Top 5 Mixing Mistakes No One Talks About
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- čas přidán 13. 07. 2024
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1.EQ with your Ears NOT your Eyes!
Always make EQ moves based on what you hear first, not what you see! Using EQs with Frequency Analysers can be such a rewarding thing when you’re looking for a frequency that’s bothering you, but relying on visual cues alone to make EQ adjustments will not give you great results. Just because there’s a peak doesn’t mean it has to be removed, that might the inherent characteristic of the instrument. When you hear something that bothers you and you need a visual cue to find it then a frequency analyzer is an amazing tool!
2.You Don’t Need to Compress Everything
Not everything needs to be compressed! So many virtual sounds, fat synth sounds and of course very heavy guitars will not benefit from compression and often sound much smaller with added compression. Live drums give you a wealth of not only different dynamics and uneven EQ based on how they are performed and so they require more compression than programmed drums that have been recorded in perfect conditions with very evenly sampled drum hits. Compression (especially vintage units or emulations) can be used for certain colours, adding saturation and even an EQ characteristic, however, as a dynamic controller you should focus using it on overly dynamic sounds like Vocals and other acoustic instruments, while using it sparingly on instruments that have a very limited dynamics range but may require some added colouration that compression may bring.
3.Not Everything Has To Be Stereo
When everything is in stereo, overheads, pianos, room mics, reverbs, delays, stereo recorded guitars, you name it, then nothing starts to feel wide! If you want width then be selective what you put in the sides! Hard panned guitars Left and Right feel great when the ambience is only opposite, as soon as it’s smeared in the stereo field then the guitar sound doesn’t feel focussed! If you make the overheads full 100% left and right then you set the limits of the width of your mix, try 70% or 80% panning of your overheads and room mics and then the hard panned guitars will start to feel like they are spilling out of the left and right speakers!
4.Don’t Start Processing The Tracks Until You’ve Got Basic Levels and Panning
Create what you think is a good sounding rough mix getting basic balances and panning on every track first. This will tell you so much more than just starting to mix using EQ and compression. Hearing the tracks back relatively balanced and panned, allows you to choose which tracks need extra EQ or high passing and/or compression. Ultimately the lesson is to always listen as a whole! We all solo, however making sure the changes you are making works in the whole song is of paramount importance!
5.Do Less!!
Professional mixers always say that when they get sessions to mix and the first thing they do is remove an enormous amount of plug ins on each track and suddenly the song starts to come to life! We can tie ourselves in so many knots by continually adding EQ and compression until everything instrument feels flat and lifeless! Soon the more you do the more you have to do! Take frequent ear breaks to gain perspective and always remember to listen to the song as a whole.
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What are some mixing mistakes you used to make? How did you fix them?
Produce Like A Pro Ha! As I type this, you are covering it in the video. I had a love affair with compression for a time. I compressed everything because I wanted to, not because I should have. I also compressed too much. Some of my early mixes got super dense but sounded really small. Its been a long learning curve but a necessary journey of experience!
You the best
Produce Like A Pro setting up my trigger and gate parameters, and then changing my compression threshold on toms for example. I started to notice missing or very dull sounding Tom hits. I realized I was blocking signal from going into my “Slate Trigger 2”
Love these videos man
Just recently fixed a long time mistake. I've been mixing with a subwoofer for years. I decided to take it out of the mixing equation just to see if it would help. Yep! It helped. So much easier to hear the low end and how it should sound in a mix. Getting rid of it has totally sped up things as well. Thank you for your videos Warren!!
I use to put plugins on the master track. Lol
The more I've learned about mixing, the messier my recordings have become. I went back yesterday to listen to a few songs from last year and I wondered why they sounded so good compared to my recent tracks. It was mainly because I knew less and mostly left the tracks alone.
Hi Darrell Robinson exactly!! Haha Number 5 do less! There’s far too much confusing information out there! I highly recommend listening to the mix that someone is doing when they recommend techniques!
@Darrell Robinson - Me too!
