Only way to learn mixing properly: 1. Try to mix 2. Listen to it the next day and realize it sounds like shit. Do this for almost every day for the next 2-3 years until 2. Dissappears. Of course watch some RUclips videos now and then to learn something but focus mainly on the practical part. Make decisions based on your ears and not based on youtube videos. Take enough breaks to refresh your ears. Dont waste your time and money on gear/plugins, only if you feel theres something really missing in your library, but it costs a lot of time and energy to adapt to new stuff and the sound improvement is often minor. Also theres a lot of free stuff out there.
yeah, mixing is a part of making a certain kind of music. No need to make it sound perfect. It's like we humans love organic things. It's just a part of us psychologically
Some solid advice here, although for 'gear' the thing I'd say is initially worth investing in is good monitoring: great monitor stands, and great acoustic treatment if you want to go down the speaker route or solid open-back mixing headphones with a solid DAC (if you're more budget/space constrained) can go a long way with today's technology. Having the more accurate monitoring setup possible while developing your ears and learning what great records/mixes/masters sound like is so instrumental in progressing healthy development. Another piece of advice I can offer to build on this is to reach out to those doing exactly what you want and ask questions, perhaps even try to intern or assist if their open to it. Many experienced pros are often happy to mentor or provide advice to those who reach out from a genuine place of wanting to learn and grow.
@@tocideNot the point and your point ruins the touch and the feel about High quality and very good sounds. The point is about Fixing the sound and letting ears get a break, so u can hear what's wrong with it, so a road to perfection basically.
Following the harmonic series of every note sung or played by every voice and instrument, including the strength of each that determines its timbre, over the course of a piece of music and EQ-ing it accordingly in real time sounds like a daunting undertaking to say the least.
it's not something to go along with the whole track piece by piece, it's to clean up what needs to be cleaned up when there is excess resonance or peaking due to frequency buildup. These can happen in the sibilant range just as much as the rest of the spectrum, but the general rule of thumb is to have a near-perfect source recording and do as little work to it as possible. What the video is about is applying a more focused approach to equalizing WHEN ITS NEEDED
This is a cool idea but I still think its damaging to mix this way 100% of the time. You're training yourself to be reliant on formulas instead of putting in the work to train your ears. It's not all about being mathematically correct, part of the creative process is making sounds that are unique and imperfect.
Nah. You are training you mind to know what your ears are hearing. For example: knowing something is "muddy" is 100% useless until you know what frequencies eliminate or cause "muddiness".
@@georgechristiansen6785but If you can hear what is muddy you can sweep threw with an Equalizer and get rid Off it. In that way you can decide in any Case. In the end it have to Sound good. Math or any science is irrelevant for that 🤟
I've only been making music for a little over a year, and I was never able to understand the typical way of teaching mixing with words like "muddy" or "clear", so this video is unbelievably helpful! It sounds complicated, but the graphics are so well-made that I find myself understanding right away I get that technical tricks will never beat real-time creative experience, but getting a clear explanation to start with is invaluable
This is a very simplistic approach, where the audio/music needs to be static to actually work. Training your ear to get a grip of the musicality that each element in the mix is providing is far superior to understanding the physics behind it. This approach is more useful in system tuning and other use cases where the physics of acoustics must be dealt with. Then you need to understand what, and why you are doing it.
Damn this is gold. I feel people are overthinking by assuming you’re telling them to approach mixing this way, rather than just seeing it’s another perspective that you can see when mixing. You don’t have to abide solely by this, but mathematically this system gives you a closer look at sound wave formations. At the end of the day, I do think what you hear/feel is king, but at least for me this is gold because this + low volume focused listening + DAW data = nearly mastered track solely in the mix.
This helped me.... TREMENDOUSLY. Thank you! I tried this on a break beat all in one waveform. I used a reference also. I found the fundamentals of each drum part (snare kick hi hat) and located the unharmonious tones of each by sweeping, and cut them. The difference is NIGHT and DAY! This is a perspective I needed. I think it just clicked for me. Thanks again.
to think about this, i think for most people hate about mixing is just simply the poor description of languange, nice to see more ppl talk about the mathematically now
What he says (e.g. for the high pass filter) is based on the lowest note a singer sings or an instrument plays in the song Einstein. If an instrument plays a chord with 20 notes on each beat, there will still be a single lowest note across the whole song for example.
I just tried mixing a few things after watching this video. It was actually a lot easier to achieve a clearer sound by paying more attention to suppressing inharmonic overtones 👍
Thank you. After watching this video ( twice ) I made my current mix much, much better in about 10 mins. This is literally the most useful video I've ever seen on eq, and I've been schlogging away for years. For a bit of context, the song I'm working on is fast and heavy, mainly triplets. the bass guitar drums and guitars are all playing the same triplets during the main riff. I was about to re record my guitar tracks because they sounded a bit sloppy, the triplets were muddy and I chalked it up to bad tracking. Well, after applying this simple technique it no longer sounds muddy, it's tight and I'm not going to redo the tracks, and that was only after redoing the eq on the bass and guitars 4x multi tracked. I feel like if you were a magician you'd be taken out for revealing tricks of the trade lol. Thank you so much for sharing this. unbelievable.
Thanks for this video! I’ve been a self taught producer for exactly 2 years now and I’ve learned a lot about what makes or breaks my mixes by experimenting. You basically compiled my sporadic thoughts into a video. I’m enjoying reading the comments too. One thing I tried to avoid was shaping every frequency individually, it was always gonna be a waste of time when the music I make is always shifting around range and dynamics. I only do it when something is creating a nasty harmonic in the 5-8k range and that doesn’t even happen if I pick the right expressions and ranges for my instruments.
