Abletons freezing feature is amazing. It obsloetes the need to bump to audio because it does that AND allows you to “unfreeze” to get your MIDI track back.
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mixing is about balance: dont touch an eq or compressor until youve done all you can with gain faders and panning
half of mixing is sound design and arrangement: a mix has three dimensions time, frequency, and volume there can only be so much volume of a frequency at any given time. remember this during sound design and arrangement
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If it doesn’t sound right IO won’t be able to finish a track, so I guess my own best advice is mix as you go,
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I think the opposite is true…but faders are important. It’s hard to give mixing advice like this because what is needed to mix really depends on every other sound and what you are mixing. That’s why there is no universal how to mix tutorial out there. Maybe a fader adjustment is needed, maybe not but you do have to adjust them as part of the process. If you think it is the main thing to do though, you end up in a fader war where everything gets pushed up in the end and nothing was ever mixed.
When I am mixing a sound, I start at the sound design level. I think about where the sound needs to sit first. Is it a drop bass that needs to be forefront or is it something that will sit back and comp? Will it fill the stereo field or sit right in the middle? What frequency range does it need to fill? All of these initial mixing choices have nothing to do with fader adjustment. It is all patch design, EQ, compression, panning, dimension…ect…ect…relative to what is happening already. When that is all in order, I do a final fader adjustment with a general goal to keep the fader as low as possible that allows the sound to mix the best. If it seems like the part doesn’t quite fit then I go back and tweak the patch and go on down the fx chain again to try to make it sit better.
If I have two things that I really want to force together then I think about EQ automation on the existing part so that the new element can come in and not conflict. If you scoop away frequencies and replace them with something in a different track, it seems to work pretty transparently where you don’t knotice anything dipping out of the mix.
I am no pro by a long shot so this could all be BS. This is just stuff that I have found that has helped me improve my mixing.
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Yeah I agree compression is a part of the sound design/creation stage.
I think Fragment is talking about what role compression has in the mixing stage.
Like you could put compression on during the creation of a sound and the consideration going into that is part of the mixing as you say.
But there’s also for example group compression in the mixing stage which is dependant on having sounds already designed, so that would mean you would have to wait to do that.
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I dont really make Dubstep these days. If I do its not tearout stuff that has a bunch of synths all trying to take up 75% of the frequency range. All that to say, yes, it does matter what you are mixing and there is no universal guide and tip or trick.
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Personally, I have never gotten into this fader war you speak of. Gain stagging is an important part of a mix.
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Did you read the second tip i wrote? I pretty much said the same thing you did. Perhaps it would have made more sense to reverse their order.
My ideal is to have designed/chosen my sounds, then written the song in such a way that little EQ is needed. Though obviously its foolish to let this deal get in the way of creating the song one wants to, when that happens I reach for an EQ to make things work.
When working with software I dont use a ton of compression on individual elements as this is usually something that can be fixed by changing the patch. I do tend to bus similar elements together and compress to shave off peaks and squeeze some extra headroom out of the mix.
When recording hardware synths I tend to record everything with a little compression.
Anyway Im not really trying to be argumentative because I tend to agree with what you said, it just irked me that it seemed you didnt really read my post.
Also, gain staging is important. Even working at 32 bit floating point w “infinite headroom”.
Hey no worries man… I am not trying to be argumentative…this statement seemed weird to me.
Your statement below… I agree with 1000%. Once I realized that, just about everything comes from the sound source, my work has massively improved. I remember starting out thinking that mastering could fix everything and over time I realized mixing is everything and then finally have realized good sound design is really really important! The better at sound design I am, the less and less I am trying to EQ garbage out.
Obviously the most important and prominent parts of a dubstep track is the punchy drums and the bass.
Prep work:
Get snacks and a drink! So you dont have to get up and leave your station!
I always mix down with my head in the speakers, make sure your level with your monitors.
If you find yourself struggling to find the right levels or stereo field placement headphones are a great point for reference, i have two sets that i use for reference. (One set are open, one set are closed)
Dont mixdown at super high volume, this will cause your ears to fatigue very fast.
Try mixing a little lower, If you get the track sounding beefy at low volume when you increase volume it will blow your socks off.
Drums drums drums! I always separate each element of my drums (Kick, Snare, Hats Ect) this will alow you to add easy tweaks to each sound.
Group all your synths and sounds into tidy similar groups, Sub Bass/Mid Bass/Leads ect
Add side chain from your kick on every group so you can tweak, Whether it be slight SC or heavy its always necessary to get your drums to pump through.
Down to it:
I start always with the drums, drop them down to -10 Db
Next i move onto sub bass, Get this level with the kick not so it drowns it, So it sounds like the kick is inside the sub (Add your side chain to the sub, This will prevent your kick from loosing all its lowend (below 100Hz)
After that i move onto the basses, I always low pass my basses at 100hz, This will stop them causing aggroo with the sub bass.
Sometimes i mute the drums at this point and mix the basses in with the sub bass, Find a good level then mix the drums in after (of course tweaking the sidechain to give the kick some room)
Also dont be afraid to add sidechain for your snare, This subtle dip can sometimes give you what you desire. The objective of a successful mixdown is to get everything level and your drums to be punching through the wall of audio produced by all your synths.
Take full advantage of your stereo field! I sometimes pan sounds just 2-3 left or right, this gives them a seperate field from everything else.
My personal preference is to keep the Sub Bass/Kick drum Mono! everything else you can adjust to fit into the field.
EQ as you go, Hopefully you would have EQ’d during your production, Adding tweaks to these EQ’s will help, Dont solo to EQ… EQ whilst the sounds are within the mix, This will give you a much better idea of what you need to cut/add.
Dont forget to A & B with your fave tracks, just so you can hear where the elements are placed.
Sorry its a bit muddled, My brain just dumped!
Remember these are just my own pointers, This is not written law. Your ears are your best tool, Once you train them up they will give you some great results.
Hope something from this helps ;D
Good luck!
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yea. no worries. Im not really trying to argue either. As you said, there is no one right way to mix.
but I do believe getting everything to sit right from the ground up arrangement/picking and making sounds is one of the better pieces of advice here. and am happy other people are in on that advice. Maybe it is so common sense no one talks about it but I never came across that idea in a tutorial or interview or AMA…I had tomfigure it out on my own. That was the biggest game changer for me–Ill try transposing something up or down an octave before reaching for EQ these days.
FUCKING THIS SO MUCH UGGHH
also camelcrusher on drums
this shoud be law tbh, at least in bass heavy music
I strongly suggest everyone try working with more mono tracks. Just try it on one track. Work on more subtle panning. See how it works out for you.
yo throwing together a tune, feelin a bit lazy, only had about 8 tracks and liked their relative volumes and vibe but everything was too loud and clipping the master, is it really bad to just group your tracks and then lower the volume of the group- i definitely wouldn’t just turn down the master channel instead, is this still gonna make a signal that’s like too ‘hot’
just select all tracks and lower the volume on all of them (so the ratio stays the same) by … db
1 BigUp
cheers, immediately sounds cleaner and better