I had much more fun (and success) when I stopped caring so much about mixing and just got it sounding good to my ears. Watching channels making incision cuts on the kick for 20 minutes or sample replacing snares for ages just takes the fun and vibe out of the songs.
1. A good song 2. The best possible performance of musicans while recording 3. Recording technics 4. At this point the song should be about 90% mixed WITHOUT you even think about mixing nor touching an EQ-plugin Thats the way I start my mixing-sessions. If we are not there, we record it again, and again and again..... Its simple: To get a pro-radio-ready-mix everything in the whole chain has to be pro. There are NO shortcuts!
Yep. I had a song recently where a majority of the time mixing was adjusting some levels in different instruments at different times in the song, and dealing with a resonant frequency in the bass guitar that made one note sound loud and made every other note in that part soft. Once we fixed that odd resonant frequency, the mix was done and had a great driving feeling.
The first rule that I was taught in my year long, intensive, hands on, $15, 000 dollars later "Sound Engineering" course was this: SHIT in -> SHIT out!
Honestly this is something I learned with repeated practice. I've been writing songs weekly for the last few years and it wasn't until I started dialing in the exact sound I was going for from the start (like guitar tones, finding the right kit sounds for drums, or a synth sound that sits in the right place on its own) that I started getting superb mixes. Because yeah, when it's already sounding REALLY good with clean performances and the right sonic landscape, the amount of effort you need to put into the mix itself is fairly minimal. Like, at that point, you're just trying to optimize the overall sound, not "fix" it. So what I find to be extremely beneficial sometimes when you're recording a song is that, if you're confident in the writing but the sound isn't quite right or doing it for you, scrap everything and re-record it. Re-dial in those guitar tones. Try playing the parts differently (like using a pick instead of your fingers on the bass). Try standing within different ranges of your microphone when you're singing to see what sounds best. Then see where you're at. Sometimes a second or third go-around might have you like "Yes, THIS is what I was going for." Lastly I want to add that this idea of "finding the sound" can be an extremely pivotal moment for what a whole album might sound like when you discover something that really resonates with you.
100% correct. I would rather listen to a bootleg recording captured in the 80s on a cassette recorder of The Rolling Stones, for example, than the 1000s of professionally recorded, mixed and mastered songs put out every year that are utterly forgettable. The song itself is king and the talent making and producing those songs are the courtiers. The mixer and the mixing process is just the window washing process.
I'm obsessed with mixing. It's all I want to do! I've watched thousands of hours worth of videos, including most of Kenny's. I have spent countless hours learning and applying new techniques. You name it - compression, gating, infinite ways of routing, sidechaining, ducking, EQ-ing reverbs, time calculator, automation, mono, stereo, mid, side, spectrum analyzer, parametric eq, saturation, panning, triggering samples, mixing stems, stem mastering, mix bus, group bus, editing, color coding, buffer settings, VU metering, gain staging, LUFS, 20Hz, 20kHz, RMS, Wav files, 32 bit float, Cambridge Music Technology, Tape Op Magazine, REAPER Mania, The REAPER Blog, Let's Talk About Reaper, The Mix Academy, Audio University, Rick Beato, Acoustic Fields, SonicScoop, Top Music Attorney, White Sea Studio, IDDQD Sound, Midi keyboards, midi controllers, hybrid mixing console, rendering, freezing, layering, true peak, PLUGINS 4 FREE, Analog Obsession, AND. IT. JUST. NEVER. ENDS! I think about mixing songs all day long. Every free moment is spent mixing songs. It's my passion and I study every second I can. I eat, sleep and breath mixing music. Honestly, I have spent years learning from the ground up. I've come a very long way and believe I understand many of the technical aspects of mixing. I have a very good grasp on the art of mixing and have no doubt in my mind that my mixes are the absolute best. Just a couple things elude me though. I have never mixed for anyone and I have never released any songs. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a watch later list that I need to get to. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Kenny, you are awesome. Thanks for all the help. ✊🏼
I write in the DAW, as a solo artist. For me, mixing while I write and perform no only make sense, but inform the creativity. I literally USE mixing to guide the song and vice versa. It's incredibly important to me, because it's a tool for arrangement, timing, pace, and it compliments and frames my creativity. Generally, by the time I'm done writing and performing, the mix is 95% done. I do as I go, and only embellish or clean up tiny bits. I find this highly rewarding, so mixing to me can be seen as an instrument, more or less.
