Do you ever find yourself struggling to get a huge sounding recording or mix? You want the drums to be massive, but they sound small. You want the guitars to be wide and in your face, but they sound choked. You want lush and powerful vocals, but they get swallowed up. Trust me, I’ve been there.
Here’s an important truth about audio that if you grasp, you will have a breakthrough moment: the more tracks you add, the smaller your sounds become.
Via Marc Kjerland Flickr
Not Everything Can Be Big
Our natural instinct is to believe that more is more. You want a bigger drum sound? Add more tracks and crank them up! But then your guitars sound small. What do you do? Double and triple those bad boys and crank them up as well. But now your vocals are getting buried. The solution? Compress the snot out of them and crank up the gain! Ah yeah baby!
But if you’ve done the above circus of crazy, you know by now that the result of all that adding and boosting is simply a small sounding mix. Ironic isn’t it? The more you try to make everything big in your mix the smaller it all becomes. So if we reverse engineer that truth we arrive at the only logical conclusion: if we remove tracks the mix will sound huge!
Don’t Crowd The Box
Think of your recording or mix as a box. The box is a fixed size, and everyone (pro and amateur alike) has to create a great sounding mix in the same size box. No advantages there. Each of us must make the most out of our box.
If we stuff the box full of tracks, it’s hard to notice any one thing as being great. We simply have a crowded box. But if we place a few select tracks inside, then we’ll see (or rather “hear”) them with more detail and clarity. They will be more noticeable, and therefor be perceived as bigger.
Just like with a photograph that is cluttered with too much in the frame, our eyes don’t know what to look at. But a well framed picture of a simple object/person or two will capture our attention and stand out. Music is the same way.
A Personal Example
I was reminded of this critical truth just this week when I was driving in my car and listening to an old EP I recorded with my band a couple of Christmases ago. We did three songs, in a live recording setup. With only 8 inputs on my audio interface, the four of us tracked drums, bass, two guitars, and vocals with a very minimalistic approach.
As I listened back to those songs I was blown away by how huge each mix sounded. Even with the occasional overdub track that I did back at the studio no mix had more than 10 tracks. And these mixes are some of my biggest, warmest, and most musical to date. Just another example of how less is truly more when it comes to huge sounding tracks.
Don’t crowd the box people. Instead, intentionally place only the things you want to be featured in your mix and they will by default sound big.
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My name is Graham Cochrane and I'm the founder of The Recording Revolution, one of the world's most loved audio recording and mixing blogs with over 200,000 readers each month. 
That’s a really good post, did today’s Pensando video inspire you?
I’m listening to “Angels We Have Heard On High” from your EP and WOW! The drums sound so huge and knowing you used only three microphones is strange. Your drummer did an excellent job with the dynamics there.
Would you believe I have the opposite problem? I’ve always confined my recordings to 8 or 9 tracks, maybe 10 at the most, and they sound TOO big. I have often wondered how to get the recordings to sound like they are just maybe a trio, or something of that size, and the only thing I can come up with is better arrangements of the music. It’s a weird thing to have to work on. But this gives me hope that I can do it.
Robert, You need to establish a “space” that puts a size to what is being heard. If a trio is close miked, they will sound huge too. Careful setting of the ambience will help. The ambience shouldn’t be dominant but you need to leave room in your mix for it to show through.
A great post and so true,
I once recorded a band in a portakabin using 6 mics and 2 DIs and it sounded huge. They tracked the same songs in a studio using 20-30 tracks and they felt really squeezed. Part of that, I think, is that the portakabin sessions were recorded as a band rather than tracked but I suspect a lot of was this too.
Hi Graham, i’ve been following your post for quite a while now. and thanks to you I learned a lot,im new to recording so, yeah, anyways. do you have a soundcloud that i could follow also your songs/mixes and recording. just wanna listen to other mixers music. im into heavy music but i was hooked by melodic songs this past few months that i started recording. maybe because i cant mix that well yet for heavy and im trying to have my ears trained a bit for clarity and all that stuff. anyway. hope you can reply. Thanks!
