230 CHAPTER 6 The Final Mix 6.2 the MIxIng StAge: OVerVIeW All the effort you put into composing, sequencing, editing, and orchestrating your project deserves the best final results. The mixing stage is where everything comes together. All your tracks, equalizers, effects, and so on, are channeled down to a stereo track, or to a multichannel mix in the case of a surround project. Let's look at how to approach the final mix and how to solve a few of the most common issues that often puzzle the modern composer/producer. The first step in approaching the final mix for a generic hybrid project composed of MIDI and audio tracks is to choose how to handle the MIDI tracks. If your session contains a combination of both MIDI and audio tracks, then first decide whether the MIDI tracks need some extra "tweaking" from an audio (equalization, reverb, effects in general) point of view. If the sounds associated with the MIDI tracks are generated externally (by hardware MIDI devices or satellite computers), then to add effects to them you most likely will use the external processing power of your mixing board and outboard gear, or the built- in effects of the MIDI devices. This technique is definitely faster and can save you time, but it is also limited by the number of channels and features of your mixing board and by the number of audio out- puts present on your MIDI devices. If you opt for this solution, then the procedure is fairly simple. The audio and software synthesizer tracks of your sequencer will be mixed by taking advantage of the inter- nal plug-in effects installed within the applications, while the MIDI tracks assigned to external MIDI devices will be processed and mixed using the equalizers and effects connected to your mixing board or, in the case of a digital board, through its internal effects. Having applied all the effects and made the needed changes, you will mix down the main output of the mixing board to a stereo audio track of your sequencer. As I mentioned before, while this technique is probably the fastest, it has some limitations and also presents a few problems. For example, it is usu- ally pretty hard to match the reverb, equalization, and dynamic effects of the plug-ins hosted by the sequencer and those of the outboard gear. By using two different sets of effects (plug-ins and external gear), most of the time you will accentuate the already noticeable difference between audio and MIDI tracks. In addition, if your MIDI devices do not feature enough separate outputs, it is hard to effectively apply equalization and effects to single MIDI tracks. A better solution consists of "rendering" (which means converting ) all the MIDI tracks into audio and then mixing the entire project inside your digital audio workstation (DAW). This approach will guaran- tee a more coherent and balanced mix. Some of the drawbacks of this technique, though, are related to the fact that the MIDI-to-audio conversion for hardware devices can be time consuming, since it has to be done in real time and for every single track independently. If your project is 5 minutes long and you have to convert 20 MIDI tracks, it could take up to 100 minutes to dump all the MIDI tracks as individual audio tracks. Keep in mind that this figure can vary, depending on how many inputs and buses are avail- able on your audio interface and mixing board, respectively. The higher the number of inputs on the inter- face and the higher the number of buses available on the mixing board, the faster the process will be. Nevertheless, this technique is recommended, especially if you have a powerful enough computer to han- dle a high number of audio tracks and plug-ins. By recording each MIDI track individually as audio mate- rial, you will have greater control over equalization and effects such as reverb and dynamics. In addition, for each track you will be able to take advantage of the automation techniques we learned in Chapters 2 and 3. I highly recommend rendering all the MIDI tracks as audio, for both the software and hardware syn- thesizer. Because of the different nature of these two types of MIDI track, let's analyze the rendering process for each type separately. 6.2.1 rendering MIDI tracks for hardware Synthesizers To record each MIDI track as a separate audio track coming from an external hardware synthesizer, you have to solo the MIDI track you want to record, record-enable an empty stereo track in the sequencer,