I posted this on linux musicians, but seems a quiet category over there. Trying here.
I saw a video of somebody on Youtube doing a capture of fader riding, with lots of small subtle moves, leading to slightly bigger boosts into builds and chorus and so on.
I think the idea must be to breath some human life back into the mix.
Is this silly or does anyone else do anything like that?
1 Like
Seems pretty standard. I do that on live mixes all the time.
2 Likes
Yep this is generally standard practice.
Seablade
You can do it with automation if your weren’t aware essentially ‘recording’ and playing back the Fader movements, same thing with panning and that’s just the beginning, effect parameters can also be automated as well.
1 Like
It is SOP when mixing and is quite a simple way to inject life and movement into a mix.
I tend to automate individual channel volume a lot using Airwindows Purestgain, not just to emphasise or attenuate certain parts but also to dynamically drive compressor / limiter inputs (particularly bus compressors) and make things move.
In the past, I used to also be a big fan of automating reverb sends in a sort ob abstract way but I do a lot less of that now.
1 Like
Thank you everyone, some interesting points here. I am thinking I will do some broader automation manually with the mouse. Then maybe create another separate set of VCAs, pick a few key busses and then playback the song and make some very small moves along the flow of the song to add some feel.
I had wondered about automating the compressor as well. When you talk about driving the compressor there WIlly, you mean you have the compressor after the fader then, and drive the level into it with the fader automation?
1 Like
Correctamundo 
I like doing this with a colourful compressor like airwindows varimu or compresaturator but if you don’t like airwindows’ stuff then I’d say try it with a compressor that has autogain on the output.
1 Like
Edit: Apologies for posting information that has been mentioned already, but some of the excellent replies above where not shown before I pressed reply.
It is one of the skills a mix engineer can acquire.
There are different ways to approach this. You can come from a technical angle, where you care about smoothing out the volume with more control then a compressor. Also riding the vocal track for presence in contrast to the mix is a perfectly fine goal. As you said, in a flat signal, this can bring back some dynamic, but more often you have singers moving in front of the mic etc. some are skilled with mics, they will be close to the mic when they sing silent parts, or further away from the mic once they start belting out the chorus. But even a live engineer might interfere sometimes, to get a better overall mix.
There are plugins, trying to emulate this technical approach automatically. Waves Vocal Rider comes to mind.
( Which bears the question: Is there an open source equivalent? )
The other way to approach this, is creative. A well known trick, is to slowly lower the volume a few bars before the chorus and have it kick back to full during the chorus. This technique shows that there are ways to influence the perception of a piece. Fade ins, fade outs, can even reach arranging qualities, as they help transition etc etc. so there is a lot of creative potential. Even if the technical side is handled by plugins, this is still worth the effort.
The master discipline, imho, would then be dub mixing. A nice exercise is to only use volume fader automation for arrangement. Plop a few loops into the cue page of Ardour and then start automating. You will learn that the broad strokes you make while doing this will make you more refined listener for the kind of micro adjustments in a vocal ride down the road.
Some universities have released AI models of approaching mixes like that, but what is the better story:
“I had a model mix this a couple of times until I found a result good enough of what I envisioned”
Or:
“I took attention to detail. Especially the vocals where treated by me personally and some of the stuff I did might not be obvious, but it helps transport the vision we had.”
I digress… looks I missed to get off the train of thought in time 
1 Like
Hmm, okay, I’ve not tried that! Do you just have the compressor after the fader then, and everything else before it?
I’ve been putting more or less everything before the fader.
Yeah just put a gain plugin (I’ll name-drop Airwindows Purestgain again) before the colouring compressor and ride the gain fader accordingly.
I don’t automate the main channel faders, instead I prefer to drop in gain plugins at various points on a channel / bus and automate those. But there’s no right or wrong way to do these things so go nuts and experiment.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.