Thank you very much for this advice, sageaudio. I think dividing the frequency range into sections probably came out of an era of less visualization where mixers had to hear the music more than they could see the frequencies visualized in real time. Now that we have real-time visualization, understanding what "warm" or "airy" sound like is less important. What you're talking about is understanding fundamentally how sound is recorded and produced, which I've never heard explained before, and I wish I had someone explain this to me a long time ago. Kudos to you for this great explanation and presentation. If I had to make one suggestion it would be to just have the advertising at the end of the video since it came across as a little pushy to have it repeated twice. Thank you.
this is golden and definitely more focused I find it useful for determining if I should cut something regularly at certain frequencies that are not relative to the fundamental or use dynamic eq to control relative frequencies that may be a little too resonate
This needs a follow up talking about sub harmonics also, as well as even and odd harmonics. I was taught earlier this year that using sub harmonics can also lead to beautiful sound, and you do that by actually eating energy away from the root tone and adding to subs. Also bc the latter even harmonics make our brain fill in the root tone anyways. But yeah, this came to mind. Feels like this is partly similar to what I was taught, but completely different.
i know everyone thinks this is that magic bullet but really this is what leads way to the “surgical mixing” mistakes. after someone learns about harmonics and the overtone series, they think they can fix their mix by boosting or cutting specific frequencies. then they think that they can throw back in the idea of frequency ranges by “carving out” a frequency space for everything to live in. if you think this is correct, you still need to keep working tbh mixing is about blending and balancing frequencies, and maybe 5% of the time you should be doing surgical work (or commonly known as “turd polishing”) because your source material should not require the use of such laser-like processing. it’s just not what mixing is i just want to say, this video is not the end of the road, but another stepping stone to figuring out mixing. don’t ever stop learning because even the hardened pros are constantly improving
Thanks for your thoughts! You’re totally right that mixing is about blending and balancing. The 4-part harmonic analysis idea we describe is just a tool to help identify areas where harmonics might need attention, we never stated it as the end of the road, just a helpful way to think about processing sources, something more tangible than making decisions based solely off of adjectives like "boomy" or "bright". For beginners and/or those who don't have an ideal monitoring setup for mixing, this can be especially helpful since those can be so open to interpretation. This method isn't necessarily about laser-like processing, but to use the information from the overtone series to guide broader decisions in your mix. We’re not advocating for ‘turd polishing,’ but rather helping to create a stronger foundation for mixing by understanding harmonic relationships. This video is meant to be one piece of the puzzle, and as you said, continuous learning is key in this craft!
I'm a complete noob and tried all these surgical methods. I've meanwhile noticed I have unmixed/"badly" mixed stuff that sounds fine or better than the surgical experiments I have saved.
@@sageaudio i bet the best way to apply this mindset is in the recording phase instead of mixing. you can think of your instruments as shapes instead of sounds almost. dark, bright, edgy, they all could mean shapes instead of ‘sound profiles’
"your source material should not require the use of such laser-like processing. it’s just not what mixing is" well, things aren't always perfect especially when you are using samples, you need to be pretty surgical with those, but yeah, I guess you could argue that in a normal setting (with recorded real instruments) too much EQ is bad because you are trying to correct things rather than enhance them.
It seems to me like this idea can work well with simple instruments, but how does all this apply to instruments like a piano or a guitar, which can generate complex chords and melodies, often leading to many issues across the frenquency range?
In all honesty theres lots of good information here, i have been mixing and producing my own music for about 4 years and in my experience (being self taught) i have come to realize that all of these terms and ideas just end up fading in my brain when i try to actually mix my music. I am not trying to say i'm right or i have the best ideas or anything. I can't lie, the mixing fundamentals i have learned over the years have definitely helped me. I have just found that i'm always happier not following every rule to the end. Following every rule to end eventually just made my music bland and boring and caused me to not embrace passionate and rule bending ideas.
This is just what i needed, i have been struggling to mix certain instruments because of frequency's which poke out but i cant seem to pinpoint, this happens a lot when i try to mix guitars. but this might have just given me that key.
Find this perspective helpful with regards to why analog eqs with their wide bells are considered musical. With a nice wide bell I can massage the low/mid/upper harmonics of a sound over a fairly broad pitch range. Surgical cuts less useful for this approach, but definitely the right way to go for removing annoying resonances which are more likely to be fixed frequencies, like room or nasal cavity resonances
It's certainly very useful to know about overtones, but I wouldn't completely throw away the classic system of "subjective adjectives". I think that terms like "warm" vs. "muddy" vs. "hollow" are great at teaching you to hear frequencies, and what certain EQ moves do to the sound. At some point, you move away from the simplistic chart and start using your ears to determine where to boost and where to cut.
Hello, Sage! I learned some things from you and also, I made a new mixing technique that will enrich pretty much any mix, especially if it's a modern genre! Simply add the static phaser effect to the side signal of the mix, but of course, make sure you slightly turn the side channel volume down in order to stop phase cancellation from happening! I used Guitar Rig 7 Pro to do this, btw, but you can simply divide the master signal into 2 buses (one mid bus and one side bus) if you want to do that for free. Then you use the Phaser plugin from Kilohearts Essentials (which is free btw), then completely turn off the depth and rate down to 0 percent, and then you can play around with other knobs of this effect, but make sure to use both dry and wet signals so that you can hear them both. And then slightly turn down the volume of the side channel to stop the phase cancellation from happening and voila! The enriched mix ready for listening! Tell me what you think about it when you try it out! :)
I have a similar but slighty different approache. There are 4 frequency bands of every "instrument". 1. the fundamental 2. the resonance, this is where the instrument has the highest amplitude or nealy as high as the fundamental. here is where the instrument is resonating. For higher registers fundamental and resonance is the same, for bass instrumenst not. Here is the fundamental often lower in amplitude than the 2nd, 3rd or even 4th overtone. So I divide your overtone area into two different. 3. the (harmonic) overtones. You also could also divide in "body" (musicality) and "presence". 4. the noise, you called it unharmonic overtones. But its not overtons. Its noise. Like pick noise, click of drums, bow noise of strings, konsonants of voices.
That's cool! For number 4 I hear what you're saying - I wanted a way to differentiate sound from the instrument from generated noise via an amplifier, quantization error, electromagnetic interference, rumble from the mic stand, hum, buzz, etc. Overtones aren't disharmonious, but just needed a way to convey the idea. Thanks for watching!
@@sageaudio "Overtones aren't disharmonious" In gerneral thats not true. Its true for most musical instruments. Which are kind of a one dimensional oszilation. Actually one dimensional standing waves. So produced by normal strings ans air columns like brass or organs. Its not true for 2 or 3 dimensional sources. So bells have a strange overton spectrum that is disharmonic but form a kind of residual note. Drums, for instance toms are very complicated. Its has different kinds od oszilatons and each overton is NOT an integer mulitple of the root. So the first 2 overtons of a tom ("the mud") are disharmonic. If the root is around 150 Hz these first harmonics are around 200-300 Hz. Depends of the kind of tom the heads, the tuning etc. BUt usually toms sound better when reducing these. And I once experiement with low tunings of my bass. Down to F# or E. And I used a 220 or even 250 string for the low F#. These strings are so think compared to its length that they become 3 dimensional, too. The overtons above 400 Hz or so are not harmonic anymore! Its like the higher frequencies take a zigzag way through the string. So I had to low cut them and use distortion to bring overtones back.