I agree but I like mixing. Music is like a funnel: song at one end, mastering on the other. As you go through the process, each step matters less but costs more. Writing a song is basically free. Setting yourself up with an analog mastering suite could cost over $100k.
Very true. Learned this lesson when I downloaded my first free professional multitrack from Cambridge-MT. It made me aware of how well-sounding a non-mixed multitrack can be.
Perhaps the "mixing is not important" philosophy is more that mixing is unlikely to save a poorly composed/ arranged/ performed/ recorded song. The golden rule (I learnt from Joe Gilder's Home Studios Corner channel) is GIRATS - Get It Right At The Source. If you do that, then yes, a song will mostly mix itself. However, there are mixers/ songwriters that use mixing as a creative tool in itself. Lots of electronic music artists approach creating music this way, so the "mixing is not important" philosophy is also somewhat genre dependent. Check out many of the (dance/ extended/ 12") remixed versions of famous songs that sonically sound vastly different to the original version, yet were still identifiable as the same song. Many of these used the exact same master tracks as the original, but utilized all the mixing tools to create a very different outcome.
Good points. I've been finding myself stuck learning mixing & mastering, but changing up the instruments and/or recordings can also get me out of a bad mix.
So true. Early on playing guitar I used to wonder why everything sounded so muddy and just amateur and I'd try every trick I could find. High cut/low cut. Cutting mids. Extracting EQ. Everything and it would still sound bad. Now that I'm better at playing guitar, and dialing in guitar, including EQ-ing my guitar at the source with a pedal, I find that my tracks sound good to my ear out the gate and often I do little more than hard pan left and right in Reaper and I'm done.
That's bc this so called new generation has no musical taste. The true Musical fans will always appreciate creative music, originality and amazing MIXING !😎👍🏻
I agree 100%! If you capture everything right/well then your raw tracks will sound as good as most who talk about mixing techniques finished mixes. When you get there, the mixing is just a formality for the most part!
I just learned Reaper to record my harmonica playing by itself or over backing tracks. This resonates with me. It all happens at the instrument level, my playing into the microphone. Levels and balance. Then some basic EQ, compression and reverb. I learned a lot about how to play better and interact with a microphone doing this.
Agree. Listen to many hit songs, they sound completely different from each other. The same goes for mixing. If done a good job writing, recording, and editing, the song will sound good no matter what you do in the mix, even if just throw all the tracks on a bus and only bus-process them.
As David Knozzi from MixbusTV once said, mixing and mastering is like the delivery service for music. These are important steps in music production, they need to be done the proper way fo music to sound compelling and to get the message through. Good mixing is not about fixing a bad source or creating technically perfect sound. It's about creating a great experience for the listener. That's it.
Excellent advice! My best writing was done with and acoustic guitar, pen and paper. I find programing dums first has hindered the writing process . A metronome is really all that's needed until later on, especially with digital recording, and it makes the drum programing sound more realistic.
For the style I do, understanding how to mix and breaking every single sensible thing in channel routing will often get me my desired sound. Albeit, it's not everyone's cup of tea but at least try it and understand how the arrangement and instruments work within a mix so you can really enhance the overall production detail.
Very true Kenny, an poor song played by poor musicians and recorded poorly on poor equipment will always sound bad. I think back to my recording as a young aspiring musician I could never get it to sound like what I heard in my mind. Add years experience, an instrumental music degree and better musicians around me and now my recordings using Reaper as my DAW, i can now produce quality pro sounding music. You tutorials here are incredible and have helped me developed as a recording engineer.
