General Mixing advice

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General Mixing advice

Postby Injustrial » 07 Nov 2013 17:27

It's been pointed out that my mixes are sometimes (always) less than stellar. Unfortunately, most of the tutorials I've found don't really deal with it at more than a basic level ("You should try to have your instruments at different levels. Tutorial is now done")
I was wondering if anybody would bother to listen through some of my stuff and give me a few quick pointers as to which areas I should focus more on. Would be VERY nice if you've got a youtube tutorial or something as well.

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Re: General Mixing advice

Postby Captain Ironhelm » 07 Nov 2013 18:36

I don't have time to do a review right now, but here's my approach to mixing:

- Have everything on its own mixer channel.

- Sidechain everything to the kick (if you are an EDM producer)

- Drop all the mixer volumes down to zero

- Pull up the drum mixer channel up to where you feel like. This is the perspective that the rest of the mix will relate to. If later on you notice your song isn't as loud as you want it to be, no problem, that can be easily fixed by raising the level using the master/limiter/compressor.

- Select the volume on your lead instrument, close your eyes, and listen closely as you slowly bring up the level using only your ears without seeing visually what you're doing. Once it sounds like magic and super professional, move to your next music element and do the same thing.

- repeat until the whole track is mixed. You are now done.

The reason I say don't look is that you cannot help but be comparing volume levels by how far up each mixer knob is visually which is not good.

A few things to keep in mind:

Remember to EQ your sounds to taste, and EQ out frequencies that you can't hear a difference if they're there or not. It helps the overall cleanness of the track.

Compress elements to taste that you want to bring more attention to. For example, you might decide to compress your lead synth or bass to bring it closer to your face in the mix, but maybe not so much a background pad that is just complementing the lead.

Test out your mixing using different speakers so you know it sounds good on different sound systems. This helps you not accidentally make your song sound only good on sound systems with a subwoofer or whatever.

Compare to other professional quality tracks.

Take breaks. Mixing for more than an hour straight is a little silly and your ears will be all stupid and tired, so take some time off when you need it.

hope this helps
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Re: General Mixing advice

Postby itroitnyah » 07 Nov 2013 20:36

Presenting: The Mixing Bible

Alright, so it's not a holy book of any sorts, but it pretty much covers a lot of stuff on mixing. Other than the article thing I linked to you, you want to make sure you know what each plugin in your mixer does and is doing, and then practice with them, get to know them, and then practice mixing is how you get good at it.
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Re: General Mixing advice

Postby Alycs » 07 Nov 2013 21:08

Mixing is one of the things that I've always had a hard time with, and am still trying to get better at it (which is why I've been releasing songs really slowly). So far, the biggest thing that has helped me is to memorize (or at least get a good feeling for) EQ charts. All sounds have a place they "should" be. Kicks should have most of their sound around the <200Hz; high-hats, >2,000Hz.

However, one of the things that can screw up a mix quicker than anything is EQ masking. The most literal example is being in a crowded room, all full of people talking. With hundreds of people, if a friend is standing in the middle, you won't hear them clearly. On the other hand, if you are in a room of deep voiced men, and you are talking to a woman, the woman's higher voice will be easily heard. If all 100 people (mixed gender again) are on the left side, someone on the right could be heard (if with difficulty). What I'm getting at is if a voice/sound is surrounded by other sounds with similar frequency ranges, the frequencies will clash, cover each other, and generally make it muddy. However, buy using either panning, or just being careful with your EQing, you can prevent that. Just keep it in mind as you mix.
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Re: General Mixing advice

Postby Injustrial » 07 Nov 2013 22:06

These are some nice tips, especially the link to the mixing bible. If anyone has some specifics you think I should focus on, I'd be very grateful, but these pointers seem like very basic stuff that I should be able to do properly before doing anything else. Thanks!
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Re: General Mixing advice

Postby ArisingFlame » 08 Nov 2013 02:13

Captain Ironhelm wrote:- Drop all the mixer volumes down to zero

- Pull up the drum mixer channel up to where you feel like. This is the perspective that the rest of the mix will relate to. If later on you notice your song isn't as loud as you want it to be, no problem, that can be easily fixed by raising the level using the master/limiter/compressor.

- Select the volume on your lead instrument, close your eyes, and listen closely as you slowly bring up the level using only your ears without seeing visually what you're doing. Once it sounds like magic and super professional, move to your next music element and do the same thing.

- repeat until the whole track is mixed. You are now done.

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Re: General Mixing advice

Postby tymeworkbeats » 15 Dec 2013 12:59

Focus on using the right instruments. Even with all he technical info the worlds has to offer, you still have to know which instruments and sounds work and which ones don't.
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Re: General Mixing advice

Postby Navron » 15 Dec 2013 19:22

Panning is one of the hardest mixing practices to get down, but a way to make it easier is to think of panning as a relation to frequency, and clashing avoidance.

In other words, anything in the subbass region (kick, subbass, bottom end of snare, etc.) should be set to mono. The overall snare should be set to mono as well if producing EDM.

As you work higher in the frequency spectrum, you can start to pan your elements farther. I usually use these numbers as rough estimates:

< 250Hz: Mono
250Hz - 500Hz: 10-15% Pan
500Hz - 1KHz: 20-30% Pan
1KHz - 2KHz: 40-50% Pan
2KHz - 5KHz: 50-65% Pan
5KHz - 10KHz: 65-75% Pan
>10KHz - 75-100% Pan

Note that panning (like frequency masking) isn't necessarily required if your mix isn't clashing. One of my biggest mistakes earlier on was masking out too many frequencies, or panning instruments when they didn't need to be panned. If your mix is sounding good and full, don't go cutting frequencies or panning things. You end up ruining the mix and having to overcompensate in other tracks to get the same fullness, and your track doesn't sound right in the end.

If it sounds good where it is, let it be. If it sounds like it's muddy, first figure out which instruments are clashing, solo them to isolate the clashing instruments, and start carefully tweaking the EQ little by little. If it still sounds like it's clashing, start carefully tweaking the panning little by little.

It's also good practice to cutoff frequencies below 30Hz and above 20KHz on your master for the final mixdown. Most of these frequencies are inaudible, but they can cause issues on bigger sound systems and muddy your song.
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Re: General Mixing advice

Postby HMage » 15 Dec 2013 19:24

Eat vitamins. Floss your teeth.
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