His soundcloud is: http://soundcloud.com/grahamcochrane
Great article.
I’m often having to explain this to clients of mine when they hear I’ve removed some of the tracks from the mix. They ask me why some tracks have disappeared, but also tell me they prefer it that way.
I learned the hard way and it took me years to realise that the space is what provides the opportunity for expansive sound.
Makes perfect sense when you think about it, but often overlooked.
Dude this is insightful. The box analogy is pretty cool. I always thought of a music like a pie chart, but I think the box thing might actually be a better metaphor! haha Here’s a post about the pie concept. I was gonna try to explain it here, but that’d be a long post! haha
http://bandologyblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/24/your-band-and-pie/
Hi Graham:
Always well written, informative insights. I really appreciate your thoughts and wisdom, and I completely agree with you. A friend of mine, and professional studio owner/producer told me mixing is all about “who has the ball”, focusing in on the different elements like passing a basketball back and forth on court. It’s similar to what you state here, and as a home producer/recordist, I’ve found that to be exceptionally true. Arrangement with minimal elements is so much more easy on the ear than everything coming at you at one time. It’s a tough lesson to learn, but really worth it. Sometimes, it’s tough convincing a band (group of friends usually in my case) that having everyone playing at all times in a mix is less effective than dropping out parts, because everyone’s part is important all the time to each member of the band. I get that from a musician’s standpoint, but it’s often a hard-sell to the band that it’s much more effective with elements dropping out and coming in at various points. Any insights on how to handle clients who feel this way? Ultimately, it’s their project, but if I’m working on it, I’d like to convince them that less can often be more. It’s all about light and shade. The shadows often make the light more defined.
Best regards from NC,
Kevin
Great analogy.
Very helpful reminder, Graham. Thanks!
Simplicity .What a beautiful thing.Thanks Graham for all your help.This post may be the most important one I’ve read.I appreciate all the nuggets of gold you share with us.
JB
The first time this truth “less is more” really came home to me was listening to the Grammy winning mixes on Donald Fagen’s “Morph the Cat” album….in particular the title track. The intro is bass, drums and guitar and is ridiculously full…then with Fagen’s signature Rhodes and some vocals, it’s like..now that’s a huge mix!! I’m not even a big fan of Fagen’s music, but the engineering Grammy does beg using this as a ref track.
is it gonna be true about getting a Good heavy metal Distortion Rythm Guitar Tone?
Probably more than your know.
Great metal tone, in my opinion, has more to do with how well the bass guitar is mixed versus the size of the guitar tone. Often times that massive tone you get when you’re practicing is not the same tone that translates in recording.
Graham has posted a few times about how frequencies of different instruments often share sonic spaces. I think the key to good recorded metal tone is knowing where the ideal guitar frequency stops and the bass frequency starts….and how you manage the output levels of this sonically.
It’s not the first time I might have said here that the key to guitar tone is good bass.
Here’s something I wrote/recorded did a year ago (approx 1 min):
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11557885
I mean, to be clear, it’s not at all the ‘be all’..not even……that beginning guitar ‘ride-up’ section? puleeeaze….but the rest is not too bad. I just never fixed that beginning (it was a spot for a video that needed I to deliver before I could fix it all…)
I think when you get in to the bulk of the mix, it is pretty ‘large sounding’…very little reverb and nearly no compression. Just EQ and mixing levels. Sure, it’s not metal so much as just rock-n-roll but if you listen to the bass level versus the guitar, I think the balance is not bad. Also, if you ‘left/right’ the track, you’ll notice that there is more going on than just a simple riff. Also, the guitar tone is twangy but it doesn’t read all that twangy. It was more Fender Twin Reverb amp than Marshall….but doesn’t sound small.
Again, not the be all but I think it was ok given the circumstances I did this under.
Point being that density doesn’t equal big….which is what Graham said so I’m just repeating it……
thank you for the advice jeff!
