# Mixing

From a purely engineering perspective, mixing will make 2000x times as much different than anything else. All the nuances of a mega expensive microphone on vocals are probably lost when you run vocals through a guitar distortion pedal, don't you think? What about when you put a very short delay up pretty loud in the mix? Will the expensiveness still be there? Probably not. On that same notion, the vocals that we hear on our favorite records were mixed by a badass. Those vocals could have been recorded with an SM 57 or something even cheaper but processed in a while that made them sound great. When combined with a great song, we (as engineers) strive to achieve that same sound by buying $3,000 mics but the magic probably came entirely from a great song, with great musicians, in a great room, being mixed by a great mixing engineer.

The amount of impact a mixing engineer can make is outstanding. Even if we keep the vocals dry (which is when you usually hear the expensiveness the most) a mixer can always turn the vocal down 20dB (which means you won't even know it's there in a dense mix. So level alone can make an enormous difference in the tone of your vocals.

#Mastering

I remember when I was at the Michael Wagener Workshop. I thought the vocals sounded a little dull the entire time. Then when we were finishing up our mixes, Wagener whipped out his Manley EQ and added quite a bit of top end to the entire mix. It turns out that he was keeping everything equally dull until the very end where with one EQ he sort of balanced it out for the entire mix. I made a drastic impact on the mix. What I remember most though, was how much the vocal sound changed when Wagener added some 2Bus stuff (that most of us leave to the mastering engineer).

Try it yourself. Take the stereo mixdown from one of your mixes and mess with the EQ. The vocals will change dramatically.

Microphones Simply Pickup Sound

In the end, microphones are simply devices that convert sound waves into electricity. There are so many factors involved that stating that an expensive microphone will sound better than a cheap microphone is totally ridiculous. Without a doubt, a $5,000 microphone will sound different than your $500 mic, but “better” is a crazy word to use. No engineer I've ever met or talked with ever said a certain mic was always better any of the time.

Big Records Sometimes Use Cheap Microphones

I remember seeing some DVD of Stone Template Pilots and the singer was going to town with his face in a Les Paul. He was singing into the pickups. For this sound, no studio mic would do it. It turned out that this sound was only possible with an electric guitar.

My buddy's band is going through the major label production right now and being shopped to numerous labels. While the record was mixed in Nashville in a mega room that has done numerous platinum records, the microphones used on vocals were mega mega cheap cheap. Oddly enough, there were $200 vocal mics used quite a bit, but all vocals were ran through a $4,000 LA-2A compressor. Interesting!

Conclusion

The sooner you realize that you are not an engineer competing with engineers, the sooner you will win the game. Engineering is a crock anyway. The sound of major label records is mega different from record to record and band to band. The key is to find the right sound for that band. The right sound has nothing to do with money, in most cases even though some sounds are simply expensive. Focus on making every link your chain as strong as possible. I'd make microphones and preamps the last on my list. Whether they admit it or not, the big boys put mics and preamps last on their list too. Big boys don't record shitty bands. Big boys very very seldom work in less than amazing rooms. Big boys usually pay someone else significantly less to engineer anyway so they can focus on #1....the song.