How I Got into the Audio World
It has been such a sick ride! The learning curve of this is almost endless and the pursuit of great sound is so much fun. I think if you were to ask me why do I like mixing so much, I would just say that I enjoy impressing people with high quality audio. I’m just captivated by the thought that you can create a sound that's comparable with multi-million dollar studios out there with just a laptop and minimal gears. And this wasn’t made possible until about last one or two decades ago!
So this is how it started, our church band wrote songs and wanted to come out with our very own album. At the time, when all that was happening, I was in charged of managing the musicians. Who plays what, who’s turn is it to record this week, making sure that the musicians were all playing their parts right. Not a very fun job if you ask me. So, in the process, there were some struggles where our musicians wasn’t prepared enough and all. And because of that, our youth leader at the time, Calvin Lee, decided that we should record ourselves before entering the studio so we would be more prepared. So we did, with a headphone mic, into Garage Band. Too cool!
[Picture from our album launching day]
I was blown away by the process of stacking those tracks together and getting those instruments to sound good and work in the track despite just recording with a headphone mic. Cut the long story short, that’s how it started before I spent so many hours reading up stuff, watching tutorials from anywhere and everywhere, getting every musician friends I know to my room to record, recording our youth group’s first christmas ep and so on. Too much fun!
Although I loved all that and it was really fun making music. I still scratched my head thinking why doesn’t my music sound like the ones on radio. I mean they dont sound bad. They’re really pretty good if you ask me. But when the commercialised song plays right after my song, you just know the difference. So thoughts came to my mind thinking that maybe it’s because of their expensive mics, outboard gears, consoles, thousand dollars worth of acoustic treatment and so on. Then, I came across multitracks of these well/professionally recorded tracks online and dragged them in my DAW (digital audio workstation) thinking I finally have obtained the secret sauce! To my disappointment, they didn’t sound as good as I thought they might be.
[More picture from our album launching day]
Honestly, I felt that with my limited 2 channel audio interface (at the time), good mic placement, and a mediocre acoustic treated room, I could achieve comparable sounding recording tracks. Then it hit me, that it really isn’t about the gears you have. It also hit me, that it is possible to get super great sounding tracks with just limited gears because of the technologies we have nowadays. Yes, recording place a huge part. The mics, the production, the room, and all that I feel plays about 60% of the end product while the mixing plays the rest. But the radio ready or radio comparable sound that I was searching for, came from mixing.
Questions like, how did they get such a big drum sound? Those smooth vocals that sounds like butter, how? Why does their vocals sound so clear and “in your face”? Why does his reverbs sound so heavenly. How did they get their mix to blend so well and every instruments sitting where they should be? They’re just so well “glued” together. So much width in the mix. How did they manage the low end, having massive and tight bass without making the mix sounds mushy or lack clarity. So much questions!
[The first EP I produced, mixed, and mastered]
About 2 years from then, after a lot of online courses and having produced, mixed and mastered more and more songs, Im happy to say that I’m………………. still far from great. But it’s so much fun, and the chase of getting your “signature sound” is so cool. To see people’s jaw drop knowing that I got the music to sound how it is from just being in my bedroom with minimal equipment is still super satisfying. To know that I can help a lot of musicians who might have dreams to release their albums but can’t afford high end studio is super cool! Well I wouldn’t say I’m great yet, but sure am making a heck lots of progress!
[My humble set up]
So here's a picture of my current set up. Really not much is required. Just well trained ears and good taste. And also if you happen to need a mix engineer to work on your song. You can hit me up at [email protected] or if you want to check out some of my previous mixes you can visit www.breathofboldness.com. Keep it up everyone. Keep doing what you love.