Mixing is not important if nobody cares about your music other than you. Imagine you build a great car with an amazing engine, great breaks, but you spray paint it. This is how mixing is not important. Saying "a great song is more important" is platitude. And no great songs don't mix themselves.
All the tips and technics that I have learned on youtube channels really helped, and are efficient. But the funny thing is , that when I listen to my music when Iwas just composing , and just equing a little, it sounded better before, more alive. I'm glad I've gathered those skills, but I've learned that nothing replaces creation and spontaneity. Just trusting your ears and guts/inspiration, is often enough. I will now consider this technical knowledge as a tool for creation, not a step on the road to perfection. My former state of mind : " if I like ti , it is good enough" . Your are the only judge, when it comes to decide whether your music is good /ready to be shared. Thank you Kenny for your clear and accurate videos. they are always interesting, inspiring, and fun to watch. I always learn something....and then I use it ;-) Take care.
The mix doesn't matter nearly as much as the passion and the production. There is a reason why people still listen to 60s and 70s songs while very few people will listen to 2020s songs in another decade.
we forgot most of the 60s songs and retained only thé most relevant or memorable. it will bé the same for the 2020s music. either way it's not the mix that will decide which song passes through but songwriting and performance :)
@@Arkansya No, I really don't think the 2020s music will be remembered even remotely as fondly as the music of old. I was born in the 70s, grew up mostly in the 90s and I can tell you that the 80s music still sticks with me a lot more than the 90s and 2000s music that I grew up with. It's the same for everyone I talk to. There's something about the music that is off. I wouldn't say that there are no talented musicians. There are. It's more like the music industry has gotten really lazy and takes no chances. It's a lot like the movie industry.
Mixing and writing have always been one continuous process for me. I write directly into the mix/master and can hear the result almost immediately. But yeah, it different flows for different folks.
I mix as I go as well. But it allows me to realize that the mix won't help if I didn't create something worth listening to. IOW - There is no fix it in the mix. If it doesn't work now, it won't work later.
Once we get to the one minute part, I fully agree. As a Mix Engineer, when handed poor material (a broken song or performances) there is nothing I can do to make that good, let alone amazeballz. All this blather in forums etc about mixing Tipz n Trix that makes music work is (and always has been) utter BS. If the work is well created, it will make at least a Guide Mix (a natural balance) easily. If not, the issue is most likely a) a broken song and/or b) breaking the balance of the song with overproduction. :-) However, many want the mess they make as it is about their fear-driven ego rather than the Scene & Story of the Song.
I personally set a timer for 15 minutes... I mix, get everything sound good...timer goes off, I make a tea, get a snack, give my ears a break...come back in, make a couple little tweaks....and done.. its been my process for years, and its worked for me
While I get your drift, I find mixing to be a very creative aspect of my process. As you know, the selection of FX, Eqs, Compression ect. can drastically alter the final product. TO me that's a creative act. Carry on!
Haha I remember when great bands sent poorly demo tape casetes to music labels and producers. Most of them recognized talent because they had musical ears and listen a lot of good music ...they can imagine how will be final product. Now mostly illiterate producers , studio technic staff will try you to scam y that without mixing , mastering of ten thousand bucks y can not sound " professional " Thanks for this video ,Kenny. Many from your viewers can not understand this .
The reason why mixing has become unimportant its because people are FIXING and believe that is mixing. This "new age" has turned this process into something that it is not as with most things in life and do not want to take the time to learn what it actually is. If you are a FIXER then it won't be important. But if you are actually mixing then you will understand the importance of it. 👍🏾
I can tell you how releived i am seeing this message being spread through out the audio community. There are mixing videos in the Bitwig community that are hours long and talk about all these garbage steps to take so you can have this notion of "perfect loudness" And it's like...if that's your sole focus when making music, you're not making music. However, as a lowkey Caveat to your statement: messing with reverbs, delays and other forms of moduclation it its self is very much part of the creative proccess for many, especially from a sound designer perspective. But this is differnt than the whole traditional sense of mixing..as more experimental, weird sound design type productions are LITTERALLY mixing them selves if one wants to make sure it's musical enough to be listenable.
