1-All you need is x plugin chain 0:31 2-Seek and destroy all resonant frequency 2:09 3-Adjust x magic frequency 3:56 4-Compress everything 5:10 5-Never use presets 8:41 6-Never use more than x decibels 11:26 7-Copy your reference track 15:24 8-Never mix in the recording phase 16:56 9-Always bus your wet effects 18:37
"Never mix in the recording phase" - I find it so much easier to know what I want to record if I rough mix as I go along. I can tell what else the song does or doesn't need pretty effectively.
Yup this is the one. Im a student of the quick mix myself, saves time, and money for the artist if you have the ability to do it very fast on the fly. Nothing fancy, just minor adjustments to make it fit the framework and context of the song. Big picture thinking is always critical to a song
I think "Mixing tips causing you to ruin your mix because you are misinterpreting" is more appropriate. Most of these are supposed guidelines, not one size fits all plug and play magic....but it is good you are shedding light on the issue.
I love the last tip. My latest mix I'm working on, I used an ungodly amount of sends, and in retrospect, I probably only needed about 50% of them, the rest could've just been inserts
I'm the opposite. I put everything on the main by habit then realise afterwards "Oh, that reverb/comp/modulation/whatever probably should have been on a aux"
I'm a musician/sound tech and the amount of parallelism between "mixing tips" and "create awesome chord progression in 5 minutes!!!!" stuff is just staggering every time. People in general don't want to put in work over years and years to get good at something, they want to be great right now, sound awesome without putting in any work or really struggling though the mud of being average or poor at what they do. People want the goal, not the journey. And it irks me to no end why people are so hasty.
For reference mixes, I think of it in terms of a playlist. If my mix were on a playlist with the other tracks, would it fit in with them? Does it sound too much darker or too much brighter, or are the drums at a wildly different volume, etc.? If the listener would be reaching for the controls when my track comes on, then I still have work to do.
Great video. Lol my colleague told me my mixes sounds great, but I didn't even know rules such as "seek and destroy resonant frequency" or "never mix in the recording phase". It's always better to learn what something does and experiment on your own, rather than trusting tutorials and tips blindly.
It's all about listening properly really. I tend to listen critically to the whole mix, identify problem areas and then go in and fix just those problems; then rinse and repeat until it stops hurting. It's always worth being cautious when a tutorial recommends a specific set of plugins without explaining what those plugins are doing. Then go listen again and compare to your references
What I get from these tips, is something I've said in a broader sense: Never say never, and never say always! Mixing is the art of compensation, no situations are ever the same and there is no only one "right way" to solve a problem who's answer is subjective anyway.
I use fl studio but this is the best tutorial I have watched ever in my music journey, I can understand everything now. And can't wait to apply these tips to my music
About that never boost/cut more than x decibels rule, I do have a somewhat similar one personally, but it is still very much open. "Dont't just fully max/min a knob or slider on something, the right answer is usually inbetween." The maximum and minimum values are generally only really useful if you'd kinda like to go above or below of what's available but that's out of reach :v One of the best ways to mix/eq something, or use all kinds of plugins, is to turn the knob all the way up and down and then ease into it until you find the value you like the most. Caveat: do NOT do this for volume.
Don't know who said it first but my favorite tip is a critical question to yourself after you've made changes for the 27th times. "Does it really sound better? Or does it just sound different?" When you reach the last point, you can call it done.
8:16 As a guitarist, that volume increase sounds very unnatural. It'd probably disappear in a mix, but it immediately stands out on its own. I'd still go with compression there if it can't be re-recorded.
Compression won't do you any magic either. All it does is essentially the same thing: controls the gain locally, according to the signal loudness. So, it would sound at least as unnatural as manual editing, and probably even worse: due to the substantial difference in loudness, the neighbor notes would be affected by the compressor noticeably differently (e.g. have higher attack transients).
@@vinesworth I don't see the issue in using compression on such a funk/rythm guitar sound. Compression on clean, rythmic funk guitar is part of the sound. Not compressing a funk guitar would mean you don't hear the ghost notes as much, which can be detrimental depending on the sound you're looking for, and the context. Guitarists use compression pedals too.
