19 Mixing Tips I Wish I Knew 20 Years Ago

19 Tips for Mixing I

wish

I

knew

this 20

years

ago, unfortunately there was no YouTube 20

years

ago so I had to learn them all the hard way, you don't have to, so these are 19 of my aha moments I've had throughout of the last few decades of mixes and I've put them together in one video just so do yourself a favor, pick one and apply it. Any of these will be a game changer for you in your mixes, so sit back, relax and enjoy. As we go through these 19

mixing

tips

now, while I firmly believe that all 19 will be a game changer for you, this first one is the game changer for everyone, here's tip number one: listen to good music on the mix position regularly, so Many people fall into this trap: they only listen to their mixes in their

mixing

system.

Can you see how that's a trap if you don't regularly listen to great-sounding albums sitting in your studio in the mix position between your speakers? How can you wait? Getting a great mix of your own tracks is like playing darts in the dark blindfolded and you go around three times and have almost zero chance of hitting the target because you don't know what you're listening to, so you might hear this . all the time Joe my mixes sound great in my studio but they don't sound very good anywhere else they don't sound as good as my favorite albums on Spotify or Apple Music it's because you don't know what your favorite albums are on Spotify or Apple Music it sounds like sitting here in your mixing position, you only know your music, so you have completely deluded yourself and have no connection to reality.

Make it a priority to sit down and listen regularly and really absorb what a great mix and you sound like. You will be able to detect problems in your mixes much more easily. It's like bankers. They know a $100 bill so well that if you were to slide a counterfeit across their desk, they would be able to spot it immediately. They don't spend all their time studying. fakes know the real thing very well, so when you come across something fake, they can easily point it out and fix the problem or get rid of it as the case may be, that's what you need when it comes to mixing, you need to be able to Sit down and listen and spot all the problems in your mixes so you can fix them.

The only way to know if they are problems is if you are intimately familiar with what a good mix sounds like sitting here on your studio tip number. two, study your frequencies when I say things like 50 htz 100 HZ 250 500 1K 3K 5K 8K if I say those frequencies you immediately get a feeling of recognition in your brain. Can you almost hear those different frequencies if I mention them? If it's so good. You are on the way to great sounding mixes, if not then it's a place where you need to spend some time trying to mix a song without really knowing the frequencies, it's like trying to survive in another country without knowing the language you just don't know .

If you're going to go very far you might find a meal or a bathroom, but you won't prosper until you can speak the language knowing the difference between 50 and 100 htz for example, it will be a GameChanger for you when it comes to mixing things like kick and bass, track 50 to 100 and 100 to 200, that's a two octave range. There is a big difference between 50, 100 and 200. I think about singing two octaves if I sing here and then I have to sing here. that's a big difference, that's two octaves, just that little quote, the little range in your EQ makes all the difference if you confuse 50 with 100 you'll have a hard time getting the bass right in your mixes.

Tip number three, use the mute button. To identify your problems, mixing for me is really about identifying problems and eliminating them. If I eliminate enough problems, the mix will be finished. One of the best ways to make sure you've identified the problem is to make an educated guess. I think this what the problem is and then mute that thing to see if the problem really goes away if you hear this muddy sound and think it's the guitar. If you mute the guitar and the muddy sound disappears, you have now confirmed where the source of the problem is.

The problem is that now you can fix it, but if you mute the guitar and the muddy is still there, then you know that the guitar is not the problem, or at least it is not the only part of the problem, we need to investigate a little more. This will save you countless hours troubleshooting problems that aren't really problems and will help you identify the exact problem so you can then go in and fix it. Tip number four, get goosebumps if you've been on a live stream with me. I've seen this tattered old sign quite regularly.