It is about being bold enough! You need to tie the knot on the package, and decide that this has to be sufficient. All sounds are somehow playing in the ballpark. Diminishing returns.
here's how I see it works. Your mixing is decent when you start, then you search for all this kowneledge and hear so much knowledge that probably doesn't even apply to you, you worry too much about the technical parts, over time you start to learn what works for you based off experiences and your mixes tart to come alive and sound better than ever. But some advice isn't the best, He says in the video "dont compress synths" that's gonna be a hard no for me. I will never ever put out a track with synths that have no saturation or compression on them. Its just needed in my genre
so true!!!!
Mistake number 1: picking up my phone too often; 2: scrolling through CZcams; 3: watching incredibly well made videos of very affable English people doing what I should probably be doing rn instead 😆 4&5: repeat until I feel bad 😂
Elsif haha we are all guilty of these things my friend!!
I suffer from this too. It's actually a thing in psychology called the "information bias"
It's still amazing to me, how you share all these incredible ideas, carved out of years of experience, FOR FREE on CZcams... thanks man
The idea of not everything needing to be stereo had a huge positive impact on my mixes. I've started bringing overheads in to 50/50 and then playing with a mono vs stereo set of room mics on drums lately. In the verse or anywhere where the guitars are smaller or single tracked, I'll use the stereo pair of room mics panned far left/right to give a nice big drum sound where the drums are more exposed, but then in the chorus or any areas where I have big left/right stereo guitars I'll switch to just a mono room mic in the center. The result in the mix is that those stereo guitars suddenly sound much wider simply because the drums sound narrower. For years I struggled with how to make guitars feel wider, and I always felt widening plugins just make stuff sound weird and phasy. Turned out all you really need to do is make everything else in the mix feel narrower than the thing you want to feel widest. It's pretty simple once you realize it. It's all about context and relationships. If everything in the mix is panned wide then the mix SOUNDS narrow, but if your ear can hear the difference between a narrow sound and a wide sound, all of a sudden the stage opens up.
Mat Abercrombie this is a great point. Thank you
Center panned mono is something I avoid. Unless there is a center speaker.
EQ instruments in solo mode, compression on everything, reverb on everything. These are my major mistakes that I made in the early years of trying to mix music. Through trial and error and a lot of listening to CDs in my wife's car. I figured out that I was doing something wrong what that was unclear to me. One day I took one of my mixes that I had not added compression EQ reverb to and I thought wow this sounds great.
Always trust your ears!!! I'm sure we've all made the mistake of making minute adjustments on an equalizer until the instrument sounded perfect! Then discovered it was in bypass! Lol. (More than once)
That happened last week
I need to re visit this video everytime when I start a new mix, thank you Warren
I just recently experienced #4 in person. We were doing one of those quarantine collaborations where we each record separately then I would put them all together. I did my guitar and vocals, then next I got the drums. So since I didn't have the whole track yet I just started tweaking the drums. It was a stereo track of the full kit so I didn't have individual control. The kick drum had a certain resonant frequency I didn't like, so I EQ'd it out and got the kick drum sounding way better to my ears. Then I got the bass part and put the whole song together. At that point, I felt like you couldn't hear the kick enough. I thought maybe I'd try a compressor on the bass sidechained to the kick, so the bass would duck out of the way a bit when the kick hit, but I wasn't happy with how that sounded either. On a whim I took the EQ off the kick, and suddenly everything fell in to place and sounded great. That "ugly" frequency that I didn't like on the soloed kit, was apparently just perfect in the context of the whole mix.
Are those 8 tracks of songs in the key of life? stinkin awesome!
always start with a good sound source. instead of EQ, move a mic until you get a better sound
Absolutely!!
@@Producelikeapro sounds like a guy with a few years of live mixing under his belt.
When you say "get the panning right", you'll just end up with a mono song on the right side?
OK enough with the bad jokes, thank you again for the great advices!!
man, you are a brave guy for writing that joke... A For Effort 😂
@@dulla8469 haha thanks mate!!
Thomas Tran Dinh hahaha geez! I’m so glad to be able to help! Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
Dulla Bills haha yes, indeed!!
@@Producelikeapro @dulla bills thanks for the appreciation ahahaha made my day
this is basic, yet absolutely brilliant advice that is clearly explained. One of the best 'mixing' advice videos I've ever seen
Hi spencechicago thanks ever so much my friend! I’m so glad to be able to help! Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
"Mix that you would be happy with" - what is this holy grail you speak of?