I'm mixing for a friend and the EQ I used on the kick drums could easily be the marketing image for the plugin with how extreme it is lol. 30dB between the lowest cut and highest boost. And it sounds bangin!
this is one of the best mixing tuts I've seen on here. ple will always tell you boost this and cut this forgetting to know that your mic is different from their and so is your room condition and as a result in the end your mix never sounds like theirs.
Great video :D A lot of this stuff is already part of my philosophy, but I hear these types of things so often from inexperienced producers I'm teaching. I know this will be really helpful to a lot of people. One of the main themes in this video I feel is not taking any suggestions as Gospel or as the 1 true way but rather looking at why somebody would do something and learning out of that. This I feel is one of the most important things to learn as a producer to both feel confident in experimenting and confident in understanding what you're doing. Thanks a lot for making this video :) I Will defo share this with people who I know are falling into some of these patterns.
"Never mix in the recording phase" sounds kinda stupid. While you can't mix for a full track when you don't have everything there yet you can set it up so it's making your job easier in the mixing phase. And a lot of the time, the recording IS mixing. You want to get the gain, mic position etc. right from the recording so you don't have to change much after the fact. Especially dynamics can sound way different when actually recorded, depending on the instrument, compared to just adjusting the volume in the mix.
I do find using an auxiliary bus for reverb useful when I know I'm going to want the same reverb on multiple tracks, like backup vocals. I think this tip to always aux your verbs is a holdover from 20 years ago when running more than a couple reverbs would big down your DAW.
I’ve seen these pieces of advice on mastering videos. I get being conservative on the mastering stage, but in the mixing stage, you have to get the track sound how you want/need it to sound. I dropped most of these pieces of advice a long time ago.
At 7:30 editing the second Guitar part. As a guitarist, there are times that I WANT ghost notes, then hard articulated staccato notes, finger picking, and then harder picked notes. So, if I ever found out a mixer/producer/mastering engineer F'd with my guitar parts like this... Now, if the guitar part needs to have flat dynamics, then I will record or re-record the part as needed. You just killed the ghosted notes and dynamic range in that part. You need to understand how that part sits in the mix AND how that part is rhythmically interacting with the vocal, piano, bass, kick, hi-hat and snare. I might need to drop the volume of those two notes to allow other parts to accent their part in that moment in the song/mix.
@@pradeeppandey1978 definitely. Its like the first thing we learn, and the first thing we forget. Get the volumes right, the EQ decisions we then make are far more effective.
I hunt them always but i cut them only max 4db Sometimes only 2db. So it doesnot kill the sound. But makes it littlebit cleaner. Then i boost it with spectre. My mixdown sound pretty good. But still learning.
Before you use a tool because you can, ask yourself first why you need it. if you don't find a specific, and I do mean specific, reason why than there is no need to use that tool. This also goes for limitations. Everything you do in a mix should be to archive a specific goal, and not just to make you feel like you're doing something.
I find that if you're ignoring the "never use presets rule" with something like Repeater or some reverb where all the presets are 100% wet, it's generally more convenient to use it as a bus, but if you're using something like Toraverb where the presets aren't 100% wet, it's more convenient to use it as an insert.
Love your lesson and always learn something. Thank you! If you could answer a question for me, I’m curious to know what you use for your EQ and compression, it seems like you’re using some sort of a modular set up that allows you to put all types of different stuff inside of one plug-in chain. At least that’s how it looks online in your videos.
While it’s true that the sausage shaped synth bass tone appears to be completely hard limited and doesn’t need compression. If you’re making super dense EDM, you can STILL get a fatter sound using multiband or OTT (up/down compression) to further squash between frequencies that have varied dynamic range rather than looking at the overall peak volume.
I don't agree at all on the vocal chain part : if you have a vocal chain that helps remove proximity effect, remove excessive low end (obviously, this is genre dependant like you will roll off a lot more in edm), compress to taste and add brightness, you're done, you don't have to think about you're vocal anymore : you can start mixing, balancing, playing with effects... 💖
Effect busing was necessary in the pre-digital analog days because everything was hardware. It just wasn't economically viable to have a different EQ unit for every drum & cymbal in your kit. Or a different reverb unit for every vocal track in your mix. Most studios just wouldn't have the budget or rack space to house that many units. Plus you'd end up with a ton of wiring to deal with. Plugins are a whole new ball game. Modern DAW's have almost unlimited inserts & you can call up as many instances of any plugin as your CPU will tolerate. Unless you prefer to use busing, there's no longer the necessity to work that way.