I'd love a video about mixing low atonal rumbles. They can be super cool, and if used sparingly in the groove alongside kick drums and tonal bass, it's not as niche as people think. I notice it's so hard to mix loud though, and that managing the warbles you can get between clustered freqs when trying to go for a certain character can be somewhat tricky. You mostly hear people use it in intros and stuff, mixed low during the quiet parts where the bass drops out, but it's good for so much more.
...Or you can stick with the 6 general zones and sweep around until you find the "sweet spot"... especially since a song is comprised of multiple notes so you can't ever pinpoint one specific frequency to address tonal problems... unless you're mixing a Gregorian chant maybe.
Actually whenever comes to mixing is obvious that you need to have reference and different treatments for each range of frequencies to appy precisely following the harmonic sprectrum 😅
I can see applying your method to a bass dr, snare, hi-hat, and Tom's. Single note Instruments. How would you apply it to an Instrument that's constantly changing the pitch ?
he pretty clearly explained that on a vocal, which is constantly changing a pitch. I think this is to help find the range for any instrument based on their fundamental, and their corresponding harmonic ranges. so that the ranges aren’t arbitrary, they’re specific to the instrument.
But for this to work you'd need an EQ that changes over time in accordance to what the instrument is playing at a moment? Otherwise you will boost a few specific sounds on that instrument and silence the rest, making it sound uneven as it plays in different ranges in different sections of the song
This can be good if you work with static sound like sample playing single note or one chord but with dynamic material like vocals or anything else. It's better to use dynamic eq or multiband compressor. By the way you don't have to advertise own services twice in single video.
But without a pitch tracked eq the fundamentals note would sound very different from the other notes in the scale because the precise bells have max efficacy. causing possible unbalance in the performance, id suggest or to have a pitch tracked eq or do something broad unless the performance is playing the same note over and over
you should play notes/sounds during ur explanations cuz it might be simple for someone who knows what you know, but i think a lot of producers who need these videos can use the reference.
Being aware of the fundamental frequency, the harmonics, etc, is important. But it is not really good to devise a system around it. It should just be part of your understanding
Thanks for explaining your approach. I lost my engineer friend a while ago. And any assist to learning the mixing/recording art by myself is encouraging. It’s been an overwhelming struggle to learn the theories and apply them. BTW, the latin words et (and) cetera (the rest, others) combine to make etcetera. Not ectcetera. 😉
Okay consider me skeptical for now, as I've only just found this. This is probably something I'll have to get used to. Funnily enough, I've often said to other mixing engineers I trust that I think my mixes are either too muddy, or too bright, without really asking the question of why with the intent to figure it out. I just slap eq bells against various frequency ranges until I think it sounds good, and to my ears it almost never does. I'll take advantage of this, and update when I know if it's helped.
Really informative thankyou, just want to let people know these overtones are referred to as the harmonic series, it was first realised by pythagarus around 500 bc ,which is even more mind blowing. Don’t think pythagarus was mixing and using plugins though,
@ Nothing that I noticed. Eager as I am to present myself as a cave expert my expertise in the field is rather limited, sorry to say. I would describe it as a basic… cave. And a small Greek chapel is there as well. That’s a about it. Mr P’s living quarters felt quite… flintstonish?😊
so I came to this RUclips video because I did a interview for a music studio and I have my bachelors in music production but its been 2 years I'm a rusty so now they want me to come in to do a skill based interview and mix a vocal into a pre mixed beat any tips ? because idk if il get it
Yeah... now try to apply that to a piano! Where you have fundamentals all over the place, each one with complex harmonics. A lot of this becomes a bit irrelevant, and we're back to the basic questions of: is it muddy? Is it honky or harsh? Boomy? Then that "old" way of thinking is still useful. 😊 Monophonic instruments, like bass, vocal, individual drums, etc. are more easily served by this technique, where you can easily see the fundamental. Piano, guitar, organ, string sections? Not so much.
Honestly if you look at the lowest fundamental to begin with as the video implies, you can't miss it, also by observing the tonal balance (I e against pink noise) you will be a mazed at how balanced a piano sound can turn out to be. Cheers!
As @thiagopinheiromusic touched on, if you watch the video starting around 5:50, in the vocal performance example, we explain that it's more about observing the performance. You can certainly find the lowest note of the performance pretty quickly, or you can observe the relative fundamental frequency of the singer's voice itself and then consider your processing in relation to those harmonic structures. It by no means has to be based off of one specific note, but once you find the fundamental area of the source signal, your following processing can be guided by 4-part frequency idea we describe. We never state that you should completely throw out the "old" way of thinking, but it helps to look at things visually with harmonics sometimes, especially if you're just starting out and/or if your monitoring setup isn't the most ideal.
I feel like this formula doesn’t really work when most music is made from many multitudes of fundamental frequencies. Your demonstration basically shows an alternating two notes… which is not most music. It might be useful if you have one note that’s just too loud compared to others, but generally a good mix is not about individual notes, but the larger balance and building up of resonances.
Nice idea, but still the best way is to listen to music, not to look at it. If it sounds right, it is right! Great acoustics and decent monitors, a few good plugins are all you need.
I wonder if you heard about that 'new' ScalerEq plugin. It's an eq where you select your scale, and you can remove ONLY the inharmonic frequencies. You can also add harmonics that fits your scale. Looks like magic but I'm also afraid of phasing issues with such drastic eq...
amazing video this puts everything into very digestible and understandable pieces. does anyone know what software was used in the video it looks so nice and easy to use
There is a reason terms like low, low mid, or boomy, muddy, boxy exist. What if you are listening to the full mix and your friend is giving you constructive criticism. It's much easier to say that the mix is muddy, than to determine which harmonic of exactly which instrument is causing it. Of course you can try and do that, but why?
This is so extremely relative that really do not apply to reality more that 20% of what was explained...because for any particular reason you can still want to boost or cut a Fundamental Freq and/or one of their harmonics...the same way you need or want to boost or cut any other frequencies that are not a Fundamental...the only kind of rule kind is when there it is a annoying and very offensive resonance ..specially in a frequency that is not a fundamental and you cut some dbs because that way sounds better (but not soothe style, that sucks when you take away resonances in a in-discriminatory way a la soothe, thing that most do today and suck the life of a sound)
As a musician who didn't really understand the frequency stuff and had a basic understanding (maybe less than basic) this definitely opens my eyes as to how I can approach mixing. I know that my own mixes has problems, but I struggle to identify what those are and I'm trying to learn and improve my sound as I create and mix. Thank you!
