'm going to try the same at 2.5kHz. What kind of EQ'ing do you do on orchestra samples?


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## composerboy (Jan 4, 2017)

desert said:


> So he only uses pre-delays on spot mics not room mics? It isn't quite clear


It's unclear from the article where I pulled the quotes from. I do recall him saying he manually lines up the attacks on the room mic's to match the spot mic's on Percussion for impact and to get rid of the "double slap" effect.


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## gsilbers (Jan 4, 2017)

on his dave pensado interview he mentioned some of these plus others.


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## synergy543 (Jan 4, 2017)

composerboy said:


> What kind of EQ'ing do you do on orchestra samples?


For me, there is no "secret setting" that fits all situations. The idea of this seems absolutely absurd to me. 

EQ is a tool, like a shovel. You dig or build a mound where needed. Use your ears to decide.


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## Fab (Jan 4, 2017)

Cool info, thanks!

Question...do you (and anyone else who wants to input) usually take notes from stuff you've found useful or is it more of a one off? I used to take notes a lot more...but now I think maybe it's better to apply the most useful stuff while it's fresh.


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## composerboy (Jan 5, 2017)

Fab said:


> Cool info, thanks!
> 
> Question...do you (and anyone else who wants to input) usually take notes from stuff you've found useful or is it more of a one off? I used to take notes a lot more...but now I think maybe it's better to apply the most useful stuff while it's fresh.


I've just started taking notes and practicing those techniques in order to both develop my ears in "understanding" them and so they become part of my intuitive repertoire of techniques. I do notice that mixing is similar to composing neurologically, that there are a finite number of patterns that the brain automatically goes to. I'm practicing new techniques to expand that repertoire of patterns.


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## Fab (Jan 5, 2017)

Huh, that's quite an interesting way of looking at it. Cool!


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