Matter of fact VMR with Slate is probably the Best Pre Mastering Mixing Plugin out there IF....u understand all you can do with it!!! I’m telling you guys VMR sounds great especially on DRUMS GUITAR VOCALS AND MIX BUS
Pretty good video, over all I agree but I kinda disagree with #9. I don't filly disagree, there are some occasions where I will insert a reverb or delay directly on a track, but I find that they are very few and far between at least in my own workflow. The main reason is that I like to have different processing on my reverbs than on my main tracks. Just to pick one example maybe I'll put a super aggressive de-esser on my reverb aux (before the reverb) to tame the top end washiness, and this could end up being much more extreme de-essing than I would want on the main vocal track, but perfect on the reverb send. I like to EQ my reverbs, sometimes compress them, etc. That's the main reason why I almost always use auxes for wet effects, just to be able to really sculpt them the way I want them.
I've learnt this tip: Start searching resonant frequencies from the left of the frequency spectrum. And only remove resonant frequencies in the high mids or highs if you can hear it without creating any peaks by yourself (Don't add peaks in highs or high mids to find resonant frequencies)
i often clip a analog plug in. because it´s an analoge sym and have enough headroom. u get intressting distortions in the red area^^ same with klanghelm and joe meek. and sometimes i use them in the green area.^^
3:13 another thing to add, don't as a rule of thumb eliminate the resonant frequency in its entirety. Maybe just reduce it somewhat. What happened to character in music? Music isn't a collection of variables we arbitrarily define as "perfect". They're a constant trade-off. Yes, eliminiating a resonant frequency may remove what is, in isolation, an unpleasant ring. But if that "unpleasant ring" is what makes the sample interesting in the first place, say a snare, what's the point of having that sample in the first place? A good snare is greater than the sum of its parts. And it doesn't have to be the punchiest, snappiest, cleanest snare. It just has to work in the context of that track. Your point on not as a rule of thumb sweeping with a steep EQ over it is especially important when you consider that THIS IS NOT HOW YOUR AUDIENCE WILL HEAR IT, THEREFORE, IT'S NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE SOUND AS A WHOLE, LET ALONE IN THE CONTEXT OF YOUR PRODUCTION. You end up priming yourself to hyperfocus on a ringing sound that your audience won't hear, ruining your sound design or mixdown process. Close your DAW, take a break, do something else. Come back with fresh ears.
Chapter 3 : Some of those obvious resonant become apparent by themselves, over time, if you sort of get used to the overall mix/your song. It's like all of the sudden it pops out.
Use common sense, would be the general takeaway. One note about aux track vs direct insert. If you know what you want to get, by all means, use direct insert, and dial mix as you please. Like that snare drum example. But if you have complex mix, that will require you to process your reverb separately, if you are going to use multiple reverbs on drums, or vocals, if you are going to compress reverb or distort it, obviously, having it as a separate track that you can toggle pre-post on and off as well will make your life easier.
7:00 It's just like editing photo's, don't try to get every bit of color depth or dynamic range: too soon it looks exagerated. Thanks for the video and remembering me to be "tastefull".
#2, Warren Huart called these "offensive" frequencies and said, If you go looking for something offensive, you will find it. Having said that, Soothe 2 is awesome!
Every single one of these mixing tips is really the same tip: don't add processing just for the sake of it; only ever add the processing that each sound actually needs to get it to where you want it to be.
but with the bus ya can create volume without the master clipping but it still sounds harder there is a little parralel compression what takes place when ya mix with busses
I record everything I play and sing as I think sounds right. Then I simply utilise the Cubase Pro stuff to attempt to improve upon the final sound. I have been learning for 8 years and still not even good enough!
One time I worked on an album mix for a week and at the end applied a 20hz high pass filter across all tracks but it was actually a high cut filter fml so I just rendered basically a 12 track album of brown noise and I didn't realise until I had sent the WAV files to the client, and deleted all the project files, stems and audio recordings from the entire session off my own computer. I tried to do a hard drive recovery but a power surge fried my computer and now I've lost my income and if I don't come up with some kind of work soon I am looking at doing some solid time on the streets.