To mix properly you need 4 things: 1. Good sound card (don’t cheap out on that one, you will regret it for the rest of your life -2.000 usd and up), 2. Good (at least decent) monitor speakers, 3. Good recordings 4. 100 burned mixes.
wouldn't you still make the cuts dynamic on the overtones? Also I suppose you still need the sections knowledge to know that you boost where you did to add intelligibility..
But the fundamental frequency and its harmonics literally change every second when playing an instrument or singing, so how is this helpful? You want to automate all the bands in an EQ every second? I don't get this approach when mixing
We are not! If you watch the video around 5:50, in the vocal performance example we explain that it's more about observing the performance, perhaps finding that lowest note or the relative fundamental frequency of the singer's voice itself and considering your processing in relation to those harmonic structures. It by no means has to be based off of one specific note. It just helps to find the fundamental area so your following processing can be guided by 4-part frequency idea we describe.
How do you approach material differently when it's an acoustic guitar say, vs. a supersaw or something synthetic? I'm hesitant to do any sort of "surgical EQ" on an instrument's natural timbre; especially a hollow-bodied acoustic instrument which has a lot of "non-musical" and "disharmonious" characteristics that most listeners would describe as "warm and musical" (even if incorrect; pleasing sounds are pleasing even if it's due to familiarity alone.)
Great question! The best thing to do is follow your ears and consider what makes the most sense in the context of the mix/song. In reality, if each source in your example is well-recorded, you shouldn't really need to do much processing. For both, keeping things as simple as possible is often the best move. If those "disharmonious" characteristics are what make the source sound good and it fits well into the mix despite that, then just do what you can to enhance those things!
Sometimes it is, but there is a fundamental frequency for every note. So if you had a bassline that just used A and E in the key of A minor, the A would most likely have 55Hz as its fundamental, while the E would be above it on 82.4Hz, or below it on 41.2Hz. If your song was in the key of C major (all the white keys), then you can look up the frequency of C, D, E, F etc, and it's likely that the C at the bottom would often be the loudest frequency in the song, as your bassline probably hits it frequently. Your kick drum might be on the same frequency too.
Does this apply to vocals as well? How do i use my ear to find the fundamental, harmonious overtones, and disharmonious overtones? Should i just rely on q3 visual spectral info?
FR. I've watched countless tutorials on compression, EQ, whatever the hell, and it's just like. How do people magically know what to do all the time?? Am I just that unintelligent??? Is music not for me? I'll find myself listening to something I've made and thinking "I mean it sounds good, but what are the flaws it has?", and every time I just CAN'T point out what the issues are because I just don't that this uncanny ability to know what issues are what and how I should fix them.
@@doorstoptable unless youre trying to be a professional mixer i think you should just become an expert at mixing your own music. meaning just trying and doing things until you find out what makes it sound good. I think this is probably how a lot of pros becomes experts with some genre of music they know these little tricks to make it sound good. pro mixers who work any anything have to know fundamentals to be able to work with any kind of music but if you're just a musician there's no point in learning that. Just be an expert at what you're doing. another thing to remember is, if you do it wrong, you accidentally created a new genre. lol. artists and professional craftsmen are two different things
Dynamic resonance suppressors exist nowadays, if this was 10 years ago that would have been fine information, now it's pretty much useless. Could have at least made the bands dynamic in Pro Q
Interesting arguments in the comments. If I bend a string or finger my fretless cello somewhere in between 2 well-tempered notes, have fun arguing how to mix that. LOL
You just articulated everything i do in my head when i do mixing. I have trouble explaining to some people this is so well done!
I’m just gonna put soundgoodizer on each channel and hope for the best 🤞
And then put it on top of itself repeatedly until your processor starts to warm the room up. Mix perfection.
OTT or two on the master
@ sum slighhht
Works everytime 😂
😂👌
Only way to learn mixing properly: 1. Try to mix 2. Listen to it the next day and realize it sounds like shit. Do this for almost every day for the next 2-3 years until 2. Dissappears. Of course watch some RUclips videos now and then to learn something but focus mainly on the practical part. Make decisions based on your ears and not based on youtube videos. Take enough breaks to refresh your ears. Dont waste your time and money on gear/plugins, only if you feel theres something really missing in your library, but it costs a lot of time and energy to adapt to new stuff and the sound improvement is often minor. Also theres a lot of free stuff out there.
To me 10 years but yes
yeah, mixing is a part of making a certain kind of music. No need to make it sound perfect. It's like we humans love organic things. It's just a part of us psychologically
Yeah. I'd add an ingredient called 'reference'. That might double the years needed to start hearing stuff.
Some solid advice here, although for 'gear' the thing I'd say is initially worth investing in is good monitoring: great monitor stands, and great acoustic treatment if you want to go down the speaker route or solid open-back mixing headphones with a solid DAC (if you're more budget/space constrained) can go a long way with today's technology. Having the more accurate monitoring setup possible while developing your ears and learning what great records/mixes/masters sound like is so instrumental in progressing healthy development.
Another piece of advice I can offer to build on this is to reach out to those doing exactly what you want and ask questions, perhaps even try to intern or assist if their open to it. Many experienced pros are often happy to mentor or provide advice to those who reach out from a genuine place of wanting to learn and grow.
@@tocideNot the point and your point ruins the touch and the feel about High quality and very good sounds.
The point is about Fixing the sound and letting ears get a break, so u can hear what's wrong with it, so a road to perfection basically.
Following the harmonic series of every note sung or played by every voice and instrument, including the strength of each that determines its timbre, over the course of a piece of music and EQ-ing it accordingly in real time sounds like a daunting undertaking to say the least.
it's not something to go along with the whole track piece by piece, it's to clean up what needs to be cleaned up when there is excess resonance or peaking due to frequency buildup. These can happen in the sibilant range just as much as the rest of the spectrum, but the general rule of thumb is to have a near-perfect source recording and do as little work to it as possible. What the video is about is applying a more focused approach to equalizing WHEN ITS NEEDED
This is a cool idea but I still think its damaging to mix this way 100% of the time. You're training yourself to be reliant on formulas instead of putting in the work to train your ears. It's not all about being mathematically correct, part of the creative process is making sounds that are unique and imperfect.
I think he’s saying use is a weapon.
Rite
Your ears get trained anyway listening to it. 🤷
Nah.
You are training you mind to know what your ears are hearing.
For example: knowing something is "muddy" is 100% useless until you know what frequencies eliminate or cause "muddiness".
@@georgechristiansen6785but If you can hear what is muddy you can sweep threw with an Equalizer and get rid Off it. In that way you can decide in any Case. In the end it have to Sound good. Math or any science is irrelevant for that 🤟
This is the clearest recorded voice commentary i've ever heard on youtube
It’s those harmonics.
