Professional Analog Mastering.
Professional Analog Mastering.
226K+ subscribers
Making videos on YouTube for a while now, it’s pretty easy to pick up on trends.
One that I see a lot is ’the Top 10 Mixing Secrets’ - or So and So’s 1 mixing secret that changes everything, you get the idea.
But if I’m being honest with you, mixing secrets don’t really exist. There are cool techniques, but those are just ideas people came up with after knowing some important fundamentals.
So, let’s quickly run through some really important ideas about mixing, audio, and music in general so that you can create these ideas for yourself, avoid wasting time that could be better spent making music, and feel more confident experimenting on your next project.
Before worrying about plugin combinations and unique concepts, focus on your levels and basic panning.
Instrument interaction is the biggest part of any mix - ask yourself questions like, can I hear everything even when monitoring at low levels?
Do the levels I currently have portray the song in the way I want it to be portrayed?
Starting with this idea will keep you from soloing signals or bouncing around from instrument to instrument without first figuring out how everything fits together.
Once you have the levels, focus on the stereo placement. Keep the kick, snare, bass, and lead vocals in the center, and start positioning various elements to the left and right. It doesn’t have to be hard left or right either; it's just something to let the center elements drive the song while giving everything some space.
Lastly, make sure the stereo image is balanced - in other words, does the energy of the instruments I placed to the left more or less match those on the right? It doesn’t have to perfectly match, of course, but there should be a decent balance between the 2 channels.
It may not be the most exciting thing, but this is half of mixing music, if not the majority.
Watch the video to learn more >
Don’t get too hung up on the frequency response of individual signals - because it’s the collective frequency response that matters most. As these signals interact, what we can perceive will change drastically, so always think about equalization in the context of the full mix.
A great starting point for any EQ you use is finding the fundamental frequency. This is the root note of the instrument. For example, the kick’s root note might be 60Hz, or 80Hz, while the bass or bass synth might be 110Hz, but then jump around as the notes change.
That said, just use an HP filter to cut out anything you don’t need - which is anything below the fundamental. For kicks, subs, or anything with a fundamental below 100Hz, just leave it as is - the HP won’t make a difference, but for instruments with fundamentals in the low mids, or mids, this is really helpful. It’ll leave you with just the relevant information.
Then, start making changes, again, always in the context of the overall mix - not soloed.
Is it sounding a little muddy or boomy or whatnot, dip 250Hz on an instrument with a lot of low mids.
Is my vocal buried a little? Dip 250Hz on it to clean it up, while boosting 2.5 to 5kHz to add some clarity.
Am I missing some high-end? Boost some of the drum’s overhead or the high hat with a high shelf.
Just think about it simply, don’t worry about complex relationships because you’re already hearing the result of these relationships at the output. Then make changes accordingly.
And, if the EQ changes that you make alter the balance between your levels, which will likely be the case, adjust the levels via the faders as you go.
Watch the video to learn more >
The frequency response sounds good, and I have my levels, now what?
Well, can I hear what the vocalist is singing at all points? No? Introduce some compression with make up gain, and adjust the fader to rebalance the mix.
Do the guitars or synths sound somewhat empty? Introduce some saturation to fill out their low mids and mids with harmonics.
Do I still lack some clarity and brightness even after EQ? Use an exciter to add harmonics to the high-frequency range of any instrument that needs it.Is the snare or kick getting lost? Increase its attack with some mild to moderate transient expansion. If the synth or guitars aren’t aggressive enough, same thing - increase their attack. Again, adjust the faders as you go.
Watch the video to learn more >
The levels are good, frequency response is good, dynamics, fullness, punchiness is all there, so let’s end with some temporal effects.
The important idea is to leave some signals dry and others reverberated. What we’re trying to do is create a virtual room in which the listener is positioned near the front.
If everything has reverb, everything will sound as if it’s at the back of the room. By allocating various levels of reverb and leaving some important aspects dry, we create depth by giving the listener spatial cues.
Keep these fundamentals in mind the next time you’re mixing, and work through the process I laid out here. Some things will just take time - for example, knowing which saturator creates the sound you want.
Watch the video to learn more >
Or knowing how much you want to control the dynamics with compression. But again, the first step I showed is the biggest part of mixing - and if you follow these steps, any additional effort you put in will add that extra 10% of polish that makes a mix sound professional. So try this out, get comfortable with it, then start experimenting and create your own mixing “secrets.”