Hi I am Chris Farrell from Western Australia. The following lesson is for week 3 of Introduction To Music Production at Coursera.
Today's lesson is about the concept of submixes and how they can be used to organise a mix and to make mixing easier. Some mixes will have a large number of tracks, and using submixes allows related tracks to be routed so that they can be controlled with one fader in the mixer.
Mixing without submixes
Take a look at this diagram which shows the signal flow if I was recording a simple band - I have a number of drum instruments on individual tracks, as well as a bass guitar, acoustic guitar and a vocal. The output of all these tracks is routed to the master output of my DAW.
During mixing, I've adjusted the volume fader of every single track until the balance is just right to my ears. But then what happens if I decide that the drums are too loud?
Because all the tracks are routed to the master out, it means I'd have to go through and lower the volume faders of each of the drum tracks to make the drums quieter. Not only is this time consuming, but there's also the risk I could ruin the balance of my drum kit if my DAW doesn't allow me to group faders.
A better way would be to allow my drums to be controlled by one volume fader, while retaining the relative volumes of each drum track. This can be achieved in a DAW by creating a submix.
Submixes
Creating a drums submix can be achieved by creating a new bus track in a DAW and then routing the output of each drum track channel to the bus, which I would label as "Drums submix" or "Drum bus". The bus would be routed to the master output like the other tracks.
Now when I'm mixing I'd only need to control volume faders of four tracks - the drum submix, bass guitar, acoustic guitar and vocals - without affecting the relative volumes of my individual drum sounds. The whole drum kit's level can be controlled with one fader, saving me time while mixing, but it also gives me another advantage as I can now apply effects to the whole drum submix. For example I might want to apply gentle compression to the whole drum kit to glue the kit together, and I could simply insert a compressor plugin onto the drum bus to achieve this. This would be impossible without a submix.
I could organise my mix even further by creating another submix for the individual tom sounds by routing them to a new bus, which would be routed to the drum bus. I could also create a submix for cymbals and hats by routing them to another bus just for these types of drum hits. Now within my drums, I can control the kick, snare, cymbals/hats and toms with four faders, giving me greater flexibility. Meanwhile the overall drum kit level could still be controlled by adjusting the drum bus fader.
Other uses of submixes
Submixes can be used in any situation where you want to group related tracks so that they can be controlled with a single volume fader while mixing. Some examples are:
Mixing without submixes
Take a look at this diagram which shows the signal flow if I was recording a simple band - I have a number of drum instruments on individual tracks, as well as a bass guitar, acoustic guitar and a vocal. The output of all these tracks is routed to the master output of my DAW.
During mixing, I've adjusted the volume fader of every single track until the balance is just right to my ears. But then what happens if I decide that the drums are too loud?
Because all the tracks are routed to the master out, it means I'd have to go through and lower the volume faders of each of the drum tracks to make the drums quieter. Not only is this time consuming, but there's also the risk I could ruin the balance of my drum kit if my DAW doesn't allow me to group faders.
A better way would be to allow my drums to be controlled by one volume fader, while retaining the relative volumes of each drum track. This can be achieved in a DAW by creating a submix.
Submixes
Creating a drums submix can be achieved by creating a new bus track in a DAW and then routing the output of each drum track channel to the bus, which I would label as "Drums submix" or "Drum bus". The bus would be routed to the master output like the other tracks.
Now when I'm mixing I'd only need to control volume faders of four tracks - the drum submix, bass guitar, acoustic guitar and vocals - without affecting the relative volumes of my individual drum sounds. The whole drum kit's level can be controlled with one fader, saving me time while mixing, but it also gives me another advantage as I can now apply effects to the whole drum submix. For example I might want to apply gentle compression to the whole drum kit to glue the kit together, and I could simply insert a compressor plugin onto the drum bus to achieve this. This would be impossible without a submix.
I could organise my mix even further by creating another submix for the individual tom sounds by routing them to a new bus, which would be routed to the drum bus. I could also create a submix for cymbals and hats by routing them to another bus just for these types of drum hits. Now within my drums, I can control the kick, snare, cymbals/hats and toms with four faders, giving me greater flexibility. Meanwhile the overall drum kit level could still be controlled by adjusting the drum bus fader.
Other uses of submixes
Submixes can be used in any situation where you want to group related tracks so that they can be controlled with a single volume fader while mixing. Some examples are:
- In an orchestral mix, the producer could create a string submix, horn submix and woodwind submix to allow each section to be controlled with a single fader
- For recording a rock band with multiple guitar parts, a producer could route lead and rhythm guitars to a guitar submix, so the guitars level can be controlled with one fader and to give the guitars the same effects treatment
- If a producer had recorded a number of background vocalists on individual tracks, these could be routed to a background vocal submix to be controlled with a single fader in a mix.
Conclusion
You should now see the major benefits of using submixes in your mix, especially in complex mixes with many tracks. Being able to route similar tracks to a submix allows these to be controlled with a single fader which not only makes mixing more efficient but allows related tracks to receive the same effect treatment, saving your CPU and providing flexibility. I'd encourage you to open your DAW and investigate how to create a bus channel, route other channels/tracks to the bus, and then adjust the volume fader of the bus channel. You could also experiment with inserting an insert effect onto the bus to effect all channels routed to it.
Thank you for taking the time to read this lesson, and feel free to leave a comment if any of my lesson is inaccurate, or if you've got any tips for using submixes when mixing.
Chris
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