@@huckwalton2307 I'd agree if I didn't watch Dan Worall
Wonder if it’s AI.
@ it's not
@@Evoke-Chaos I’m thinking it might be. Just did an imprint of his voice and now uses text to speech.
I've only been making music for a little over a year, and I was never able to understand the typical way of teaching mixing with words like "muddy" or "clear", so this video is unbelievably helpful! It sounds complicated, but the graphics are so well-made that I find myself understanding right away
I get that technical tricks will never beat real-time creative experience, but getting a clear explanation to start with is invaluable
Be thankful. I didn't have this in 2013-2018. With what's available now, you should be able to get better in half the time it took most of us too.
You. You, sir, are an absolute life saver.
This is a very simplistic approach, where the audio/music needs to be static to actually work. Training your ear to get a grip of the musicality that each element in the mix is providing is far superior to understanding the physics behind it.
This approach is more useful in system tuning and other use cases where the physics of acoustics must be dealt with. Then you need to understand what, and why you are doing it.
Damn this is gold. I feel people are overthinking by assuming you’re telling them to approach mixing this way, rather than just seeing it’s another perspective that you can see when mixing. You don’t have to abide solely by this, but mathematically this system gives you a closer look at sound wave formations. At the end of the day, I do think what you hear/feel is king, but at least for me this is gold because this + low volume focused listening + DAW data = nearly mastered track solely in the mix.
This helped me.... TREMENDOUSLY. Thank you! I tried this on a break beat all in one waveform. I used a reference also. I found the fundamentals of each drum part (snare kick hi hat) and located the unharmonious tones of each by sweeping, and cut them. The difference is NIGHT and DAY! This is a perspective I needed. I think it just clicked for me. Thanks again.
Have you tried this method on vocals?
@@chrisb8429 not yet. but the principal is the same
to think about this, i think for most people hate about mixing is just simply the poor description of languange, nice to see more ppl talk about the mathematically now
Very useful for the songs performed on one note. God help us if someone plays two or more different notes at the same time 😅
Very good for me, a techno artist. 😂
What he says (e.g. for the high pass filter) is based on the lowest note a singer sings or an instrument plays in the song Einstein. If an instrument plays a chord with 20 notes on each beat, there will still be a single lowest note across the whole song for example.
@@foljs5858 Which is fine for your high pass filter, but doesn't address the fundamentals or overtones.
@@georgechristiansen6785 well don't you just consider the harmonic of each note played?
@@karma1511 In theory, but how many EQ bands are you going to use?
You might play 7 notes across multiple octaves and then all the overtones of those.
I just tried mixing a few things after watching this video. It was actually a lot easier to achieve a clearer sound by paying more attention to suppressing inharmonic overtones 👍
Awesome, glad this has helped. Thanks for watching!
Thank you. After watching this video ( twice ) I made my current mix much, much better in about 10 mins. This is literally the most useful video I've ever seen on eq, and I've been schlogging away for years.
For a bit of context, the song I'm working on is fast and heavy, mainly triplets. the bass guitar drums and guitars are all playing the same triplets during the main riff. I was about to re record my guitar tracks because they sounded a bit sloppy, the triplets were muddy and I chalked it up to bad tracking. Well, after applying this simple technique it no longer sounds muddy, it's tight and I'm not going to redo the tracks, and that was only after redoing the eq on the bass and guitars 4x multi tracked.
I feel like if you were a magician you'd be taken out for revealing tricks of the trade lol.
Thank you so much for sharing this. unbelievable.
If you’re doing heavy stuff there’s a good chance your tone selection is also problematic.
Thanks for this video! I’ve been a self taught producer for exactly 2 years now and I’ve learned a lot about what makes or breaks my mixes by experimenting. You basically compiled my sporadic thoughts into a video.
I’m enjoying reading the comments too. One thing I tried to avoid was shaping every frequency individually, it was always gonna be a waste of time when the music I make is always shifting around range and dynamics. I only do it when something is creating a nasty harmonic in the 5-8k range and that doesn’t even happen if I pick the right expressions and ranges for my instruments.
Thank you very much for this advice, sageaudio. I think dividing the frequency range into sections probably came out of an era of less visualization where mixers had to hear the music more than they could see the frequencies visualized in real time. Now that we have real-time visualization, understanding what "warm" or "airy" sound like is less important. What you're talking about is understanding fundamentally how sound is recorded and produced, which I've never heard explained before, and I wish I had someone explain this to me a long time ago. Kudos to you for this great explanation and presentation. If I had to make one suggestion it would be to just have the advertising at the end of the video since it came across as a little pushy to have it repeated twice. Thank you.
this is golden and definitely more focused I find it useful for determining if I should cut something regularly at certain frequencies that are not relative to the fundamental or use dynamic eq to control relative frequencies that may be a little too resonate
This needs a follow up talking about sub harmonics also, as well as even and odd harmonics.
I was taught earlier this year that using sub harmonics can also lead to beautiful sound, and you do that by actually eating energy away from the root tone and adding to subs. Also bc the latter even harmonics make our brain fill in the root tone anyways.
But yeah, this came to mind. Feels like this is partly similar to what I was taught, but completely different.
i know everyone thinks this is that magic bullet but really this is what leads way to the “surgical mixing” mistakes. after someone learns about harmonics and the overtone series, they think they can fix their mix by boosting or cutting specific frequencies. then they think that they can throw back in the idea of frequency ranges by “carving out” a frequency space for everything to live in. if you think this is correct, you still need to keep working tbh
mixing is about blending and balancing frequencies, and maybe 5% of the time you should be doing surgical work (or commonly known as “turd polishing”) because your source material should not require the use of such laser-like processing. it’s just not what mixing is
i just want to say, this video is not the end of the road, but another stepping stone to figuring out mixing. don’t ever stop learning because even the hardened pros are constantly improving
I agree, a "good mix" can make a bad recording a little less sh*t
Thanks for your thoughts! You’re totally right that mixing is about blending and balancing. The 4-part harmonic analysis idea we describe is just a tool to help identify areas where harmonics might need attention, we never stated it as the end of the road, just a helpful way to think about processing sources, something more tangible than making decisions based solely off of adjectives like "boomy" or "bright". For beginners and/or those who don't have an ideal monitoring setup for mixing, this can be especially helpful since those can be so open to interpretation.
