You get the weirdest comments when you run ads on Facebook. Everybody wants to argue about everything, even when you run an ad with an image of a cartoon character. Like this one: I’ve used that image for years because it’s a nice representation of the home studio musician and producer I like to help....
There are virtually infinite ways to mix a song. And there are virtually infinite ways to write a song. Taking this into consideration makes it obvious that there are also virtually infinite preferences when it comes to both mixing and music making. I’m sure you’ve experienced this yourself. You show a mix to a client...
The most annoying comment I see in the online audio forums is a variation of this nonsense: “You should only use subtractive EQ and never boost more than 3 dBs” This is…for a lack of a better term…absolute bullshit. And I’m willing to fight anybody who follows this advice as gospel. It’s just plain wrong...
If you’re anything like my other students, you love to geek out about EQ. You may find it equally fascinating and frustrating. Frustrating when you can’t seem to find that muddy sound that’s throwing a blanket over your mix. Fascinating when you turn a knob or boost a frequency and your mix just jumps out...
Have you ever wondered why your mixes never sound as tight as the references you use? You’re doing all the EQ, compression, and saturation, then sweeten the mix with reverb and delay buy yet… Something is missing. A couple of years ago, I discovered a very simple technique that instantly produced tighter mixes. Since then,...
Groovy drums are crucial to pretty much any song that has drums in it. While authentic groovy drumming only can be achieved by a real groovy drummer, there are certain things you can do in the mixing process to help shake things up a bit. Especially for programmed drums and samples, these techniques can be...
I told you this week I would share some of my favorite mixing techniques to move the needle of your music and today we’re gonna talk about delay and depth. This simple technique is something that I love doing to create a three-dimensional image from the start And it starts by “breaking” the rules and...
Compression is one of the hardest parts of mixing to understand. You know you’re supposed to use it but you can’t really tell what it’s doing. And to be fair, you can use compression in a hundred different ways. But if you don’t know how to hear what it’s doing you may misuse it because you...
Most producers and mixing engineers are familiar with mix translation concepts such as “the car test”, checking your mix in mono, mixing at low volumes, and so on. But what’s the deal with these concepts and why are they so important? There are many reasons why they’re important, but the key takeaway is they give...
What to do and when to do what can often be confusing when mixing. Equalizing, compression, reverb, automation, leveling, panning, editing, quantizing, and so on. The possibilities are endless. Categorizing different things and making some sort of system can be a great way to make mixing less confusing, more effective, and in many ways more...