In this sheet we start the process of mixing. Before starting on this please make sure you have downloaded Reaper and the project files as explained in the setup guide
We are going to start by mixing a song that has already been loaded into Reaper.
If you haven’t already, then open Reaper and select “File - Open Project”.
Navigate to LWaudio/Projects/CrownHim and select the CrownHim project file.
Your window should now look like this:
You can press “Spacebar” to play and stop the recording. Try this now and check that you can hear the music.
The screen is divided into the track view and timeline in the top half and the mixer in the bottom half. In both halves you can see all the tracks listed and access some basic controls but the track view allows you to see the waveform of the recorded audio in the timeline and the mixer view allows you to see the effects you have applied and the volume meter.
Each track has a mute button and a solo button as shown below. These allow you to choose not to hear certain tracks or only to hear certain tracks. For example you could listen to the instruments without the singers by muting the vocal tracks or listen to the guitar and bass by themselves by soloing them.
The first step toward creating a good mix is to get the volume of each track right so that everything can be heard and the most important parts sound a little louder than the less important parts.
The way I like to approach this is to pull the volume fader down on all channels but the first. Start the music and bring up each track one at a time. Usually I close my eyes so that I listen carefully rather than looking at the volume meter. Think about the role of each instrument compared to the other parts you can hear with it.
It is often helpful to do this while listening to the loudest part of the song (in this case verse 4) and then go back and listen to the whole song to see if you are happy with it. If a particular track stands out as too loud turn it down a little and if you can’t hear something then either turn it up or think what else might be drowning it out and need to be turned down instead.
This is perhaps the most important step so take your time and listen to the song a few times to make sure you are happy with it if you need to. There is no “right answer” to this - you may like a particular instrument or voice and choose to let it stand out a little more than somebody else.
It can be helpful (particularly in projects with more tracks) to set up subgroups. In this case we shall create a vocal subgroup so that all the singers can be turned up or down together with one fader.
Use either “Track - New Track“ or “Ctrl - T” to create a new track. Double click where the name should be and name it something like “Vocal Group”
To send a track to the new subgroup, click on the route button in the mixer view just below the mute and solo buttons:
This will bring up the following window. To send the track through the subgroup first untick the “Master send” box in the top left, then use the “Add new send…” dropdown menu to select the group track you have just created.
Once all the tracks you want to include are sent to the subgroup, you can use it to mute, solo, change the volume or apply effects to everything in the group at once.
Once you are happy with the levels you have set, you can start to spread out the tracks from left to right with the pan control (the knob in the coloured area of the mixer view). If you are wearing headphones then moving a track to one side will have a very noticeable effect. With speakers it is a little bit more subtle.
Have a play with the panning and find some placements that you like. Usually if you move a track to one side it is helpful to move another to the other side to balance it. For example I have one of the singers left and another right in the picture below. You might like to try moving some of the instruments too. You can double click the pan control to return it to the centre. The drums were recorded in stereo (with left and right microphones) so some of the cymbals are already spread a little to either side.