This method isn't necessarily about laser-like processing, but to use the information from the overtone series to guide broader decisions in your mix. We’re not advocating for ‘turd polishing,’ but rather helping to create a stronger foundation for mixing by understanding harmonic relationships. This video is meant to be one piece of the puzzle, and as you said, continuous learning is key in this craft!
I'm a complete noob and tried all these surgical methods. I've meanwhile noticed I have unmixed/"badly" mixed stuff that sounds fine or better than the surgical experiments I have saved.
@@sageaudio i bet the best way to apply this mindset is in the recording phase instead of mixing. you can think of your instruments as shapes instead of sounds almost. dark, bright, edgy, they all could mean shapes instead of ‘sound profiles’
"your source material should not require the use of such laser-like processing. it’s just not what mixing is"
well, things aren't always perfect especially when you are using samples, you need to be pretty surgical with those, but yeah, I guess you could argue that in a normal setting (with recorded real instruments) too much EQ is bad because you are trying to correct things rather than enhance them.
It seems to me like this idea can work well with simple instruments, but how does all this apply to instruments like a piano or a guitar, which can generate complex chords and melodies, often leading to many issues across the frenquency range?
Adding this perspective to mastering toolbox, thanks for upload 😊
In all honesty theres lots of good information here, i have been mixing and producing my own music for about 4 years and in my experience (being self taught) i have come to realize that all of these terms and ideas just end up fading in my brain when i try to actually mix my music. I am not trying to say i'm right or i have the best ideas or anything. I can't lie, the mixing fundamentals i have learned over the years have definitely helped me. I have just found that i'm always happier not following every rule to the end. Following every rule to end eventually just made my music bland and boring and caused me to not embrace passionate and rule bending ideas.
This is just what i needed, i have been struggling to mix certain instruments because of frequency's which poke out but i cant seem to pinpoint, this happens a lot when i try to mix guitars. but this might have just given me that key.
Find this perspective helpful with regards to why analog eqs with their wide bells are considered musical. With a nice wide bell I can massage the low/mid/upper harmonics of a sound over a fairly broad pitch range. Surgical cuts less useful for this approach, but definitely the right way to go for removing annoying resonances which are more likely to be fixed frequencies, like room or nasal cavity resonances
I'll add this knowledge to my toolbox. I have scaler eq and it operates on this idea. This helps me understand it better.
this was the video that made eqing good after months of struggle
This seems more like a mastering technique than something you'd use during mixing.
Mixing... Mastering. Tomato... Tomato
The further you go up the frequency spectrum, the more multiples of the fundamental you will encounter because the scale is exponential.
Great video! Never have I watched a video where mixing is explained in this way. This makes so much more sense to me.
Ok that's fine when mixing a note. But what about mixing music?
It's certainly very useful to know about overtones, but I wouldn't completely throw away the classic system of "subjective adjectives". I think that terms like "warm" vs. "muddy" vs. "hollow" are great at teaching you to hear frequencies, and what certain EQ moves do to the sound. At some point, you move away from the simplistic chart and start using your ears to determine where to boost and where to cut.
Hello, Sage!
I learned some things from you and also, I made a new mixing technique that will enrich pretty much any mix, especially if it's a modern genre!
Simply add the static phaser effect to the side signal of the mix, but of course, make sure you slightly turn the side channel volume down in order to stop phase cancellation from happening!
I used Guitar Rig 7 Pro to do this, btw, but you can simply divide the master signal into 2 buses (one mid bus and one side bus) if you want to do that for free. Then you use the Phaser plugin from Kilohearts Essentials (which is free btw), then completely turn off the depth and rate down to 0 percent, and then you can play around with other knobs of this effect, but make sure to use both dry and wet signals so that you can hear them both. And then slightly turn down the volume of the side channel to stop the phase cancellation from happening and voila! The enriched mix ready for listening!
Tell me what you think about it when you try it out! :)
@@promickeyartist seems cool on snares
Thanks for sharing, will do!
I have a similar but slighty different approache.
There are 4 frequency bands of every "instrument".
1. the fundamental
2. the resonance, this is where the instrument has the highest amplitude or nealy as high as the fundamental. here is where the instrument is resonating.
For higher registers fundamental and resonance is the same, for bass instrumenst not. Here is the fundamental often lower in amplitude than the 2nd, 3rd or even 4th overtone.
So I divide your overtone area into two different.
3. the (harmonic) overtones. You also could also divide in "body" (musicality) and "presence".
4. the noise, you called it unharmonic overtones. But its not overtons. Its noise. Like pick noise, click of drums, bow noise of strings, konsonants of voices.
That's cool! For number 4 I hear what you're saying - I wanted a way to differentiate sound from the instrument from generated noise via an amplifier, quantization error, electromagnetic interference, rumble from the mic stand, hum, buzz, etc.
Overtones aren't disharmonious, but just needed a way to convey the idea. Thanks for watching!
@@sageaudio "Overtones aren't disharmonious"
In gerneral thats not true. Its true for most musical instruments. Which are kind of a one dimensional oszilation. Actually one dimensional standing waves. So produced by normal strings ans air columns like brass or organs.
Its not true for 2 or 3 dimensional sources.
So bells have a strange overton spectrum that is disharmonic but form a kind of residual note. Drums, for instance toms are very complicated. Its has different kinds od oszilatons and each overton is NOT an integer mulitple of the root. So the first 2 overtons of a tom ("the mud") are disharmonic. If the root is around 150 Hz these first harmonics are around 200-300 Hz. Depends of the kind of tom the heads, the tuning etc. BUt usually toms sound better when reducing these.
And I once experiement with low tunings of my bass. Down to F# or E. And I used a 220 or even 250 string for the low F#. These strings are so think compared to its length that they become 3 dimensional, too. The overtons above 400 Hz or so are not harmonic anymore! Its like the higher frequencies take a zigzag way through the string. So I had to low cut them and use distortion to bring overtones back.
If my song is in the key of A, I apply a dynamic cut to the frequencies that don’t align with the scale. This helps the song feel more musical.
Huh, strange, how do you do that?
Do you change it if there are notes outside of the scale, or modulations?
I'd love a video about mixing low atonal rumbles. They can be super cool, and if used sparingly in the groove alongside kick drums and tonal bass, it's not as niche as people think. I notice it's so hard to mix loud though, and that managing the warbles you can get between clustered freqs when trying to go for a certain character can be somewhat tricky. You mostly hear people use it in intros and stuff, mixed low during the quiet parts where the bass drops out, but it's good for so much more.
I'm not getting it. The fundamental would keep changing??
Thank You ❤...You are revealing some hidden 💎 gems...
This is why I subscribed to your channel...
