The top free mix tools
Effects processors are critical when it comes to achieving professional mixes. Luckily, there are scads of plugins available for nothing!
Mixing is where it all comes together. A great mix combines nearly every engineering discipline into a perfect blend of art and science, intuition and technique. This has never been truer than it is today, when so many choices are left until the final mix. In the past, it was not uncommon for instruments and vocals to be recorded with loads of processing – some corrective, some creative. Most modern engineers would never think of it, thanks to the high quality of even the cheapest recording interfaces, and the proliferation and convenience of plugins. Needless to say, just about any plugin can be called upon during a mixing session, though some are designed expressly for that purpose.
Many effects can do double duty as both tracking and mixing tools. Pro engineers, for example, often track vocals through a compressor or limiter to tame the signal’s potential dynamic range, and then route that signal through more compression during the mix to level out the track, add a bit of presence or simply to impart the “mojo” of a specific compressor. Thanks to the large dynamic range of modern audio interfaces, we can often forgo the initial processing and apply compression and limiting only during mixdowns; and since we can instantiate as many instances as we like, we can double them up on the same track as needed. This is especially true of plugins like LVC-Audio’s Limited-Z, a terrific transparent dynamics processor that can be pushed very hard indeed without creating unwanted distortion. Check it out at lvcaudio.com.
Similarly, savvy desktop engineers often opt to impart the character of classic hardware preamps and equalisers during mixdown. If you want to apply a bit of that old-time hardware pixie dust to your tracks, you can do so without plumping for a costly vintage box. Shattered Glass Audio’s Code Red Free is one of the grooviest examples in recent memory. Designed to emulate the legendary tube-based REDD consoles used in Abbey Road during the 1960s, Code Red Free combines a punchy vintage EQ with the rich sound of the REDD’s preamps. Get it free at shatteredglassaudio.com.