Well, most of the time, when doing home-recording it’s true. But with live-recording, you normally get that one single chance to record the event. Than mixing is essential to get the best out of that material, often in creative and unusual ways🤘🤘
Angry mixing engineers comments in 3, 2, 1... I agree with you, and with one of the other commenters: a song can only be good if the steps preceeding the mixing are good. Poor writing, poor arrangement, poor performances, poor recording and poor editing cannot be saved even by the best mixing engineer in the world. Or maybe they could be, but it would take so much time that it would be easier to just start from scratch instead.
I heard lately psy trance with so much sounds data and channels, and the mix techniques becomes part of the track texture and completely part of the creative part of the song...in other simple singer song writer songs indeed mix should take less weight and effort...overall Reaper is amazing 🤟🎸👍
It's been a bit of a soul-sucking dynamic for me over the years - writing is hard, and it can be hard to sit down to write and spend time and not feel like you did anything good. That isn't true of course - reps are good and you have to put the reps in and make lots of bad stuff alongside the good stuff. But if we "learn a lot of new mixing things" by chugging youtube videos and trying new plugins, we fool ourselves into thinking we've been productive. I appreciate your words and insight Kenny - would welcome more of this kind of content alongside the awesome tips/tricks.
I dunno. I have sent several of my tracks to someone (a youtuber :-) ) for a mix/master and was consistently blown away by the results. Without a doubt the best decision I ever made in my (meagre) music production.
I just have my guitar along with a backing track Irealpro. I do use TRS 5 for mixing but just use a couple of things. And I have everything set in a template so I can record a whole album without the extra work.
At this point, going to CZcams for mixing tips and advice is just worthless. Everything is contradictary, you got one guy telling you fix everything with EQ, another guy telling you to use as little EQ as possible, one guy using 700 plugins on his guitar and and another using 6 different snares for one sound. Just gonna do it my own way. Keep it simple and trust my ears.
Do you think we should all get together and come up with one vision? Most youtubers are trying to create content. Whether it's useful or not. I'm telling you the opposite. Worry about the song and performance first. I'm not trying to create more content. I'm just sharing my opinions.
i am currently recording my band. we went into a LOT of detail to record the best sources possible. over the course of mixing it, i barely touched any plugins.
Kenny i love you, i know you are the reaper God, but im Just wondering how you go about if you get clients Who work on pro tools or any other daw but primeraly pro tools, you should make a video on how you would work around that or how u would export the stems or if you would be limited if u only use reaper plugins and the client needs something for protools etc
My opinion on this subject is YES BUT: 1) True, the song is king, for example all Motown music was recorded and mixed in subpar conditions and nobody cares, you just hear one bar and start humming and dancing. On the other extreme, without a good song you're just polishing the proverbial turd (i.e. covering it in glitter). That said, lots of big names in mixing, time after time, speak of their craft as, first and foremost, another CREATIVE tool to enhance the song and make it more powerful: Dave Pensado, Michael Brauer, Jack Joseph Puig... As a musician who mixes his own music, I've acquired a new gusto and interest for these techniques after getting into this mindset. For example you can use a compressor to make a part punchier, then automate it different for a more mellow part... Just like everything else in the song, it doesn't have to stay static from beginning to finish. When you start to see it that way, it becomes an exciting new tool -but of course in the first place you have to have a worthwhile piece of music, a sonic vision worthy of applying these techniques-. And 2) A sign of the messed up world we live in: "mixing is not that important"... OK, but the marketplace seems to think otherwise; mixers, as far as I know, earn decent human rates, while the guys who do the "more important" part, write, perform, arrange... earn nothing, zero, nada. The whole value chain is corrupted. It works badly for everybody because, with musicians having to face these difficulties, the "raw material" they hand out to mixers is going to be by force poorer, therefore mixers aren't comfortable either, they don't have so much room to enjoy themselves, create and render their best work... And here we are all reminiscing ad infinitum about how good was the music of yore... I hope I get to see in my lifetime some change in this sad state of affairs...
