An Approach to Stem/Bus Mixing Electric Guitars Acoustics Pianos Synth ETC


Some time has passed since the last post, nothing much in the studio has changed, except I may have not posted we added an Oud guitar to the stringed instruments, special thanks to Gary for helping with the tuning pegs which until he showed me how to keep them tight, meant the 11 strings were drifting quicker than I could practice a tune on it.


Here is a simple idea I practice when mixing larger sessions down to stems , this actually applies to playing the mix back through busses too. The sections of the music are divided into I) rhythm, ii) accompaniment and iii) vocals (or lead instrument) when mixing the accompaniment a key feature to the accompaniment working along with the rhythm is the bass guitar or bass synth. Due to this 4 string instrument needing to be clearly heard and the 6 string guitars and the pianos or synths are able to invade the bass guitars sound territory easily my approach is to make way for the bass by cutting the balance of the accompaniment in the bass area. This may not mean using EQ it may mean mixing the individual instruments that have those frequencies lower than the instruments with the higher frequencies.
This approach is further magnified by mixing the accompaniment stem or bus without the bass playing back, I will have listened to the track a few times before so I roughly remember its path but not having it in on the stem recording means to me I know more precisely where the lower end of the accompanying instruments finish and then when its all put back together again the bass can be adjusted to taste then.

Hope this helps you along your mixing journey.


Matt