I’ve been working on a mix for a client this past week that has a lot of drums and percussion. Most predominantly, it has a lot of cymbal samples, and if there’s one thing this mix has reminded me, it’s that you can have too much of a good thing when you’re boosting high frequencies...
Here’s a big shoutout to Filippo Medas who’s a regular Home Studio Musician’s group contributor. He shared a great trick for creating separation in the guitars and vocals that you might like to try next time: Here’s Filippo: I think I just “discovered” a way to get both guitars and voice to have their own...
I received a question about gain staging that you might be interested in: “Hi Bjorgvin, could you just clarify something for me, please. If you want to use plugins at their sweet spot do you set the track gain to the sweet spot going into the plugin and then compensate with the output so that...
If you’re trying to apply the knowledge you learn at Audio Issues in your mixes, but can’t seem to piece it all together as you mix, maybe you should take a page out of this guy’s playbook. Craig from Spain left a review for Step By Step Mixing on Spain’s Amazon page the other day:...
A few years I learned a tough lesson about the importance of doing good work. I was working on a single for a metal band and I prioritized my time over the quality of my work. Although the session went well in general, I knew I could’ve done a better job with the mix. The...
Got an interesting question about filtering from Cara Tors, an Audio Issues customer: “Thank you so much for this video — EQ no longer seems so scary! I do have a question, though…when you are filtering, sometimes you said something like “we can filter this out because there’s nothing there.” But how do you know...
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...