Music was just fine for thousands of years with no mixing at all. Later with just a single microphone, mixing by the player’s proximity to the mic was enough for many great recordings.
Yes thousands of years 😂 the Beatles used eq and compression, just on a smaller scale since they had to bounce everything because of input limitations.
Phil Collins said if you can't mix the song in an hour you don't have the right arrangement. Of course, he was working with the best musicians and producers out there. So maybe give yourself a day instead.
Totally get the message, and have embraced this outlook for chunks of my last 15 years of music making. But I kind of disagree. Of course it goes without saying that The Song Is King but mixing can transform good raw ingredients into a true masterpiece. Some rice and fresh fish and soy sauce is a great meal and will taste good and sustain a body, but a great sushi chef will transform it into something that truly maximizes and surpasses the goodness of the ingredients. This is true of a songwriter too, of course, but I think mixing has the potential to make or break a song. Maybe that falls under your disclaimer at the beginning. Just my 2¢
"mixing can transform good raw ingredients into a true masterpiece" - I agree. What it can't do is transform something from "meh" to "great". The ingredients must be good.
Sounds like Kenny is trying to gracefully exit CZcams. He's already given us all the tools we need to use Reaper in all its potential. I have to agree with his point here - the art of making actual music seems to be fading and the "art" of post production is taking over. I admit to enjoying messing with reverb and other plugins and such, but it's a distraction from coming up with new music.
If mixes don't matter then what about translation issues to other systems? This is one of the primary problems that recording studio tech is for. Also bad mixes are tiring to listen to, so you end up not wanting to listen to albums or long pieces by that artist.
They do matter. They just don't matter THAT much. Your point is a good one but it won't matter if everything that came before was uninteresting to the listener. IOW - Nobody cares about a great mix of a meh song.
@@REAPERMania of course, but isnt that generally accepted as the priority in all creation... you need to have good music, then dont be at a disadvantage with poor production values for finished presentation ? If its not these days then am baffled whats going on out there.
I completely disagree with your title, and songs do not mix themselves even if the recordings were great. Mixing is based on the ideas of the person/people mixing and is a great way to express sonic creativity.
This should be watched every time before starting to mix a new song, so it doesn't turn into endless tweaking.
I'm saying the very same thing to my self.
I had much more fun (and success) when I stopped caring so much about mixing and just got it sounding good to my ears. Watching channels making incision cuts on the kick for 20 minutes or sample replacing snares for ages just takes the fun and vibe out of the songs.
Words of wisdom. Mixing and mastering are the boxing and wrapping of the gift. It's the gift that matters.
Nobody cares how your pizza is delivered if it's NOT good pizza. lol
Mixing is oftentimes a completely seperate creative outlet for those who record in home. Don't forget the rules man..there are none.✌🏻
1. A good song
2. The best possible performance of musicans while recording
3. Recording technics
4. At this point the song should be about 90% mixed WITHOUT you even think about mixing nor touching an EQ-plugin
Thats the way I start my mixing-sessions. If we are not there, we record it again, and again and again.....
Its simple: To get a pro-radio-ready-mix everything in the whole chain has to be pro. There are NO shortcuts!
Yep. I had a song recently where a majority of the time mixing was adjusting some levels in different instruments at different times in the song, and dealing with a resonant frequency in the bass guitar that made one note sound loud and made every other note in that part soft. Once we fixed that odd resonant frequency, the mix was done and had a great driving feeling.
The first rule that I was taught in my year long, intensive, hands on, $15, 000 dollars later "Sound Engineering" course was this:
SHIT in -> SHIT out!
Honestly this is something I learned with repeated practice. I've been writing songs weekly for the last few years and it wasn't until I started dialing in the exact sound I was going for from the start (like guitar tones, finding the right kit sounds for drums, or a synth sound that sits in the right place on its own) that I started getting superb mixes. Because yeah, when it's already sounding REALLY good with clean performances and the right sonic landscape, the amount of effort you need to put into the mix itself is fairly minimal. Like, at that point, you're just trying to optimize the overall sound, not "fix" it.