I understand! It something we continually strive for!!
@@Producelikeapro If you shoot for the stars you might only get to Mars.
Phenomenal advice. For a complete newcomer, number 5 is almost a relief to hear. The whole world of mixing and music production can be so overwhelming where you feel you have so much to learn just to be able to produce a single track, that it could almost put you off entirely. Hearing that you don’t need to do as much as you think you do is positively refreshing.
At one point, I gave myself a limit of 2/3 plugins per track, no more.
If I got to a point where I couldn't get something sounding right, I would go back and rethink it.
It really helps you LEARN your plugins. Suddenly you're not using an EQ, tape emulation AND compression... you're selecting a single compressor based on the tonal changes it gives you.
Chris Norris that is GENIUS! Trying that right away
@@zachary963 I wouldn't go that far! But it forces you to train your ears. I didn't find it a quick process either. I would say I only began to reap the rewards a good year or so in. Totally depends on how many hours you put in to it of course!
Wish I thought of that and had the self discipline, I have resorted to a Tascam DP32 so ALL I can do is basic eq, LCR and volume. I figure I can move to pc for further mixing if necessary. So far I am happy with what I get.
I know this is 3 years old but the information is timeless.
Don't "trust your ears" after you've been mixing for longer than like 30 minutes, because they start lying to you. For instance my ears told me to apply dramatic EQ to my master bus, and when I listened a few days later, I realized how bad it sounded. The secret is making a great original recording (w/ a great microphone set-up in a great room) and then not messing with the original recording much. This video is giving extremely useful advice that would have saved me years.
A good tip for this, is switch out sound sources to sort of refresh the listening experiences. Sometimes I go back and forth from monitors to headphones, back and forth, and they slowly start meeting towards a middle where they sound equally balanced, and when I get close to here, my mix is usually sounding good.
Been doing upright mono piano for a long time on denser tracks. Wide stereo piano can sound weird anyway. No one sticks their head inside a piano while someone is playing it, (hopefully lol),. If it was up on stage, most all the stereo would be reflections. So I send a bit of it out to a stereo reverb or space of some kind. Often mono drum overheads too. Solves so many problems and just works. You can always put a pseudo stereo plug on mono sources when it's really needed and that offers yet a different flavor of width. Cheers.
Excellent tips, Warren. I'd add to that, 'avoid song fatigue'. I can get too involved with a track, staying with it for too long and ending up losing perspective - more worryingly, losing the vibe and the initial inspiration. I write, arrange and mix my own music and I love the whole process. I've learned over the years that taking regular short breaks while working on a track is really important, but now I go even further. I'll take a break away from the track altogether, sometimes for several weeks. The moment I do that my creative soul is unleashed and I'm writing new material. When I eventually go back to a previous track I've been working on, fresh ears, I find that I've "done too much" - I definitely need to do less. So, I end up switching off plugins, and going back to the levels and panning. And the track starts to sound like music again. So, song fatigue I suppose is another way of saying, don't spend ages on a track. Get a good mix (not a perfect mix) as soon as you can, then leave it alone. Come back another day and if it still sounds great, trust in that. Which takes me to the other tip I'd add... know when to stop ;-)
oh how true! im mainly a live enginner and so much of this ive done and also in studio stuff. its so easy in todays age with access to so much processing even live with waves multirack to have these chains and what u think sounds good and controlled is as you say boring,
on the flip side. alot of people say cut dont boost. generally that is good advice byt sometimes you dont get that excitment by just cutting the informatiom you dont need. more so when using particular . the engineer who i forget who did some muse albums had some interesting methods of boosting ssl eqs into 1176 comps and his records sound pretty damn good. from what i remember he mentioned about the compressors taming resonances produced by big boosts.
like anything audio there are no solid rules. experiment and use your ears. listen to what is happening when you make adjustments. you can make big moves to get your ear focused on what its doing then dial it back. as you get more experienced youll get more sensitive to small changes. most people arnt naturally sensitive to the small details it takes practive to tune you in. thats probably the reason for people over processing stuff because they are just not percieving thos small changes yet. but there is times where you will have to pull sometihing out by 10 plus dB or boost 6dB.''
most people are not that great until they get the basics. them it gets ok then it gets decent. the hard part is going from decent to awesome. the hard part is that sounding good technically and awesome is not the same thing.
always great videos. so much to learn. as i said im a live sound engineer and dont do any commercial studio stuff but a good portion of your content has helped massivley in live sound engineering.
you are an inexhaustible source of inspiration :)
TNX!
