From the course: Digital Audio Foundations

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Levels, pan, and automation

Levels, pan, and automation

From the course: Digital Audio Foundations

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Levels, pan, and automation

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- Once you've recorded some digital audio, how do you turn it into a finished product? For example, if you're recording a song how do you put together and polish the various instrument and vocal sounds? The foundational elements of this process are mixing and effect processing. Lets start with mixing. Two of the most important parts of mixing multi-track audio are the levels and the panning of tracks in a mix. Levels refer to the volume levels, each track relative to each other. Panning refers to where each track is placed in the speakers or headphones, left, right, or in-between. Another important part of mixing is automation which lets us create changes over time to the volume, panning and other aspects of the mix. Let's start by talking about levels, there's no paint by numbers shortcut to setting levels in a mix. There's no right number for, say, your lead vocal fader except for where it sounds best. Everything is relative and different sounds cut through differently, it all…

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