This is something I hold when I'm doing a mixed review livestream when I hear something that gives me physical goosebumps instead of pausing it, turning on my mic and saying hello, I just got goosebumps. I'll hold this up so people know. Hey, that gave me goosebumps. Why should you care about something as silly as Goosebumps or Goose pimples as some people call them? Because the point of music is to connect with someone on an emotional level to move them in some way and a lot of times that movement for me at least means that I get goosebumps when I hear something really amazing.

Some people get goosebumps now, maybe that's instead of goosebumps. It gives me goosebumps, makes you cry, or makes you move your body and dance to the music when you have a physical response to a work of art that is noteworthy to the point where I recognize it by holding up a sign. silly to remind myself and those watching that if we've gotten to a point in this song where it's giving me some kind of emotional response that I can't control, then we're getting close, so don't mix it up or mess it up and get to the point where not anymore.

This? We have done something special. Let's not mess it up by mixing too much, so when you feel an emotional connection to what you're mixing, whether it makes you want to dance, makes you want to cry, gives you goosebumps, or anything else. that you can't really control, make note of that and don't lose it as you continue finishing the mix, then do a static mix before everything else, people go crazy with plugins, they want to use their plugins, but you don't need plugins until you have done the static mix, that is, until you have understood the levels and the pan.

Many people try to solve a level problem with an equalizer or a compressor when the real solution was to simply get the levels right if you can. Accept this of all the

tips

I've given you in this video so far and all the tips I'm about to give you. Give you if you make this I promise that your mixes will be different day and night. The problem is that people say, "Okay, yeah, I sure agree with you" and then they start a mix and when they hear the first hint of a problem, they grab their favorite plugins and start trying to figure things out, just have a little moderation and see how good you can get.

Make this song sound without plugins by simply adjusting the levels and pan and you can do this move if it makes you feel better. How good can you make it sound? I've had mixes where I forget I'm doing the static mix. and I get so immersed in the song just by massaging those levels and panning to where I feel this song moves me and I haven't even reached a plug-in, imagine starting your plug-in selection from that point of view versus W, this is a mess , I better start adding some plugins here to make it sound better, it doesn't work as well because of the way static mixing is so important, it's the second step of my five step mixing process.

I dedicate a full step just to static. mix, if you want to learn my entire mixing process, I have a free guide that you can receive as a gift, just go to fstep mix.com in your email and I will send it to you right away. Tip number six, look for balance. If you want to simplify mixing into one word, that word is balance. I want the levels to be balanced like I just mentioned. I want things to be balanced from left to right. If everything is in the middle, it feels a little boring if there are a lot of things on the left. and not the right one, it feels crooked.

I want the stereo field from left to right to be fairly balanced, but I also want the frequencies to be balanced. I don't want there to be a lot of lower mids and then nothing here in the upper mids and vice versa. I want to have an adequate amount of each of these ingredients, not necessarily the same ones, but I want everything to be balanced, so when you're thinking about your mix, if you don't know what to do next, listen to the three types of balance. and see if anything is unbalanced, are there levels that are unbalanced, is there a stereo imbalance that you can fix or are there frequency imbalances?

That's where you're going to spend a lot of your time and you can do it. Go in and fix tip number seven. Turn on your speakers when you start mixing. You'll quickly learn that as you start moving all the faders around that master bus on the far right, it starts to clip. So what does it do well? It turns down all your tracks and then it stops clipping and that's great, but then it's like it's not as loud and it doesn't sound as fun as before, so little by little you start turning them all up again and what happens is they get clipped Again, this can be maddening. cycle, but there is a very easy solution, yes, you need to turn down the volume of the tracks so that the mix bus doesn't cut out, but if doing so everything feels a little quiet, you have the simplest solution: just use these fingers and turn the volume knob.

Turn up the volume so your speakers are loud enough. This is another form of gain staging. You're saying things are too quiet. If I turn them up in the mix, it starts to saturate, but I'd like to turn them up so I can hear them well. use the volume knob now. I'm not saying to get so loud that you hurt your ears. I'm just saying avoid clipping instead of trying to play the game of how can I use compression and limiting to solve this clipping problem? It's much easier. Turn down the volume and then turn on the speakers, easy tip number eight, you know when to leave things alone, there's something in human nature that says, man, I gotta put a plug-in on every track, probably three or four plug-ins on each one. , you don't need to put three to four plugins on each track.

