In this project I was required to produce three static mixes.

A static mix is a mix that has no automation. This means that throughout the
whole mix the volume levels of each track must stay the same.




This can be difficult when recording live musicians, because if one of the
musicians becomes quieter during a recording, you can not use automation to
correct this error when mixing the track.

If the dynamic range of your track is too big you might encounter problems when
mixing your track. The dynamic range is the difference between the loudest and
the quietest noise in your track. If there is a large dynamic range you will often
find that some instruments will become buried in the mix.

Signal to noise ratio can also be a problem when you are recording live
musicians. The signal to noise ratio is the ratio between what you want to hear
and the background noise. When you are recording live musicians you will want
to have as much signal as possible and as little noise as possible. This can be very
difficult to achieve especially if you are recording a group of musicians whom are
all playing in the same room. This is because all of the microphones in the room
will be picking up all of the sounds in the room, which is why it is important to
think about microphone placement when recording. If the microphones are
positioned correctly this can help boost the signal to noise ratio and will improve
the quality of the recording.

dBFS stands for decibels relative to full scale. dBFS is a way of referring to a
specific level of volume. 0 dBFS refers to the maximum volume level a system can
handle before the waveforms are clipped. When you are recording you will want
to have a reasonable amount of headroom. Headroom is the amount of space you
have between the volume level of your recording and the maximum volume level
your system can handle. If you have instruments in your track that go above
0dBFS this will cause digital distortion. Digital distortion occurs when there is
too much sound for the system to process and this will cause your track to clip.








When it comes to applying EQ to a track you have to remember the frequency
spectrum. the frequency spectrum ranges from 20hz to 20000hz. Inside that
range will contain every sound in your track. In the low end of the frequency
spectrum you will find kick drums and the bass and other deep low frequency
sounds. Between 100hz to 500hz you will find more sounds that are not so deep
such as pianos and guitars.




A compressor is used to reduce the dynamic range. When using a compressor it
is important to understand what the threshold is. The threshold is used to
determine how much compression needs to be applied to the track. If the
threshold is set in the middle of the dynamic range it will not compress anything
below that level. Anything above that level will be compressed so that the
dynamic range is reduced. This can reduce the overall volume of the track but
you can increase the output gain to keep the same volume level. The ratio of a
compressor is used to decide how much to compress the sound above the
threshold. The greater the ratio the more sound will be reduced. The attack and
release times of a compressor are the speeds that settings are applied to the
compressor as sound passes through the threshold.