Back in the 60s through to the 90s albums were made through big old mixing consoles. Multiple channels of audio were recorded to tape. Once you were done recording the project you’d mix it and then have to bounce your multiple tracks down to a 2-track tape.
A solid foundation of mixing was getting a balance of the mix. This involved listening through the song and bringing up the faders to start painting the sonic picture and get a balance so that even before you EQ’d, compressed or added reverb and delay there was a solid balanced mix.
This process is still incredibly valuable and is my starting point for most mixes I do.
Dynamics Are A Thing Of Beauty
One of the beautiful things about music is its dynamics. The louds and soft parts as well as accent and silence. It makes the music breathe and is important in creating compelling, musical sounding mixes.
When I say dynamics, I’m not necessarily meaning dynamic range as much as I mean creating the impression and emotional effect of dynamics. There are genres where it just isn’t right to have a huge dynamic range but that’s where automation of mixes comes in to help give impactful moments throughout the song.
Going back to those olden days where things were slowly being changed from black and white to colour. When you’d mixdown a song you would ride the faders. This meant physically playing back the song and making volume changes as the song was bouncing down to the two track.
It was sort of like a conductor of an orchestra. The mix engineer would be fading, bumping up specific vocal lines, pumping sections in time with the song, panning left and right and many other “moves” to enhance the movement in the song. Sometimes this process was so involved that you needed more than one person and you had to learn the song well enough to know when you had to “conduct your section”.
The point is that mixes aren’t static. Great mixes breath. One of the ways you make them breathe with automation.
When Should I Automate?
I’m not referring to which elements or when in the song but when in the process of mixing we should automate. This is particularly relevant when you’re getting a mix balance. You need to do this first before you start making volume changes. I keep notes in Logic Pro for automation ideas as I’m balancing the mix if I have them.
I like to get my mix peaking around -6dBfs and the RMS should be sitting around -20dBfs. This gives me a strong sounding mix but with dynamics and gives ample headroom for when I or someone else is mastering the song.
Once I have a balanced mix and these rough levels I know I can safely start to make volume automations. You can make panning and other non-volume automations before this of course. This is just a process I like to follow.
What Then Should We Automate?
Parts That Get Lost:
This is one of the most obvious of automations. Say there are a couple of words from a vocal that are getting lost in a section of the song, you can obviously turn those words up with automation. Simple.
An alternative could be to clip gain that section especially if you want your compression to act upon the audio. You could also add a gain plugin and automate it at the start of the vocal or instrument chain to do the same thing. In Logic Pro I use both depending on how much control I need and what I’m trying to achieve. (See my post about how to de-ess vocals transparently using automation)
Explore The Stereo Field
Another simple automation which I’m fond of is panning. In Logic Pro I have two ways I like to achieve this.
One is an automated panning by using the native tremolo effect in Logic Pro. I have some presets that range from some subtle left and right movement over a few bars or some more extreme movement if the part calls for it. Then I tweak it to taste. Great for secondary melodies or to add some movement to parts in the higher registers. Left and right movement in the bass isn’t recommended.
Sometimes I need a little more control or I want to create a specific effect so I will draw in my movements in the automation layer. I like using this method to pan long reverb and delay tails to create a fun little surprise if you’re listening on earbuds or headphones. Sometimes I want a part to wander around the listener as a verse progresses in a more organic way. Also a nice way to add extra flair to a solo of some kind if used judiciously.
Logic Pro Tip: If you’re working with a stereo source in Logic Pro, right click on the pan and change it to stereo pan. You’ll get a far more impressive sound whether you’re panning or automating the pan. Seeing I learnt this great little tip from Chris over at “Why Logic Pro Rules” he can explain more of the details to you in this blog post How To Achieve True Stereo Panning In Logic Pro X
Making Effects Dynamic
Delay throws are maybe cliche but they are expressive. They get used a lot to add some ear candy to an arrangement to help catch the ear or build the complexity of an arrangement. Again you could mult out a word from the track and add a throw and sometimes you need to do this because you want to change the tone or treatment of the word before adding a throw.
In Logic Pro I like to flip the display to “sends on faders” and gently ride the delay send whilst recording the automation. This little bit of movement and musical approach can achieve a subtle but interesting effect on a vocal or melodic part.
You can also apply the technique to reverb too or even both.
Manipulating The Energy Of The Song
This is one of my favourite automations and the one that inspired me to write this post. Making subtle automations on the volume and even EQ at points within the song can greatly enhance the impact of the next section
For example I was working on a mix recently and the build up to the chorus section was getting cluttered and taking away from the impact of the chorus hitting. I looked around for synth parts that could be subtly lowered coming into the chorus so that I had 3 – 4 parts that were turned down over the 1 bar built up before the chorus. It was subtle, maybe 2db on each part, but it cleaned up the build up being provided by other instruments as well as gave more impact to the chorus.
The above technique is also great on guitars if you want the chorus or bridge to hit and have impact. If there are guitars before the section I’ll bring them down coming up to the change, maybe even quickly a beat before the new section. I’ll then rid up the first chord/note of the new guitar part to help it jump out just a smidge and then fall back to the level I set when I was getting a balance.
Subtle moves but big impact on the perceived energy of the song.
The Takeaway:
Automation is one of those 5% incremental improvements that make your mixes sound that much better. There are other ways to create this sort of dynamic movement with multing out parts and affecting them individually, but for me, automation offers far more control and nuance.
If you’re not automating your mixes, explore this aspect once you’ve got a great sounding static mix set up. If you are using automation, how can you push automating your mixes even further both correctively and creatively?
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