So what I find to be extremely beneficial sometimes when you're recording a song is that, if you're confident in the writing but the sound isn't quite right or doing it for you, scrap everything and re-record it. Re-dial in those guitar tones. Try playing the parts differently (like using a pick instead of your fingers on the bass). Try standing within different ranges of your microphone when you're singing to see what sounds best. Then see where you're at. Sometimes a second or third go-around might have you like "Yes, THIS is what I was going for."
Lastly I want to add that this idea of "finding the sound" can be an extremely pivotal moment for what a whole album might sound like when you discover something that really resonates with you.
Great advice. Similar to when movie directors will re-write the movie a few times before they even start shooting.
100% correct. I would rather listen to a bootleg recording captured in the 80s on a cassette recorder of The Rolling Stones, for example, than the 1000s of professionally recorded, mixed and mastered songs put out every year that are utterly forgettable. The song itself is king and the talent making and producing those songs are the courtiers. The mixer and the mixing process is just the window washing process.
I'm obsessed with mixing. It's all I want to do! I've watched thousands of hours worth of videos, including most of Kenny's. I have spent countless hours learning and applying new techniques. You name it - compression, gating, infinite ways of routing, sidechaining, ducking, EQ-ing reverbs, time calculator, automation, mono, stereo, mid, side, spectrum analyzer, parametric eq, saturation, panning, triggering samples, mixing stems, stem mastering, mix bus, group bus, editing, color coding, buffer settings, VU metering, gain staging, LUFS, 20Hz, 20kHz, RMS, Wav files, 32 bit float, Cambridge Music Technology, Tape Op Magazine, REAPER Mania, The REAPER Blog, Let's Talk About Reaper, The Mix Academy, Audio University, Rick Beato, Acoustic Fields, SonicScoop, Top Music Attorney, White Sea Studio, IDDQD Sound, Midi keyboards, midi controllers, hybrid mixing console, rendering, freezing, layering, true peak, PLUGINS 4 FREE, Analog Obsession, AND. IT. JUST. NEVER. ENDS!
I think about mixing songs all day long. Every free moment is spent mixing songs. It's my passion and I study every second I can. I eat, sleep and breath mixing music. Honestly, I have spent years learning from the ground up. I've come a very long way and believe I understand many of the technical aspects of mixing. I have a very good grasp on the art of mixing and have no doubt in my mind that my mixes are the absolute best.
Just a couple things elude me though. I have never mixed for anyone and I have never released any songs.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a watch later list that I need to get to.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Kenny, you are awesome. Thanks for all the help. ✊🏼
Always learn something! You make some great points. There should be no "we'll fix it in the mix". Thank you so much Kenny!
Thank you :)
I write in the DAW, as a solo artist. For me, mixing while I write and perform no only make sense, but inform the creativity. I literally USE mixing to guide the song and vice versa. It's incredibly important to me, because it's a tool for arrangement, timing, pace, and it compliments and frames my creativity. Generally, by the time I'm done writing and performing, the mix is 95% done. I do as I go, and only embellish or clean up tiny bits. I find this highly rewarding, so mixing to me can be seen as an instrument, more or less.
Great advice.
You can't polish a turd.
I agree but I like mixing. Music is like a funnel: song at one end, mastering on the other. As you go through the process, each step matters less but costs more. Writing a song is basically free. Setting yourself up with an analog mastering suite could cost over $100k.
I love mixing too and I mix as I go. It's a part of the production process. It also allows me to realize if the part I just created works.
@@REAPERMania Thank you very much!
Very true. Learned this lesson when I downloaded my first free professional multitrack from Cambridge-MT. It made me aware of how well-sounding a non-mixed multitrack can be.
I actually feel like most of those can be a lot better.
Perhaps the "mixing is not important" philosophy is more that mixing is unlikely to save a poorly composed/ arranged/ performed/ recorded song. The golden rule (I learnt from Joe Gilder's Home Studios Corner channel) is GIRATS - Get It Right At The Source. If you do that, then yes, a song will mostly mix itself.
