We are starting to move into conversations about editing and mixing techniques this week. These two terms are central to the idea of sound or audio production, which will be considered a part of and necessary to the practice of sonic art.

In this case, production includes time, technical skills, equipment, and the process of creating/composing, recording, and preparing sound works (be they sonic art, music, podcasts, sound for film, sound for theater, etc.) for use, presentation, or distribution. Audio production includes the entire process of working with sound and audio, typically in a studio.

As you remember from week 2, the studio includes a lot of equipment specially designed for the purpose of audio production. Much of this equipment is now duplicated, or has functional equivalents within the modern Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). In many cases, the DAW actually makes many tasks easier than they were in analog, tape-based studios.

As sonic artists, there will be many projects in which you are responsible for the project from beginning to end. The life cycle of a sonic art project can be simple or long and complex. However, in general, we can think of the projects production life cycle as a series of unique processes, such as;

Initial Conception

• In the life of a project, this is the moment a project starts to be.
• This may come from;
  • The spark of an idea while you are walking.
  • A prompt that is self-imposed or externally imposed (i.e. a gig or a homework assignment)
  • An idea that emerges from daily creative practices or experiments in other pieces.
• The initial idea can come from lots of places, allow yourself to be open to them.

Creating and/or Composing

• This is the process of actually developing, building, creating, and/or collecting sound.
• This may include;
  • Recording in the field or studio
  • Synthesizing sounds
  • Coding to process sound
  • Arranging sounds in time and relation to each other
  • Composing on paper (traditional with notation, or non-traditional with concepts)
  • Writing down instructions or ideas
• In general, this step includes all of the processes in which you are building up a sonic art project (be it art-based, music-based, for a podcast, etc.)
• This step can also include the proceeding steps of editing and mixing.

Editing

• This step is inclusive of both the creative process and the technical process.
• When thinking creatively, you are interested in how sounds relationship to each other in time effects the emergent qualities of a project.
  • This may include overlaying sounds, dove-tailing sounds, building up attacks of multiple sounds, creating silence or space between sounds, cutting out portions of sound, etc.
• When thinking technically, you are interested in cleaning to create the “best representation” you can of the creative work.
  • This may include similar processes as with creative work, where you delete unnecessary sounds, adjust the timing of sounds to work better with each other (i.e. for attacks or rhythmic timing), remove noise, thicken moments that need to be impactful, etc.
• The major difference between creative and technical editing is in the goal.
  • During the Creative Editing portion, you are interested in creating art. You are likely exploring, experimenting, and still trying to decide on the direction of your art work.
  • During the Technical Editing portion, you are interested in distilling down and creating the most meaningful representation of your sound work as is possible.
• I would highly suggest you try to differentiate and distinguish between these two phases. This will come in time as you get better at working as a sonic artist (regardless of your chosen direction). For the time being, when you are editing to be creative, please feel free to play, take risks, and have fun. When you are editing to clean up your creative product, try to stop thinking creatively, and instead try to think technically about how the placement of sounds effect the final outcome.

Mixing

• Mixing is the process of getting all of the sounds the constitute a sonic art work/project to work together towards the most meaningful representation of the piece as is possible for the desired output medium or mode of presentations.
  • Like editing, this step is inclusive of both the creative process and technical process. Also like editing, you should try to clearly distinguish when you are engaged in the creative step of mixing verses the technical process of mixing.
• Mixing involves the balancing and placement of sound events in relationship to each other over time and in the moment. This includes techniques such as;
  • adjusting amplitude relationships
  • placing sounds in the sound field (left/right, forground/midground/background, front/back/sides, small-spaces/large-spaces, etc.)
  • adjusting frequency response and relationships between sound events
  • creating works that are listenable for there duration (i.e. sound that a listener does not have to adjust their volume throughout a listening experience)
  • applying creative effects (such as compression, reverberation, chorus, etc.)
• Creative mixing involves the use of mixing techniques towards the furthered creation of a sonic artwork.
• Technical mixing involves the use of mixing techniques to best represent the art work for potential listeners.

Mastering

• Mastering is the process of taking the final mix, in its final form (i.e. a stereo-file, a mono-file, a multi-channel file, etc.), and preparing it for distribution.
• This process also typically involves comparing the final track against similar types of projects, to insure that it will “sit” with them and be comparable.
• Mastering engineers will often edit these final tracks timbral characteristics (frequency and sound color), averaged loudness, peak loudness, and clarity.
• Mastering engineers also insure that a project will sound good on the desired output/presentational format (i.e. streaming services, vinyl record, CD, backing-tracks in a concert, sounds for theater or film, sound for an art gallery installation)
• Mixing creates a balance between individual elements. It transforms them into a cohesive whole. Mastering takes that whole and gives it a final polish. Consequently, you can create a mix without mastering it, but you can’t master a recording without mixing it first.
• At both the mixing and mastering stages, you’re striving to achieve balance. The difference is that during mixing you’re balancing individual sonic events. During mastering, you’re balancing complete art works / projects and spectral content. Simply put, mixing makes individual elements sound good together; mastering makes projects sound good together.
• Unlike editing and mixing, mastering is almost also only a technical process, intended to create the best representation of an art project. Although these are some creative applications in mastering, these are the exception, and not the norm.

Distribution/Presentation

• This is where you actually share your artwork with the world, through the means that you have dictated or are available to you.

Discreet Processes or Overlap?

As you may already notice in the above descriptions, these processes are distinct, but also have weird overlap. For example there are times when you will engage in editing or mixing both for creative purposes, as well as for technical purposes. This creates a production life cycle that is not nearly as neat and clean as would be ideal.

However, with that being said, I will suggest the following, during the process of creating and production, try to be clear with yourself about what you are working to accomplish. For example, if you are in the creative phase, then put on that metaphorical hat and focus on creating; this may include considering the resulting effects of your choices; the conversations of narrative, concept, or reaction; and considerations of aesthetic success. Likewise, if you are in a more technical phase, such as mixing, then put on that metaphorical hat and focus on the quality of the sound work. When you have the ‘technical mixing’ hat on, try not to change the composition or creation, instead focus on the presentation of what you have and how to make it sound better.

This idea of being specific in your production process focus is difficult. That is why it is common for multiple people to work on distinct parts of the production process for larger-budget projects. As an example, if this was a traditional studio music process, there might be;

• an executive producer, who oversaw the entire process
• a track/song producer who writes the “beats” or instrumental portions of the track
• a lyricist, who writes the lyrics
• the artist who performs the song
• a recording/tracking engineer who works with the song producer, lyricist, and artist to capture their performance
• an editing engineer, who works with the producer to edit together the best “takes”, fix timing problems between individual parts, and clean up the recorded audio
• a mix engineer, who works to insure all of the individual parts/instruments/voices on a project blend together in a cohesive way
• a mastering engineer who prepares the final mix for distribution
• a distributor, who oversees the production of hard copies, or the delivery of a project to streaming services, etc.

You are at a different point in your sonic art practice, and regardless of where you want to go in the future, for the time being, you need to learn how to get really good at creating and then preparing your creations (through the processes outlined above) for presentation.