Hi MilosVukelic Official thanks ever so much my friend!!
I've been mixing since 1985, and I can tell you this is all really good advice. Nice job man.
I love to do (or not do) all those things, but live. Making it work is the most beautiful feeling.
When you figure out what & why was better about your go rough mix, which you will find listening too your 12hr mix, then you really become an engineer."
Don't let the profoundity of this simple advice pass you by. This wisdom is so important for any creative to learn. It's something called humility.
really really great hints. Thank you so much!
My worst mistake was having everything in at the beginning of the song. Now I wish I had brought the doubled guitar in at the chorus, and the doubled vocal in at the bridge. Maybe waited until the guitar solo to add the extra percussion etc. I always loved the way the Rolling Stones produced "No Expectations". I hope to do better in the future. Thanks for all your tips Warren, they are a big help.
Arrangement is an art! I like to start with the climax of the song, and then work backwards to the intro, taking things away as I go. I find it much easier to take things away than to add them in!
@@OrgChromer Yes, that is easier to do now with digital. I was working with 2" 24-track tape, and really had no idea how production values mattered. Whenever I was dissatisfied, I'd add a guitar track. Hopefully I know a little more now.
Spot On. Thank you Warren!
Good advice. thanks for sharing!
All great tips....good job mate!
What a fantastic episode! Thanks!
As brilliant as always, Warren! Thanks!
Absolutely love your channel! Thanks very much :)
I needed this!!! Thank you :)
The EQ Analyzer/dipping resonated with me a lot. I know a lot of producer/friends and even tutorials on youtube that will immediately just go in and dip everything because it's what the textbook says, sometimes it's good to break some rules and keep the balls in it.
Once again Warren great video!! Thank you !!
Thanks Warren for all your advices and teaching!!!!
Great stuff, thanks Warren. Love your vids.
Thx a lot Warren for all your videos !
Keep up this amazing work, my friend!
So many tips and so much useful advising. Thanks !
Thanks Warren... Great stuff as always.
this is so good!! , thank you so much!
I love your videos dude. You're a wealth of knowledge.
Thank you, Warren. Great stuff, always!
Thank you for your wisdom! Appreciate you G dawg.🙌🏼🙌🏼
Brilliant lesson, Warren; thank you!
This is great! Thank you Warren! Saving this one!
This is a fantastic video. Something I’ve found in the digital age of home recording studios: I often treat my initial sort of “mix as i go” plug ins while tracking, the way i would treat any outboard gear i would use when I’m tracking in a bigger studio. I don’t have the ability to EQ and Compress many things i would like to on the way in, so I’ll add those two plug ins (or 1 channel strip type plug in) to each of the tracks I’m recording. If I can avoid latency, ill even track with those plug ins on. When i get the take i like, I’ll take those tracks, PRINT THEM DOWN TO NEW TRACKS, and deactivate the initial recording tracks. Leaving me with new, great sounding “raw” tracks with no plugins on them. I basically use those initial tracks as my “outboard gear”. Another good example of this is when i record drums at home… I’m playing drums in a tiny basement, so room mic’s dont sound great. So, i create “room mic’s” in Pro Tools using the UAD Ocean Way plug in, but I PRINT that Aux down to AUDIO and just treat it like i would real room mic’s in a bigger studio when it comes time to mix. One of the things I’ve learned doing this is to actually COMMIT TO SOUNDS I LIKE. I don’t NEED the “freedom” to change and tweak every single sound forever. If I liked it when i recorded it, I’ve learned to trust myself enough to know that that was probably for good reason.
This video is AWESOME, thanks so much
Thank you Warren ! Thank you very much.
Great advice and reminder to keep it simple. Thank you Warren.