There are a lot of tracks in the session that sound good and then you ruin them because you feel the need to do something. What will make you a great mix engineer is knowing when to do something and when. to solve problems that are real problems, but also when to leave it alone here's another way to say it, if what you're seeing is not causing any type of problem that you can identify, it's probably fine, leave it alone, use number nine. Subtractive EQ here is an EQ of one of my mixes. This is a very typical EQ curve for me.

It has one, two, three, four cuts and a reinforcement. That 4:1 ratio of cuts to reinforcements is very typical for me. Because? Because this is kind of My philosophy towards mixing I already have a lot of sound. I don't want to do a lot of EQ boosts to add more sound to the equation. I prefer to take some of the sounds I don't like and eliminate them using subtractives. EQ using EQ Cuts instead of using EQ boosts, it's a mindset thing. I prefer to sculpt from a large piece of marble and remove things, then start with a drop of clay and keep adding more clay.

This works best for me and helps. I mix very fast, which I love tip number 10: EQ your reverbs and delays, even if let's say your electric guitar is EQed and sounds perfect in the mix and then you choose to send it to some kind of Reverb or delay than Reverb. or the delay could create a rumble and confusion in the lows that will plague your mixes, for example, here is an EQ or uneven reverb from one of my mixes, all that bass sounds good on its own, but remember this is just the reverb so low. The ending is already in the mix.

I don't need my Reverb to add more bass. I can tell you that a lot of times people are struggling with muddiness in their mixes and it's because the reverbs and delays on the side are causing it. What do I do with my reverb and delay sends? I do something like this. I just have a big beep in the high pass filter which turns on everything below 200HZ and eliminates the problem. Tip number 11, don't be afraid to use compression. a wonderful tool of course you can overdo it but a lot of people tend to overdo it they are afraid of compressing too much and they leave it too subtle if you ever see those tutorial videos where they say you hear that compression you almost can't.

Even hearing that it's there, if so, why do it to begin with? As you can see in this mix. I have compression on several tracks. You can see the gain reduction. I like the compression. I like to use it aggressively when it does. sense, don't be afraid to do the same tip number 12, don't compress everything, like thiswhich does use compression, but no, don't put a compressor on each channel. You can check out this mix and you won't see compressors everywhere I have compressors. some specific places that make sense, but I'm not going to put an EQ on APR ressor on each channel of the mix, it doesn't make sense anymore in that later tip number 13, mix the buses first, so it's kind of a preamble to all that .

I make mixes and use buses. I think buses are the most amazing tool in your arsenal, or at least one of them, so every mix I do, every track goes through one of these buses, drums, bass, electrics, acoustics, keys, vocals or choruses , and I may have a separate one depending on the song, but for me they are typical of a standard mix, meaning that if the song has 20 or 200 tracks, I'm just thinking in terms of these seven or eight buses, the drums are a sound, a component. of my mix and the good thing is that the buses allow you to be much more efficient, which means you can mix much faster and it will sound better if I need to EQ my drums with a cut at 400HZ during For example, that is a standard move that I could do: put an EQ on each drum track with that 400HZ cut or I could put an EQ on my drum bus and affect everything.

It gets even more fun when it comes to compression because compression on a drum bus sounds much better than compression on individual drum tracks. That's how I can mix songs in just 30 minutes because I'm working mostly from the buses, not all the individual tracks number 14, I get it right at first. source if you want a great mix you have to start with great tracks if your tracks sound like hot garbage your mix will sound like lightly polished hot garbage it's always better to go back and record good tracks you can't do it perfectly it's like a perfect standard that we never reach, But if you focus on making the raw track sound as good as possible, your mixes will improve ten times more than just letting anything slide in the recording session and choosing to fix it later on mix number 15.

