Last weekend I went to NAMM and spent a lot of time studying from all the great audio engineers speaking at the trade show. One interesting thing I learned was how Jacquire King, who’s worked with Kings of Leon, Tom Waits, James Bay and Kaleo to name few, handled harshness in his cymbal tracks when...
Got a good question from Tim Hope-Falkner inside the Facebook community yesterday that I thought I’d elaborate cleaner. Tim is a Quick Mixing customer, but he was having some drum mixing issues because he was working on an unfamiliar genre: Mixing drums for a hip hop track – it’s got a late 90s feel, similar...
Did you know that the Blue Hall of Stockholm’s City Hall is really red?!? This might not be interesting information except for the fact that this hall is where the annual Nobel Prize Banquet is held, one of the most prestigious events in Sweden, and possibly the world. And not only is the Blue Hall...
Got this question about grouping and color-coding you tracks you might be interested in: “When you group instruments together and color code them, should it be done by Instrument Family or by Range? For me, it seems like it would be easier to group bass instruments String Bass, Contra -bassoon, Bass clarinet, etc together, Then...
We all have to start somewhere. Most people will go through a series of objectively average mixes before they start to refine their skills and understanding. Flying blind is one of the most powerful ways to integrate a lesson, but it definitely helps to have some insight going into it. You will make mistakes along...
I’m heading to NAMM this weekend for fun-filled and educational weekend. I’l be hanging out with other audio bloggers and overall nice guys like Joe Gilder of Home Studio Corner, Graham Cochrane of the Recording Revolution, Lij Shaw of Recording Studio Rockstars, Matt Boudreau of Working Class Audio and even Chris Selim from Mixdown Online,...
Yesterday we talked about two ways to think about reverb in your mixes. Today we’ll talk about how to create limitations in your sessions to make your mixing go more smoothly. Because you have so many different effects plug-ins to choose from, you often spend more time deciding between plug-ins than actually using them to...
Using reverb can get pretty challenging. Not enough and it’ll sound dry and unpolished. Too much and it’ll be a cluttered mess. Here are two different ways to think about reverb when you’re finding the right one for your song. Reverb For Contrast Use different reverbs for different parts of the song to create contrast....
Let me ask you, how many times are you happy with your mixes? If you’re starting out, you might hate every single one of your mixes up to this time, including the one you’ll do tomorrow. If you’ve been mixing for a while, you might finish a mix every once in a while that you really...
If you’re using virtual drummers and sampled beats you might be mistaken in thinking that you don’t need to do any mixing to the tracks because they sound so good out of the box. Although that’s often the case, you can still add quite a bit of power to really make them stand out. It’s...