MIXING TIPS & TRICKS

 

Perhaps, dont 'just go for it'

 

Of course, the mixing process is very intuitional throughout. It is helpful to do some planning and simple preparation prior to starting the actual mix though. It isn't of crucial importance to keep it that organized, but it enhances your workflow while mixing.

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- Think about what kind of sound you aim for and how it can be realized

- Find an appropriate reference track (or more than one) you can compare your mix to

- Make sure all tracks are cut and timed properly before mixing

- Make sure all tracks are named properly so you have a better oversight and can work faster

 

 

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Take breaks

 

Taking breaks is in fact vital for the mixing process. When working on a mix for a longer time without breaks, ear fatigue occurs. When that happens, you do not make proper decisions when mixing and everything sounds kind of different. A bad mix might sound good, a good mix might as well sound bad then. It can often happen that you mix a track 'to death' when you don't take enough breaks. Meaning that you mix it to a point where it sounds quite good, but actually make it worse by inserting more and more plugins (or changing settings) and ruining what you created before.

 

 

 

Invest into good equipment, if possible

 

Of course, a lot of people will tell you that the equipment doesn't matter at all if you are skilled. This is true to some point, but actually it does make a lot of sense to invest into quality equipment. Buying professional studio monitors, as an example, is very useful for mixing. We recommend to buy monitors which have a rather linear frequency response for mixing or recording purposes. It gives you a clearer picture of the sound you are creating, without making anything seem more beautiful than it actually is. These speakers are mostly not really the best choice for 'enjoying' music, as they sound very unspectacular, but their qualities are very useful for the mixing process. 

 

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Invest into room treatment (or make some yourself)

 

Basic room treatment normally isn't very expensive but helps your sound a lot. Phase issues are not what you want to have in your studio, as they distort the picture you get of your mix. If you don't want to spend a lot of money, there is a bunch of tutorials on YouTube on how to build your own room treatment. Some explain, what kind of room treatment would be suitable for your room too.

 

 

 

Don't overdo it

 

There is some point when a mix sounds great. Sometimes it is hard to recognize when you have reached that point. If, for example, all tracks are really well recorded or all synths sound really great, there mostly is no need for much EQing. A lot of people tend to EQ too much on sounds that are already great, or throw all sorts of plugins onto it without thinking about if that actually makes sense. A part of training your mixing skills is also training yourself to evaluate sounds and think twice about if you actually need to change anything and what you need to change to achieve your desired sound. 

 

 

 

Use your ears

 

This advice might seem basic at first, but is very important. In the end, all that counts is that the result of your work is as good as possible. The ways you choose to achieve this result are totally unimportant - if they work for you. No plugin, no analyzer and no meter can assure that your mix sounds good, when being listened to. Your ears are the most powerful tool to determine if a certain sound or mix sounds good or not. 

 

 

 

Don't rely on the 'mastering guy'

 

A professional mastering is the final sparkle that brings your track up to par with other professionally produced tracks and ensures that the track translates properly to all kinds of different sound systems. That doesn't mean that you should rely on the mastering engineer to clean up all the mistakes you made. A great mix will end up sounding way greater after mastering than a mediocre or 'half-assed' mix could ever sound like. Don't try to save time by not correcting mistakes in the mix and leaving it to the mastering engineer. It will be less work for the mastering engineer and lead to a way better sounding result.

 

 

 

Listen to your mix on as many playback systems as possible

 

Even if you have a pair of monitors that is of great quality and precision - in the end, it sounds different on all other speakers. Meaning, it is important to check how your mix sounds like on as many speakers, headphones or other playback devices as possible. In an optimal case you would have more than one pair of monitors in your setup and have an interface which allows you to switch between those while mixing, plus headphones.

 

 

 

Make sure each audio signal has its own sonic space

 

When EQing your tracks, make sure to not leave too much unnecessary energy. Meaning, cutting away frequencies or frequency bands that don't affect the mix and are a 'waste of energy'. Especially for mixing bigger productions (40-50 tracks plus), this is a useful technique, since all the energy you don't 'cut away' sums up and competes against the frequencies you actually want to highlight. It is of major importance for the low end to be clear. Leaving too much low end in many instrument tracks leads to having a muddy bass region, which is mostly not the desired result you want to have. Also, leaving too much air band (very high frequencies) in many tracks can make the high end sound very unprecise and glitchy, especially when encoding to mp3 or any other form of lossy encoding.