If the need for only 4 dB was the rule then the eq knobs would be made so they only do +/- 4 dB, funnily enough they are made to do up to +/- 18 dB on some real desks, guess where I turn them to sometimes?…..had no RUclips or influencers 45 years ago when I started, turned the knobs until it sounded right, that’s the only rule, do what you have to do to make it sound right, listen and don’t Look 👀
oh there are tons of them mainly because they use whatever DAW they are required to work with, VSTs make it easier for them to switch back and forth because the paradigm within them is always the same
Most of these, I agree with, and have learnt from, because I made the mistake, but, 'never mix in the recording phase', well, that's not a thing, really, is it? The whole idea of a mix, is the sound - however objective - you want to tune to sound like, so the mix starts life in the mind, before it gets into the real world And the who thing progresses until you sign it off. Also, performances laid down as overdubs, or later vocal takes, benefit wonderfully if the headphone mix is what the player/singer love. Nice vid, though.
Just stop listening to people trying to sell you gear. Use whatever gear you have but most importantly use your ears. Does it sound good to you? Good, now listen to it in 3 different environments. On your monitors, on headphones and in your car. If you don't have a car then try some kind of run of the mill boom box. Nothing too fancy. If it sounds good all 3 ways congratulations it's a good mix.
1-All you need is x plugin chain 0:31
2-Seek and destroy all resonant frequency 2:09
3-Adjust x magic frequency 3:56
4-Compress everything 5:10
5-Never use presets 8:41
6-Never use more than x decibels 11:26
7-Copy your reference track 15:24
8-Never mix in the recording phase 16:56
9-Always bus your wet effects 18:37
thaaaank you wish more youtubers did this in their descriptions or pinned comments!
Good man!
Thx for the tips J.
Thanks, I was hoping to find some new tips in this video, this saved me from wasting time on things I already have heard.
God bless you my friend
"Never mix in the recording phase" - I find it so much easier to know what I want to record if I rough mix as I go along. I can tell what else the song does or doesn't need pretty effectively.
Same. I don't see it as a problem because the final product is ALWAYS so different, on purpose.
Yup this is the one. Im a student of the quick mix myself, saves time, and money for the artist if you have the ability to do it very fast on the fly. Nothing fancy, just minor adjustments to make it fit the framework and context of the song. Big picture thinking is always critical to a song
I think "Mixing tips causing you to ruin your mix because you are misinterpreting" is more appropriate. Most of these are supposed guidelines, not one size fits all plug and play magic....but it is good you are shedding light on the issue.
"Know all the rules and be willing to break them" was the best advice I ever got after I ruined a mix :)
Yep. Rules are made to be broken but you need to be aware of the rules to understand when it's right to break them.
@@MASAo7 so where is the difference to "Know all the rules and be willing to break them" ?
@@OdoSendaidokai There's not. I was agreeing with you. 🤷
@@MASAo7 alternate advice for drummer: know the breaks and be willing the RULE them (evil laughs) (idk y'all can just delete me)
@@mikul3122 I like that. But if you're gonna own it then REALLY own it! 🤟
I love the last tip. My latest mix I'm working on, I used an ungodly amount of sends, and in retrospect, I probably only needed about 50% of them, the rest could've just been inserts
I'm the opposite. I put everything on the main by habit then realise afterwards "Oh, that reverb/comp/modulation/whatever probably should have been on a aux"
Yooo mann! This alone made me finish a track that I cant even finish for the past 2 weeks as i never got satisfied
I'm a musician/sound tech and the amount of parallelism between "mixing tips" and "create awesome chord progression in 5 minutes!!!!" stuff is just staggering every time.
People in general don't want to put in work over years and years to get good at something, they want to be great right now, sound awesome without putting in any work or really struggling though the mud of being average or poor at what they do.
People want the goal, not the journey.
And it irks me to no end why people are so hasty.