...Or you can stick with the 6 general zones and sweep around until you find the "sweet spot"... especially since a song is comprised of multiple notes so you can't ever pinpoint one specific frequency to address tonal problems... unless you're mixing a Gregorian chant maybe.
Actually whenever comes to mixing is obvious that you need to have reference and different treatments for each range of frequencies to appy precisely following the harmonic sprectrum 😅
damn. brilliant...really simple and useful. ❤❤
I can see applying your method to a bass dr, snare, hi-hat, and Tom's. Single note Instruments. How would you apply it to an Instrument that's constantly changing the pitch ?
I would use wider curves. Sometimes it helps to be precise but usually the best EQ shapes are broad and gentle.
Surfer EQ
Ignore the harmonics and get the range you need with a wider q.
This video, at least to me, is just impractical.
he pretty clearly explained that on a vocal, which is constantly changing a pitch. I think this is to help find the range for any instrument based on their fundamental, and their corresponding harmonic ranges. so that the ranges aren’t arbitrary, they’re specific to the instrument.
Go crazy and automate the eq bell curves on a vocal.. would take a long time, but might be worth it?
But for this to work you'd need an EQ that changes over time in accordance to what the instrument is playing at a moment? Otherwise you will boost a few specific sounds on that instrument and silence the rest, making it sound uneven as it plays in different ranges in different sections of the song
This can be good if you work with static sound like sample playing single note or one chord but with dynamic material like vocals or anything else. It's better to use dynamic eq or multiband compressor. By the way you don't have to advertise own services twice in single video.
But without a pitch tracked eq the fundamentals note would sound very different from the other notes in the scale because the precise bells have max efficacy. causing possible unbalance in the performance, id suggest or to have a pitch tracked eq or do something broad unless the performance is playing the same note over and over
What if my fundamental frequency is constantly bouncing around?
you should play notes/sounds during ur explanations cuz it might be simple for someone who knows what you know, but i think a lot of producers who need these videos can use the reference.
Being aware of the fundamental frequency, the harmonics, etc, is important. But it is not really good to devise a system around it. It should just be part of your understanding
Thanks for explaining your approach. I lost my engineer friend a while ago. And any assist to learning the mixing/recording art by myself is encouraging. It’s been an overwhelming struggle to learn the theories and apply them.
BTW, the latin words et (and) cetera (the rest, others) combine to make etcetera. Not ectcetera. 😉
Okay consider me skeptical for now, as I've only just found this. This is probably something I'll have to get used to. Funnily enough, I've often said to other mixing engineers I trust that I think my mixes are either too muddy, or too bright, without really asking the question of why with the intent to figure it out. I just slap eq bells against various frequency ranges until I think it sounds good, and to my ears it almost never does. I'll take advantage of this, and update when I know if it's helped.
This is one for videos about Freq and EQing
Really informative thankyou, just want to let people know these overtones are referred to as the harmonic series, it was first realised by pythagarus around 500 bc ,which is even more mind blowing.
Don’t think pythagarus was mixing and using plugins though,
I’ve been to Pythagarus cave at the island of Samos in Greece. There were no plugins laying around.😎
You never know haha...🤫
@@flatlandcircuitry Is it true that Pythagorus' cave was shaped like a perfect right-angle triangle?
@ Nothing that I noticed. Eager as I am to present myself as a cave expert my expertise in the field is rather limited, sorry to say. I would describe it as a basic… cave. And a small Greek chapel is there as well. That’s a about it. Mr P’s living quarters felt quite… flintstonish?😊
The instrument audio is missing 😳
FinalFinalFinalVersion14 is actually so real dawg
😂😂just made 30 versions of something yesterday and reviewing them later they all sound so similar to the point where idk what sounds best anymore LOL
this is a terrific video!!! thank you !!!
How does this work on instruments when they play multiple notes and chords?
so I came to this RUclips video because I did a interview for a music studio and I have my bachelors in music production but its been 2 years I'm a rusty so now they want me to come in to do a skill based interview and mix a vocal into a pre mixed beat any tips ? because idk if il get it
Yeah... now try to apply that to a piano! Where you have fundamentals all over the place, each one with complex harmonics.
A lot of this becomes a bit irrelevant, and we're back to the basic questions of: is it muddy? Is it honky or harsh? Boomy?
Then that "old" way of thinking is still useful. 😊
Monophonic instruments, like bass, vocal, individual drums, etc. are more easily served by this technique, where you can easily see the fundamental. Piano, guitar, organ, string sections? Not so much.
Honestly if you look at the lowest fundamental to begin with as the video implies, you can't miss it, also by observing the tonal balance (I e against pink noise) you will be a mazed at how balanced a piano sound can turn out to be. Cheers!
As @thiagopinheiromusic touched on, if you watch the video starting around 5:50, in the vocal performance example, we explain that it's more about observing the performance.
You can certainly find the lowest note of the performance pretty quickly, or you can observe the relative fundamental frequency of the singer's voice itself and then consider your processing in relation to those harmonic structures. It by no means has to be based off of one specific note, but once you find the fundamental area of the source signal, your following processing can be guided by 4-part frequency idea we describe.
We never state that you should completely throw out the "old" way of thinking, but it helps to look at things visually with harmonics sometimes, especially if you're just starting out and/or if your monitoring setup isn't the most ideal.
I feel like this formula doesn’t really work when most music is made from many multitudes of fundamental frequencies. Your demonstration basically shows an alternating two notes… which is not most music. It might be useful if you have one note that’s just too loud compared to others, but generally a good mix is not about individual notes, but the larger balance and building up of resonances.
Nice idea, but still the best way is to listen to music, not to look at it. If it sounds right, it is right! Great acoustics and decent monitors, a few good plugins are all you need.
It would be cool to actually have the audio playing as an example, don't you think?
It is, near the end of the video there's a demo.
super cool video. better than netflix today 🤩
I wonder if you heard about that 'new' ScalerEq plugin. It's an eq where you select your scale, and you can remove ONLY the inharmonic frequencies. You can also add harmonics that fits your scale. Looks like magic but I'm also afraid of phasing issues with such drastic eq...
Or you could just record quality audio before it gets to mixing
This sounds super interesting, will definitely be looking into this!