And in addition to keeping the tracking simple, more often than not you will get a much bigger recorded guitar tone using less gain than you normally would play with. I think a perfect example is AC/DC; when you really listen critically to those guitars they are nowhere near as overdriven as you initially think they are when casually listening. And they sound absolutely MASSIVE.
Great example.
totally agree. I always stay less than 16 tracks and I can get a pretty “big” sound out of a basic 4-peice acoustic rock setup, when I mix them well. Limiting your tracks also forces you to arrange better and then the mixes sound not just big, but complete; and listeners aren’t left wanting for some mystery track they’re not hearing.
Great Post, love this!
also read a decent piece in sound on sound today about the guy who mixed “ho hey” by the Lumineers – LCR panning, 16 tracks, minimal plugins. Great song that was obviously successful to the point of probably being overplayed on radio. It also pulled an otherwise obscure band into mainstream.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar13/articles/it-0313.htm
Reinforces Graham’s point wonderfully.
Hey Jared–
Awesome, thanks for posting this!
No problem. I find that Sound on Sound has great articles. They actually have useful information in them. As opposed to “Mix” magazine that basically just name drops on all the gear you “should” have. But i have definitely learned the most from this site right here.
Awesome post.
Grew up on 4 and 8 track tape machines. When I got my first DAW and saw all those tracks it was a bit of a shock. I’ve only cracked the 20 tracks mark on a couple of occasions and that was trying too.
Plenty of space in that box gives you lots of wiggle room, things can stretch out a bit and be themselves. You can make those guitars a little fatter, the vocals a little fuller rather than constricting things in order to cram them in.
I’m liking this site a lot, good plain common sense talk coming out of here.
Long may it last.
Thanks Chris. Common sense isn’t all that common anymore 🙂
A good example is Creep by Radiohead, listen to the overall volume of the track (especially at the beginning) and then BOOM the guitar comes in! 🙂
very good article and I couldn´t agree more…went through the same experiences in the past….thanks Graham for posting this!
Very well explained Graham! Great way to se the mix as e box!
I absolutely agree with this post. Trouble is, producers can get pretty angry when you change their arrangements. They are so involved in the ProTools side of things that whenever I turn in mixes with parts muted, it almost always comes up in the notes now whereas it didn’t used to as often.
A very good point was made. One of the most important things I’ve learned as a musician is that sound is relative. If everything is big then nothing appears to be big. A drummer I was working with wanted a huge snare sound yet he was bashing away on a very big and thick hat and riding a crash frequently. He was convinced that a deeper snare and heavier playing was the secret to a big snare sound. It took everything I had to convince him to change to a less abrasive hat, close it a little more, play it with a lighter touch, and ride the crash cymbal less. My advice to young aspiring musicians, engineers, and producers is to listen, listen, listen! Take note of what sounds big and what around it makes it appear that way. A 6′ tall man looks like a giant in a preschool classroom. That same man looks like a child on an NBA court.
Great point.
Great post and advice.
Listen to how big and fat some of prince recordings are, or some classic rock like bad company.
Not a ton of tracks or effects, but great sounds in their own space.
For my 50th birthday I went into a amazing studio locally and recorded my solo album, The engineer said the very same thing when I asked about multiple guitar tracks, was almost verbatim what you said-the more tracks the smaller the overall mix will sound. At first I was skeptical but the result (and amazing gear I must say) speak for themselves http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_lIRMNaO8M
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How does an orchestra/ orchestral music do it? Lots of ‘tracks’ or groups of instruments, all playing similar, the same or different elements, all together. That sounds very big. Epic even. Yes all the instrument groups predominate in certain areas of the frequency spectrum but lots of overlap. Different timbres also. But many, many layers. An overall rich tapestry of sound – sometimes subtle and sometimes really huge.
Just wondering what we can learn from orchestral music and its multi-layered approach and apply it to producing in the box with electronic/ other sounds?