For reference mixes, I think of it in terms of a playlist. If my mix were on a playlist with the other tracks, would it fit in with them? Does it sound too much darker or too much brighter, or are the drums at a wildly different volume, etc.? If the listener would be reaching for the controls when my track comes on, then I still have work to do.
great way to put it, especially if you make dance music
I love your use of a "play list" rather than a "reference track". That makes more sense to me since each mix is unique.
Number 1 - there are no rules!
Number 2 - A good song > a good mix
Great video. Lol my colleague told me my mixes sounds great, but I didn't even know rules such as "seek and destroy resonant frequency" or "never mix in the recording phase". It's always better to learn what something does and experiment on your own, rather than trusting tutorials and tips blindly.
It's all about listening properly really. I tend to listen critically to the whole mix, identify problem areas and then go in and fix just those problems; then rinse and repeat until it stops hurting. It's always worth being cautious when a tutorial recommends a specific set of plugins without explaining what those plugins are doing. Then go listen again and compare to your references
I do the same. It’s really motivating. But it’s hard to get satisfied as I always feel it can get better
What I get from these tips, is something I've said in a broader sense: Never say never, and never say always! Mixing is the art of compensation, no situations are ever the same and there is no only one "right way" to solve a problem who's answer is subjective anyway.
Really good video which put a whole lot of perspective for me because I sometimes get stuck in the box.
Wow, this really changed my perspective about creating music! I was always so technical with everything and sort of believing all of these myths!!
I use fl studio but this is the best tutorial I have watched ever in my music journey, I can understand everything now. And can't wait to apply these tips to my music
Love presets. I never used them and then I did. Now I LOVE them and ESPECIALLY on Verbs and Lays
Recorded multiple albums for other bands and have several thousands of hours of studio experience - I agree with 100% of what's said in this video!
About that never boost/cut more than x decibels rule, I do have a somewhat similar one personally, but it is still very much open.
"Dont't just fully max/min a knob or slider on something, the right answer is usually inbetween."
The maximum and minimum values are generally only really useful if you'd kinda like to go above or below of what's available but that's out of reach :v
One of the best ways to mix/eq something, or use all kinds of plugins, is to turn the knob all the way up and down and then ease into it until you find the value you like the most.
Caveat: do NOT do this for volume.
Don't know who said it first but my favorite tip is a critical question to yourself after you've made changes for the 27th times. "Does it really sound better? Or does it just sound different?" When you reach the last point, you can call it done.
thanks so much you have shown you have a great understanding of sound, and mixing...
keep'm coming like this!!
Seriously, get out of my head with these tips!! I just started using wet/dry fx on things like snare and aux percs. Great vid!
8:16 As a guitarist, that volume increase sounds very unnatural. It'd probably disappear in a mix, but it immediately stands out on its own. I'd still go with compression there if it can't be re-recorded.
Compression won't do you any magic either. All it does is essentially the same thing: controls the gain locally, according to the signal loudness. So, it would sound at least as unnatural as manual editing, and probably even worse: due to the substantial difference in loudness, the neighbor notes would be affected by the compressor noticeably differently (e.g. have higher attack transients).
@@vinesworth I don't see the issue in using compression on such a funk/rythm guitar sound. Compression on clean, rythmic funk guitar is part of the sound. Not compressing a funk guitar would mean you don't hear the ghost notes as much, which can be detrimental depending on the sound you're looking for, and the context.
Guitarists use compression pedals too.
@@amadouderza5824 Neither do I see any issues with it. I was only responding to the "manual volume editing sounds unnatuaral" assertion.
I think it depends on the sound you're going for. To me it sounds "modern" whether that's a good or bad thing.
I'm mixing for a friend and the EQ I used on the kick drums could easily be the marketing image for the plugin with how extreme it is lol. 30dB between the lowest cut and highest boost. And it sounds bangin!
this is one of the best mixing tuts I've seen on here. ple will always tell you boost this and cut this forgetting to know that your mic is different from their and so is your room condition and as a result in the end your mix never sounds like theirs.
Great video :D
A lot of this stuff is already part of my philosophy, but I hear these types of things so often from inexperienced producers I'm teaching.
I know this will be really helpful to a lot of people.
One of the main themes in this video I feel is not taking any suggestions as Gospel or as the 1 true way but rather looking at why somebody would do something and learning out of that.
This I feel is one of the most important things to learn as a producer to both feel confident in experimenting and confident in understanding what you're doing.