@@em_the_bee ridiculous
Extremely well made video, and informational as well. Will be very helpful in leveling up my mixes
Excellent
Thanks 🎉
This video helps heaps, thanks, definitely a better way to think about it. With this technique and using your ears I'm sure my eq will improve
Glad to hear it, thanks for commenting!
thank you guy who sounds like ezreal
I think it’s a cool video. I would have loved music examples while you show what you do.
amazing video this puts everything into very digestible and understandable pieces. does anyone know what software was used in the video it looks so nice and easy to use
fabfilter pro-q, its paid
Thanks for the sauce
There is a reason terms like low, low mid, or boomy, muddy, boxy exist. What if you are listening to the full mix and your friend is giving you constructive criticism. It's much easier to say that the mix is muddy, than to determine which harmonic of exactly which instrument is causing it. Of course you can try and do that, but why?
Thank you
You're so welcome, appreciate your viewership and the comment!
thanks for a well explained point
Appreciate your comment!
Sounds useful but why is there no examples of sound in the video.
This is so extremely relative that really do not apply to reality more that 20% of what was explained...because for any particular reason you can still want to boost or cut a Fundamental Freq and/or one of their harmonics...the same way you need or want to boost or cut any other frequencies that are not a Fundamental...the only kind of rule kind is when there it is a annoying and very offensive resonance ..specially in a frequency that is not a fundamental and you cut some dbs because that way sounds better (but not soothe style, that sucks when you take away resonances in a in-discriminatory way a la soothe, thing that most do today and suck the life of a sound)
Excellent!
Thanks sage
This is good.. sometimes. I work with a guy that thinks like this. Never has a good mix live or in the studio😂
As a musician who didn't really understand the frequency stuff and had a basic understanding (maybe less than basic) this definitely opens my eyes as to how I can approach mixing. I know that my own mixes has problems, but I struggle to identify what those are and I'm trying to learn and improve my sound as I create and mix. Thank you!
can you make Video How to mixing Country Music with Steel Guitar
To mix properly you need 4 things: 1. Good sound card (don’t cheap out on that one, you will regret it for the rest of your life -2.000 usd and up), 2. Good (at least decent) monitor speakers, 3. Good recordings 4. 100 burned mixes.
Yup a shitty sound card simply wont be able handle anything and you'll end up getting shitty sound just recording.
That’s just simply not true, but ok.
wouldn't you still make the cuts dynamic on the overtones?
Also I suppose you still need the sections knowledge to know that you boost where you did to add intelligibility..
Cool… But it’s still of advantage to know of the characteristics of a divided Hz spectrum!
Certainly! We never stated that this video's method is the only way to do things!
Definition of overthinking. You sound real smart though!!!
Very educative, thanks.
What plugin is this? This is exactly what I’ve been looking for.
fabfilter pro-q-3
@@danieljohn4014excellent vst and worth every penny.
is this a particular plug-in that people use for EQ ? Anyone know it's name? I see the word MOVO i think
If you're starting stock eqs are plenty. The industry standard has been proQ. There's lots of options though no reason to confine yourself
But the fundamental frequency and its harmonics literally change every second when playing an instrument or singing, so how is this helpful? You want to automate all the bands in an EQ every second? I don't get this approach when mixing
You can you use a dynamic eq ? I think it’s useful to think about frequency’s this way
Auto tune has an EQ rider that kind of does that. That mixed with a little dynamic eq can surely get you close
it sounds like you are assuming that there is one note in a song
Are we supposed to use more? I was wondering why my tunes were a little bland
We are not! If you watch the video around 5:50, in the vocal performance example we explain that it's more about observing the performance, perhaps finding that lowest note or the relative fundamental frequency of the singer's voice itself and considering your processing in relation to those harmonic structures. It by no means has to be based off of one specific note. It just helps to find the fundamental area so your following processing can be guided by 4-part frequency idea we describe.
i wish you let us listen to the audio when you were talking about the eq
More audio examples would be a great idea, thanks for sharing your feedback!
So the fundamental frequency is the loudest/most persistent transient in a sound or the lowest consistent? I don't really understand that distinction
How do you approach material differently when it's an acoustic guitar say, vs. a supersaw or something synthetic? I'm hesitant to do any sort of "surgical EQ" on an instrument's natural timbre; especially a hollow-bodied acoustic instrument which has a lot of "non-musical" and "disharmonious" characteristics that most listeners would describe as "warm and musical" (even if incorrect; pleasing sounds are pleasing even if it's due to familiarity alone.)
Great question! The best thing to do is follow your ears and consider what makes the most sense in the context of the mix/song. In reality, if each source in your example is well-recorded, you shouldn't really need to do much processing. For both, keeping things as simple as possible is often the best move.
If those "disharmonious" characteristics are what make the source sound good and it fits well into the mix despite that, then just do what you can to enhance those things!
Is the fundamental frequency the same as the key of the song?
Sometimes it is, but there is a fundamental frequency for every note. So if you had a bassline that just used A and E in the key of A minor, the A would most likely have 55Hz as its fundamental, while the E would be above it on 82.4Hz, or below it on 41.2Hz. If your song was in the key of C major (all the white keys), then you can look up the frequency of C, D, E, F etc, and it's likely that the C at the bottom would often be the loudest frequency in the song, as your bassline probably hits it frequently. Your kick drum might be on the same frequency too.
Does this apply to vocals as well? How do i use my ear to find the fundamental, harmonious overtones, and disharmonious overtones? Should i just rely on q3 visual spectral info?
well done. 👏🏽🙏🏽
Man I’m too stupid for this
FR. I've watched countless tutorials on compression, EQ, whatever the hell, and it's just like. How do people magically know what to do all the time?? Am I just that unintelligent??? Is music not for me?
I'll find myself listening to something I've made and thinking "I mean it sounds good, but what are the flaws it has?", and every time I just CAN'T point out what the issues are because I just don't that this uncanny ability to know what issues are what and how I should fix them.
It jsut takes a lot of practice and experience tbh, you just have to kind of fake it thil you make it.
@@doorstoptable unless youre trying to be a professional mixer i think you should just become an expert at mixing your own music. meaning just trying and doing things until you find out what makes it sound good. I think this is probably how a lot of pros becomes experts with some genre of music they know these little tricks to make it sound good. pro mixers who work any anything have to know fundamentals to be able to work with any kind of music but if you're just a musician there's no point in learning that. Just be an expert at what you're doing.
another thing to remember is, if you do it wrong, you accidentally created a new genre. lol. artists and professional craftsmen are two different things
Dynamic resonance suppressors exist nowadays, if this was 10 years ago that would have been fine information, now it's pretty much useless. Could have at least made the bands dynamic in Pro Q
I mean this is all pretty cool, but why have you not recorded an accurate representation of how dipping these hz sounds on the actual recording
how does this help compression? like MB?
Interesting arguments in the comments. If I bend a string or finger my fretless cello somewhere in between 2 well-tempered notes, have fun arguing how to mix that. LOL