If you’re looking for new arrangement ideas for guitar, check out my 4 ways to a groovier guitar production. 1. Find the Sweet Spot The sweet spot is where the instrument sounds the best. Usually this is a pretty subjective sound, but there are some guidelines to go by. Acoustic Guitar – The sweet...
I bet you’re a bit like me when it comes to producing guitars: You obsess over how they sound and want to make sure they’re the best they can be. You want a shimmering acoustic guitar and powerful rock guitars. When I was playing hard rock as a teenager, I obsessed over getting those thick,...
If you mix your own music, you might be worried about whether it’s dynamic enough. How do you know if your’re compressing your mixes “just enough?” Your mixes can’t be too hot, where they sound squashed an over-compressed, like Papa Bear’s porridge. And you can’t have your mixes too quiet either because they’ll just sound thin and weak,...
Hey there, Today I’m going to share one of my all-time favorite tricks for creating bigger and wider mixes. It’s incredibly simple, but sounds soooooo good. It’s something I do with all my mixes to create a sense of space, depth, and width without cluttering it up with time-based effects like reverb and delay. Here’s what...
As you may know, we’re talking about my first solo single this week. It’s called “Crazy For Me” and I produced it as an anniversary present for my wife. Yesterday we talked about how I had to mix it almost exclusively on headphones because I was trying to keep the production a secret. Today we’re...
You might have a similar problem to many other engineers: Dealing with muddy mixes. We all want nice and clear mixes, full of thick low-end that doesn’t overpower our pristine highs right? A muddy mix is when the lower mids of your mix get cluttered up and all the bottom end seems to lack definition....
Got this question from a reader: For tracks with very little pan complexity, can I mix and master with just headphones? Yes. 100% yes. It doesn’t even matter if the song is complex and has a lot of tracks. You can still mix on headphones if you want. Andrew Scheps told us at NAMM in...
You can never know enough about EQ, in my honest and correct opinion. When you’ve mastered the EQ spectrum, and you know where to go when you need to fix or enhance your mix you are ahead of the game. If you can listen to a sound and say to yourself, “Oh that needs a...
Getting a rough mix going is half the battle. Once you’ve got all your tracks balanced together with levels, EQ, compression, and space, you’re already 80% there. Remember the 80/20 rule. 20% of the effort creates 80% of the results. So here’s the step-by-step process to get you a rough mix that will get you...
This is an excerpt from chapter 8 of EQ Strategies—Your Ultimate Guide to EQ. It discusses how to EQ all the instruments together in your mix. If you’d like a faster way to EQ your mixes, my Speed EQ System will help you out. Chapter 8 – How To EQ Your Mix Together Knowing where...