Thanks a lot for making this video :)
I Will defo share this with people who I know are falling into some of these patterns.
Great information you've shared, this will help me on my next project.
"Never mix in the recording phase" sounds kinda stupid. While you can't mix for a full track when you don't have everything there yet you can set it up so it's making your job easier in the mixing phase.
And a lot of the time, the recording IS mixing. You want to get the gain, mic position etc. right from the recording so you don't have to change much after the fact.
Especially dynamics can sound way different when actually recorded, depending on the instrument, compared to just adjusting the volume in the mix.
I do find using an auxiliary bus for reverb useful when I know I'm going to want the same reverb on multiple tracks, like backup vocals. I think this tip to always aux your verbs is a holdover from 20 years ago when running more than a couple reverbs would big down your DAW.
I’ve seen these pieces of advice on mastering videos. I get being conservative on the mastering stage, but in the mixing stage, you have to get the track sound how you want/need it to sound. I dropped most of these pieces of advice a long time ago.
At 7:30 editing the second Guitar part. As a guitarist, there are times that I WANT ghost notes, then hard articulated staccato notes, finger picking, and then harder picked notes. So, if I ever found out a mixer/producer/mastering engineer F'd with my guitar parts like this... Now, if the guitar part needs to have flat dynamics, then I will record or re-record the part as needed. You just killed the ghosted notes and dynamic range in that part. You need to understand how that part sits in the mix AND how that part is rhythmically interacting with the vocal, piano, bass, kick, hi-hat and snare. I might need to drop the volume of those two notes to allow other parts to accent their part in that moment in the song/mix.
i used to hunt out resonant frequencies, then my mixes started to sound thin and lifeless
Same here
Same here. I think the 2 best improvements to my mixes were 1) when I stopped frequency-hunting and 2) when I started making better volume decisions
@@IWOKEAGIANT the volume thing is the most underrated thing ever. Can't stress its importance enough
@@pradeeppandey1978 definitely. Its like the first thing we learn, and the first thing we forget. Get the volumes right, the EQ decisions we then make are far more effective.
I hunt them always but i cut them only max 4db Sometimes only 2db. So it doesnot kill the sound. But makes it littlebit cleaner. Then i boost it with spectre. My mixdown sound pretty good. But still learning.
Great tutorial video...as usual! MOAM is always spot on!
Before you use a tool because you can, ask yourself first why you need it. if you don't find a specific, and I do mean specific, reason why than there is no need to use that tool.
This also goes for limitations. Everything you do in a mix should be to archive a specific goal, and not just to make you feel like you're doing something.
I find that if you're ignoring the "never use presets rule" with something like Repeater or some reverb where all the presets are 100% wet, it's generally more convenient to use it as a bus, but if you're using something like Toraverb where the presets aren't 100% wet, it's more convenient to use it as an insert.
This is incredible keep up the good work ❤
I really love the way your videos are set up. You really know how to get information across to people
Love your lesson and always learn something. Thank you! If you could answer a question for me, I’m curious to know what you use for your EQ and compression, it seems like you’re using some sort of a modular set up that allows you to put all types of different stuff inside of one plug-in chain. At least that’s how it looks online in your videos.
Best video by far on youtube to understand mixing
While it’s true that the sausage shaped synth bass tone appears to be completely hard limited and doesn’t need compression. If you’re making super dense EDM, you can STILL get a fatter sound using multiband or OTT (up/down compression) to further squash between frequencies that have varied dynamic range rather than looking at the overall peak volume.
I don't agree at all on the vocal chain part : if you have a vocal chain that helps remove proximity effect, remove excessive low end (obviously, this is genre dependant like you will roll off a lot more in edm), compress to taste and add brightness, you're done, you don't have to think about you're vocal anymore : you can start mixing, balancing, playing with effects... 💖
Effect busing was necessary in the pre-digital analog days because everything was hardware. It just wasn't economically viable to have a different EQ unit for every drum & cymbal in your kit. Or a different reverb unit for every vocal track in your mix. Most studios just wouldn't have the budget or rack space to house that many units. Plus you'd end up with a ton of wiring to deal with. Plugins are a whole new ball game. Modern DAW's have almost unlimited inserts & you can call up as many instances of any plugin as your CPU will tolerate. Unless you prefer to use busing, there's no longer the necessity to work that way.