Quick Mix and Often, If I was given a choice between someone who mixed one song and took a whole year to do it versus someone who mixed 12 songs in a period of one year, I always choose the latter, why? They have 12 times the experience of the first mix it's about solving problems if it takes you 12 months to solve the problem that doesn't make you better at solving those problems and at identifying the new problems that arise with each mix each mix has its own set of challenges that you need to have in the experience of learning to identify those problems and challenges and then solve them and every mix is ​​different airgo I said airG go you need to put in the reps you need a lot of practice to make all those mix decisions, that means you need to mix quickly and mix a lot, why fast, because your twelfth mix will be much better than the first, so you might as well get to the 16th mix faster in context, my first mix was something like that.

I sat down and I remember I soloed the kick drum and then I spent probably 20 minutes with EQ and compression and whatever else to make it sound as good as possible, then I moved on to the next track which was a snare and I just soloed the snare. and I did the same thing, then I moved on to the next tom, then I did it with the other Tom, then I did it with the overhead and I followed the same process on each track in the session. Listening to it solo, he made it sound amazing and then I moved on to the next one because I mistakenly thought that if I made each sound good on its own they would sound good together.

I was really sad when I found out that UNS finally did a solo on the last one. track and I listened to it and nothing sounded right, it just sounded different than the original raw tracks, but certainly not better. The sound of a track alone has almost no relationship to how it sounds in the mix. There are many more influencing factors that we can see in this video, but you should know that the less time you spend in Solo, the better your mixes will be. For example, if I'm working on a kick drum instead of just doing a solo on the kick drum and ready to listen to it.

I will exclusively try to listen to the kick drum in the context of the entire drum, so using my drum bus I can listen to the entire drum bus and then making adjustments to the kick drum EQ and the compressor itself doesn't mean you can't use it. solo but every time I press Solo on a mix it's like I have a little timer on my shoulder that says get out of solo get out of solo get out of solo because if I spend too much time there I realize I've lost all the context and I'm like fighting myself on that 17th point, save your voice until the end.

This is a recent development for me, but I realized that I don't like the sound of a raw voice, no matter how good it is. I usually just mute it and focus on making the instrument sound great, get a great mix of that, then drop the vocal on top, it seems to work better because I end up EQing the vocal quite a bit, compressing the vocal quite a bit. Well, while I'm working on things like my static mix and getting my balances right, I know the vocal will go right in the middle, so I'll save it for later and I can focus on the instrumental from time to time. add voice later, that seems to work fine for me. bypass number 18 frequently so that each plugin has some form of bypass so I can listen to the track with and without this EQ, for example, I do this regularly so I can Listen, am I really making it better or am I making it worse?

The only way to make this work is if the before and after have roughly similar volumes if you turn on the plugin and add a lot of volume to your ear. I think that sounds better, so what you want to do is use some kind of makeup gain to even out the before and after volume, so that when you skip it you can get a good comparison of whether you're helping or hurting this. prevent you from going down these long 20 30 minute rabbit trails by doing a bunch of things with plugins only to realize you've only made things worse and number 19 gets feedback from others of the 19 tips in this video, this could be the the scariest thing, especially if you work in isolation, you've been working on this music, your heart is in it and you've gone deaf to maybe some obvious problems in the music, the only real solution is to invite someone else to listen to it and Giving yourself Feedback, while it may seem scary, can be tremendously helpful.

I can tell you from experience that when I involve other people in my creative work, whether it's music or anything else I do creatively, it's always better, so get out of your comfort zone and into the light. and be open to feedback, it will improve your music. Okay, we made it to the finish line. These are 19 of my favorite mixing tips. Which one are you going to try tonight? Leave a comment below and tell the rest of us. Thank you. To watch it, be sure to subscribe and we'll see you in the next one.