{"id":917,"date":"2022-12-10T11:50:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-10T11:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/?p=917"},"modified":"2022-12-14T11:02:39","modified_gmt":"2022-12-14T11:02:39","slug":"how-to-mix-saxophone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/how-to-mix-saxophone\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Mix Saxophone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-920\" src=\"http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/How-To-Mix-Saxophone.jpg\" alt=\"How To Mix Saxophone\" width=\"459\" height=\"344\" srcset=\"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/How-To-Mix-Saxophone.jpg 700w, https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/How-To-Mix-Saxophone-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 459px) 100vw, 459px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This tutorial was requested by a Google Plus friend of mine Qbik and I decided to do a <strong>step by step tutorial showing you guys how to mix a saxophone<\/strong>. I&#8217;ll be using an alto sax for this tutorial.<\/p>\n<p>Brass and woodwind sounds <strong>always sound good when they are recorded live<\/strong> as compared to using a vst plugin. On this blog post I wont talk about recording or programming, but just <strong>make sure the saxophone is well recorded and already sounds good from the source<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re ready and believe you&#8217;ve captured a great sound then we can move on to mixing. Check the audio we&#8217;ll be working on below:<\/p>\n<h2>Unmixed Sax<\/h2>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-917-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Sax-Blog-Post-Unmixed.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Sax-Blog-Post-Unmixed.mp3\">http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Sax-Blog-Post-Unmixed.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>As you can hear on the audio example above, <strong>the alto sax was well recorded<\/strong> and doesn&#8217;t need much mixing. That&#8217;s exactly what you have to strive for <strong>if you want your mixes to sound professional<\/strong>, <em>get it right from the source<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The 1st thing I did was to add compression, an eq and then added some effects <strong>to make it one with other sounds in the mix<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h3>Saxophone Compression Settings<\/h3>\n<p>When you have a well recorded signal then you wont need much compression <strong>which helps the sax to sound more natural<\/strong>. For brass sounds, I prefer to <strong>use mild compression<\/strong> just to make the volume constant through out the whole mix.<\/p>\n<p>The sax I&#8217;m working on was recorded in mono, I don&#8217;t like <strong>recording in stereo because it can cause\u00a0phase cancellation<\/strong> and I want my sounds to be <em>clear and punchy not just bright<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I added a <strong>mono compressor<\/strong> by FabFilter, the compressor is not doing much on the sound. It&#8217;s just <strong>taming out the loud peaks and keeping the volume even<\/strong>. I used a <strong>fast attack and a fast release time<\/strong> to keep the alto sax punchy and to avoid messing up the tone.<\/p>\n<p>I used a <strong>ratio of 3:1<\/strong> and a <strong>gain reduction of about -3dB<\/strong>, with a <strong>make up gain of 3dB<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-918\" src=\"http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Saxophone-Compressor.jpg\" alt=\"Mixing Saxophone - Compressor\" width=\"459\" height=\"311\" srcset=\"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Saxophone-Compressor.jpg 623w, https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Saxophone-Compressor-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Saxophone-Compressor-290x195.jpg 290w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 459px) 100vw, 459px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Equalizer Setting For Sax<\/h3>\n<p>This is the most tricky part because <strong>it really depends on how the sax was recorded<\/strong> and what your end goal is. So I&#8217;m not going to generalize the <a href=\"http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/eq-masterclass-video-series\/\">EQ<\/a>\u00a0settings, I&#8217;ll show you what I did to make the saxophone I&#8217;m working on sit well in the mix.<\/p>\n<p>What I did was to simply <strong>cut out the low-end till around 100Hz<\/strong>. Then added some punch and warmth by making a <strong>boost at 200Hz<\/strong>. The sax had some boxiness and I had to clean that by <strong>cutting at 492hz<\/strong>. For the upper mids I removed some <strong>nasal noise at 1.2kHz<\/strong> and boosted the <strong>presence at 5.1kHz<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Finally I <strong>added some air by creating a high-shelf boost at 11kHz<\/strong>. Here&#8217;s a saxophone eq chart I have created and hope it does help you equalize your sax sounds proper. I know <strong>it&#8217;s not accurate<\/strong> but it will guide you to the right direction.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rumble<\/strong>: below 110Hz<br \/>\n<strong>Bottom\/Punch<\/strong>: 125Hz &#8211; 250Hz<br \/>\n<strong>Fullness<\/strong>: 250Hz- 450Hz<br \/>\n<strong>Honk\/Nasal<\/strong>: 500Hz &#8211; 1.6kHz<br \/>\n<strong>Presence\/Edge<\/strong>: 2kHz &#8211; 6kHz<br \/>\n<strong>Definition<\/strong>: 6kHz &#8211; 8kHz<br \/>\n<strong>Air<\/strong>: 10kHz &#8211; 17kHz<br \/>\n<strong>Hiss<\/strong>: 17kHz<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-919\" src=\"http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Saxophone-EQ.jpg\" alt=\"Mixing Saxophone - EQ\" width=\"459\" height=\"214\" srcset=\"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Saxophone-EQ.jpg 717w, https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Saxophone-EQ-300x140.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 459px) 100vw, 459px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Effect and Saturation For Saxophone<\/h3>\n<p>For the final touches I added reverb, delay and tape saturation <strong>to help the sax sit well in the\u00a0mix and create space, depth as well as width<\/strong>. The saxophone was recorded in mono so a <strong>mono reverb<\/strong> was a good choice and <em>it sounded good<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>A <strong>plate or room reverb works really well on woodwind and brass sounds<\/strong>, for this one I chose a plate. I also <strong>removed some high frequencies on the reverb signal<\/strong> and used a <strong>medium reverb time<\/strong> (tail).<\/p>\n<p>The sound was mono, <strong>to add some stereo I used a stereo delay<\/strong>. But <strong>it was a timed delay<\/strong>, meaning it was in sync with the BPM of the song. A slap wasn&#8217;t a good option because I wanted to <strong>add more width<\/strong> so I used a timed ping-pong delay.<\/p>\n<p>To <strong>add some harmonic excitement<\/strong> I added some tape saturation to the sound. I tried a lot of distortion plugins on this one and the FabFilter Saturn plugin added some nice <em>harmonics, warmth and vintage sound to the sax<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>After all that processing, <strong>the sax mix was sounding really dope<\/strong>. Remember to keep the sax sounding natural and use subtle amount of processing on it.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the final results:<\/p>\n<h2>Mixed Saxophone<\/h2>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-917-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Sax-Blog-Post-Mixed.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Sax-Blog-Post-Mixed.mp3\">http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Sax-Blog-Post-Mixed.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<h2>Mixed Sax With The Music<\/h2>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-917-3\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Sax-Blog-Post-WIth-The-Music.mp3?_=3\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Sax-Blog-Post-WIth-The-Music.mp3\">http:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Mixing-Sax-Blog-Post-WIth-The-Music.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>As you can hear, <strong>that was a major difference from the original source<\/strong>. Hope this tutorial <strong>helps you get your sax to gel well with the entire mix<\/strong> and become one with the song. If you have any questions then leave a comment below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This tutorial was requested by a Google Plus friend of mine Qbik and I decided to do a step by step tutorial showing you guys how to mix a saxophone. I&#8217;ll be using an alto sax for this tutorial. Brass and woodwind sounds always sound good when they are recorded live as compared to using &#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more-container\"><a title=\"How To Mix Saxophone\" class=\"read-more button\" href=\"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/how-to-mix-saxophone\/#more-917\" aria-label=\"More on How To Mix Saxophone\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2374,"featured_media":920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[114,115],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2374"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4734,"href":"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions\/4734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}