Matter of fact VMR with Slate is probably the Best Pre Mastering Mixing Plugin out there IF....u understand all you can do with it!!! I’m telling you guys VMR sounds great especially on
DRUMS
GUITAR
VOCALS
AND MIX BUS
Pretty good video, over all I agree but I kinda disagree with #9. I don't filly disagree, there are some occasions where I will insert a reverb or delay directly on a track, but I find that they are very few and far between at least in my own workflow.
The main reason is that I like to have different processing on my reverbs than on my main tracks. Just to pick one example maybe I'll put a super aggressive de-esser on my reverb aux (before the reverb) to tame the top end washiness, and this could end up being much more extreme de-essing than I would want on the main vocal track, but perfect on the reverb send. I like to EQ my reverbs, sometimes compress them, etc. That's the main reason why I almost always use auxes for wet effects, just to be able to really sculpt them the way I want them.
I've learnt this tip:
Start searching resonant frequencies from the left of the frequency spectrum. And only remove resonant frequencies in the high mids or highs if you can hear it without creating any peaks by yourself (Don't add peaks in highs or high mids to find resonant frequencies)
Thank you man,this helped me a lot. You are a great teacher.
My 2 bus chain for perfect mixes.
1) Distortion.
2) Gullfoss.
3) Red wine.
4) Sadness.
5) Weeping.
6) Sleep.
Slate has so many different combinations the combinations aren’t one size fits all BUT....VMR is one of the best mixing VSTs out there !!!
i often clip a analog plug in. because it´s an analoge sym and have enough headroom. u get intressting distortions in the red area^^ same with klanghelm and joe meek. and sometimes i use them in the green area.^^
Thanks for this video. These are great mixing tips.
i love your channel very much also free time reading some contents on your site. you help me alot
3:13 another thing to add, don't as a rule of thumb eliminate the resonant frequency in its entirety. Maybe just reduce it somewhat. What happened to character in music? Music isn't a collection of variables we arbitrarily define as "perfect". They're a constant trade-off. Yes, eliminiating a resonant frequency may remove what is, in isolation, an unpleasant ring. But if that "unpleasant ring" is what makes the sample interesting in the first place, say a snare, what's the point of having that sample in the first place? A good snare is greater than the sum of its parts. And it doesn't have to be the punchiest, snappiest, cleanest snare. It just has to work in the context of that track.
Your point on not as a rule of thumb sweeping with a steep EQ over it is especially important when you consider that THIS IS NOT HOW YOUR AUDIENCE WILL HEAR IT, THEREFORE, IT'S NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE SOUND AS A WHOLE, LET ALONE IN THE CONTEXT OF YOUR PRODUCTION. You end up priming yourself to hyperfocus on a ringing sound that your audience won't hear, ruining your sound design or mixdown process. Close your DAW, take a break, do something else. Come back with fresh ears.
Chapter 3 :
Some of those obvious resonant become apparent by themselves, over time, if you sort of get used to the overall mix/your song. It's like all of the sudden it pops out.
Excellent
Thank you so much
8:06 Is there an easy way to quickly edit the amplitude of a slice/track in FL Studio like here?
Wait… at 7:53, how did you slice that section out like that??? I always have to go make individual cuts…
this video is super helpful thank you
Use common sense, would be the general takeaway.
One note about aux track vs direct insert.
If you know what you want to get, by all means, use direct insert, and dial mix as you please. Like that snare drum example.
But if you have complex mix, that will require you to process your reverb separately, if you are going to use multiple reverbs on drums, or vocals, if you are going to compress reverb or distort it, obviously, having it as a separate track that you can toggle pre-post on and off as well will make your life easier.
I appreciate your no-nonsense approach. Subbed. ; )
7:00 It's just like editing photo's, don't try to get every bit of color depth or dynamic range: too soon it looks exagerated.
Thanks for the video and remembering me to be "tastefull".
"we could just automate everything and let robots mix everything"
Izotope: "hold ma damn beer"
This is gold!
