You all There is definitely a step by step process to follow when you mix. Even with slight variation depending on the genre, style and complexity of the song the steps are pretty similar most of the time. What are these steps you say? Let me tell you! 1. Critical Listening and Organization 2. Balancing and...
If you have big monitors in your studio, chances are you have an easy time getting the bass to fill out your low-end. But how does it translate to smaller speakers? Does your bass get lost when your song gets played through a laptop? If that’s the case, let me give you some helpful tips...
EQ advice follows a fairly specific template. There are things that usually work so it’s easiest to create articles and advice around those tips. However, as you know, mixing music is really subjective so it’s hard to give “umbrella” advice that works for every single track. That’s when the whole “use your ears” advice actually does come in...
1. Find the Right Spot for the Drum-Kit My home studio space is pretty small. When a metal band comes in with a huge rack for all their unnecessary toms we have to block the door so nobody can go out the front. But when you have a normal sized drum-kit you have a little...
I received a question recently about how to mix a full album from start to finish. I thought this was an interesting subject to cover because we often just talk about how to mix single songs and don’t worry about the greater concept of the full album mix. It’s easy to mix one song but...
You’ve probably struggled with making the vocal fit within the rest of the mix. You’ve spent all this time getting the instruments to sound great but for some reason the vocal just sounds…bad. This happened to me yesterday when I was practicing on this month’s Dueling Mixes track, “New England.” Great track from a cool...
Today I wanted to talk a little bit about compression and give you a sneak peak video into the compression chapter of . Applying Compression Compression is a never-ending subject for me. I always feel like I learn new ways to use compression with every mix I do. Sometimes it’s as simple as slapping on...
Yesterday we talked about how we start the mixing approach from the master bus after we’ve achieved a static mix. If you missed the post and the video you can read about it here and watch the video here. Today I want to talk about how you tackle the subgroups, which is something I like...
There are multiple ways to start mixing and start balancing, but a great way to begin is to simply listen to the song and listen to what you hear with all faders up. That way you notice immediately if anything is too loud or too quiet. As you’re listening you can also watch the waveforms...
If your guitar sound is constantly drowning out the vocal sound then try out these few things next time you’re in trouble. 1. Pan them out of the way Sometimes all you need is to give the vocal its space in the center. Pan the guitar out of the way and let the vocal take...