This is the only channel I go to to not hear the same old stuff regurgitated over and over again. I don’t know how you make so many videos at the value that they are, but you have a gift sir.
Thank you, super real world advice. Amazing value.
You're super helpful, thank you. We never stop learning 👌
this video helped me a lot man thank you!
Yet another one! Fabulous and practical advice. Thank you Warren.
Wow.. tons of information in this video! Going to have to watch it more than once to absorb more of it. Thank you!
Love the advice. You’ve improved the way I record, again. Thank you.
This man explained these concepts in half an hour. The school I went to took 3 months. It's all about the willingness to spread knowledge. Mixing is an art and we should treat it like its art. You have a like and a sub from my side and hope you get a lot more. I may purchase your yearly subscription soon.
What a piece of wisdom is this video, thanks so much ;)
Keeping things simple, amazing how universal this wisdom is.
You just confirmed everything I find out and learned when I did my last mixdown. Thank you so much!
Thank you for the great tips. It's always great to be reminded of the basic tips when you are so focused on advanced overediting ^^
Loving these recent videos.
Thanks for sharing this video!
Very nice explanation and directly to the most important points. Thank you 🙏🏻
Great vid! I got a lot from this, thank you!
Thank you, sir! The first 2 advices are amazing! Mixing for me makes so much sense now!
It's the second, third video I watch on your channel and I'm hooked! I love how passionate you are, not to mention that your tips and advice are among the best I've found on CZcams.
This is my favorite of your videos, so far.
Terrific video! Thanks a lot!
Great advice again. Thanks !
I agree with you very much! Gold words! Everything is absolutely true!
As always... great!!
Top top top information, thank you Warren, you just educate the Mix Engineer community with your passion ✌Thank you !
Hi Warren, thank you for all the great advice, it really helps, all the best.
I’ve been producing music for nearly 5 years now and this has to be one of the most insightful videos I’ve ever seen. Thank you, Warren. We’re all the richer from your great advice.
Man, you're a treasure to someone like me just trying to learn about mixing to make my little selfie CZcams vids sound better. Thanks for what you do!
Thank you for these reminders that are so valuable to engineers out there at all skill levels! 🙏🏻
Amazing tips :) Thanks a lot!
GREAT video thanks a lot!
Thank you for your hard work making these videos and talking to us! Very good! :) God Bless!
Very enlightening info thank you
Ahh this was great and the timing when I landed on this is perfect. I'm right in the middle of putting together a remix / alternate mix of a song and your point about use of mono and just focusing on levels and pan first make complete sense to me. I can see how both of those will change the approach in an immediate, positive way. As always, thanks you to you and your team!!
Thank u my friend Warren for this amazing topic 🥰🥰
Thank you so much for this amazingly informative video! A real eyeopener! I love your videos and your passion.
Great video as always!
This was the best ever advice on mixing.
Fantastic information as usual. Thank you so much for sharing I am learning a tone from you. I would be lost with out you. Rock on.
Warren.. everything you said in this video just rings so true. Thank you for being so open and passionate about this topic. I must re-watch and take notes.
I'm leaving a comment just because I know that helps with the CZcams algorithm and it helps push this video to more people. Because you deserve it. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge!
Thank you for this simple information. Going back now to start from scratch keeping all these points in mind.
This might easily be one of the best and most important videos I've ever seen on the subject. Thank you sir!
You’ve offered so many valuable resources and a legit CZcams education most Universities couldn’t offer. Definitely worth picking up a mix course or two. Thank You Produce Like A Pro Crew. Much Respect. 🔥🤘🔥
A major part of my philosophy in mixing... And recording for that matter. Thank you Warren for pointing out the important stuff yet again!
Absolutely spot on.
Thanks so much for your generous advice!
Thanks ever so much
Such simple advice, but soooo foundational! I'm a long-time viewer, and IMO this is one of your best videos... should be required viewing before jumping into your other videos, esp the ones demoing compression and plugins. Thanks for all you do, Warren.
Beautifully Said...Thank You 😊
I have been mixing some live concert audio and everything you mentioned is exactly what I have experienced..Less is more and Automation with less compression with and a touch of parralel verb really lets the performance "BREATH" 😉😁😁😁 Thank You Thank You Thank You 🤗