I've never heard people say there's a "rule" though. Not sure where people hear that
Thanks alot for this video i am greatly enlightened
#2, Warren Huart called these "offensive" frequencies and said, If you go looking for something offensive, you will find it.
Having said that, Soothe 2 is awesome!
Which DAW is this
I use Reference tracks to reset my ears. Sometimes when mixing for so long my hearing and judgement gets skewed.
You're making life easier
Every single one of these mixing tips is really the same tip: don't add processing just for the sake of it; only ever add the processing that each sound actually needs to get it to where you want it to be.
Agreed 💯
but with the bus ya can create volume without the master clipping but it still sounds harder there is a little parralel compression what takes place when ya mix with busses
Excellent advice!! Thank you so much!!!
Thank you!
I record everything I play and sing as I think sounds right. Then I simply utilise the Cubase Pro stuff to attempt to improve upon the final sound. I have been learning for 8 years and still not even good enough!
20:40 - to fix this vocal segment, two easy steps:
1) click on the track header
2) press "Del".
YES.
What’s the track in the reverb section
Top man! thanks a lot.
One time I worked on an album mix for a week and at the end applied a 20hz high pass filter across all tracks but it was actually a high cut filter fml so I just rendered basically a 12 track album of brown noise and I didn't realise until I had sent the WAV files to the client, and deleted all the project files, stems and audio recordings from the entire session off my own computer. I tried to do a hard drive recovery but a power surge fried my computer and now I've lost my income and if I don't come up with some kind of work soon I am looking at doing some solid time on the streets.
I feel for you!! good luck!!
I find calling filters different things confusing as well. I'm sure it taught you a valuable lesson though.
shitty, but it's on yourself
always double check your work
Great video sir!!!
Awesome video homie, definitely guilty of some of these
Your content is on point 👉
u saved my life. danks
Love the tutorial, what plug-ins were used on that video..
Slate Digital VMR Bundle
Behind i was and today i meet u here guyz coz am done with best makeing and i have to record
If the need for only 4 dB was the rule then the eq knobs would be made so they only do +/- 4 dB, funnily enough they are made to do up to +/- 18 dB on some real desks, guess where I turn them to sometimes?…..had no RUclips or influencers 45 years ago when I started, turned the knobs until it sounded right, that’s the only rule, do what you have to do to make it sound right, listen and don’t Look 👀
excellent video
Great video. But I'm a bit freeked out of how much he sounds exactly like shesez from boundary break 😅
rulenr.1: garbage in is GARBAGE OUT.
thats the only rule you need. and a set of good ears.. ;)
BlessedBe!!
thanks!
I’ve never actually come across a video that recommends presets or plugins. Everyone says to use what works and fits in the mix
oh there are tons of them
mainly because they use whatever DAW they are required to work with, VSTs make it easier for them to switch back and forth because the paradigm within them is always the same
Thank you 🙏🏽
This was a good video, I wanna make videos on the myths people subscribe too in mixing and mastering.
Miss you brother...
The more basic these tutorials are, the more I'm wondering why my publishing skills suck so much.
i love how u say ''WHYY"
Most of these, I agree with, and have learnt from, because I made the mistake, but, 'never mix in the recording phase', well, that's not a thing, really, is it? The whole idea of a mix, is the sound - however objective - you want to tune to sound like, so the mix starts life in the mind, before it gets into the real world And the who thing progresses until you sign it off. Also, performances laid down as overdubs, or later vocal takes, benefit wonderfully if the headphone mix is what the player/singer love. Nice vid, though.
Just stop listening to people trying to sell you gear. Use whatever gear you have but most importantly use your ears. Does it sound good to you? Good, now listen to it in 3 different environments. On your monitors, on headphones and in your car. If you don't have a car then try some kind of run of the mill boom box. Nothing too fancy. If it sounds good all 3 ways congratulations it's a good mix.
The 4 db rule: ok so i could never ever use a highcut with a high q resonance filter like used in legendary synth tracks
Lol I wish this video was made 5yrs ago when I first started really getting down into mixing 😂😂 I was doing all these mistakes 😂😂
No “ONE SIZE FITS ALL”
Check!
Thx for reassuring me “ IM ON THE RIGHT TRACK”
No punt intended
If you're on the right track, perhaps there's a panning issue? ;-)