However, there are mixers/ songwriters that use mixing as a creative tool in itself. Lots of electronic music artists approach creating music this way, so the "mixing is not important" philosophy is also somewhat genre dependent. Check out many of the (dance/ extended/ 12") remixed versions of famous songs that sonically sound vastly different to the original version, yet were still identifiable as the same song. Many of these used the exact same master tracks as the original, but utilized all the mixing tools to create a very different outcome.
Good points. I've been finding myself stuck learning mixing & mastering, but changing up the instruments and/or recordings can also get me out of a bad mix.
So true. Early on playing guitar I used to wonder why everything sounded so muddy and just amateur and I'd try every trick I could find. High cut/low cut. Cutting mids. Extracting EQ. Everything and it would still sound bad.
Now that I'm better at playing guitar, and dialing in guitar, including EQ-ing my guitar at the source with a pedal, I find that my tracks sound good to my ear out the gate and often I do little more than hard pan left and right in Reaper and I'm done.
That's bc this so called new generation has no musical taste. The true Musical fans will always appreciate creative music, originality and amazing MIXING !😎👍🏻
I agree 100%! If you capture everything right/well then your raw tracks will sound as good as most who talk about mixing techniques finished mixes.
When you get there, the mixing is just a formality for the most part!
Thanks for saying this. I’ve lost so much time trying to perfect a mix that by the time I’m done there’s no reason to release
this is damn true, it's something one becomes aware with the experience. Great simple and clear video.
I just learned Reaper to record my harmonica playing by itself or over backing tracks. This resonates with me. It all happens at the instrument level, my playing into the microphone. Levels and balance. Then some basic EQ, compression and reverb. I learned a lot about how to play better and interact with a microphone doing this.
This one was refreshingly all Kenny--no Reaper interface! And like everything Kenny teaches, this was tremendously useful and timely for me.
This is the mother fckng content the planet deserves, I'm sharing this in my music community as a thank you and a gift for them.
Bro just exposed my entire studio session😂 thanks for the insight and inspiration Kenny
Agree. Listen to many hit songs, they sound completely different from each other. The same goes for mixing. If done a good job writing, recording, and editing, the song will sound good no matter what you do in the mix, even if just throw all the tracks on a bus and only bus-process them.
As David Knozzi from MixbusTV once said, mixing and mastering is like the delivery service for music. These are important steps in music production, they need to be done the proper way fo music to sound compelling and to get the message through. Good mixing is not about fixing a bad source or creating technically perfect sound. It's about creating a great experience for the listener. That's it.
Agreed. Solid compositional techniques and good musicianship minimize the need for sonic enhancement later on.
Agree 100%. Is good that someone says it with no shame. Thanks.
I needed to hear this again for my own sanity, thank you!
Excellent advice!
My best writing was done with and acoustic guitar, pen and paper.
I find programing dums first has hindered the writing process . A metronome is really all that's needed until later on, especially with digital recording, and it makes the drum programing sound more realistic.
If it works with a vocal and acoustic guitar, it's a great song.
Good point, well made. There are great mastering engineers, but you probably don't need one.
For the style I do, understanding how to mix and breaking every single sensible thing in channel routing will often get me my desired sound. Albeit, it's not everyone's cup of tea but at least try it and understand how the arrangement and instruments work within a mix so you can really enhance the overall production detail.
Very true Kenny, an poor song played by poor musicians and recorded poorly on poor equipment will always sound bad. I think back to my recording as a young aspiring musician I could never get it to sound like what I heard in my mind. Add years experience, an instrumental music degree and better musicians around me and now my recordings using Reaper as my DAW, i can now produce quality pro sounding music. You tutorials here are incredible and have helped me developed as a recording engineer.
Thanks. :)
Mixing is not important if nobody cares about your music other than you. Imagine you build a great car with an amazing engine, great breaks, but you spray paint it. This is how mixing is not important. Saying "a great song is more important" is platitude. And no great songs don't mix themselves.
All the tips and technics that I have learned on youtube channels really helped, and are efficient. But the funny thing is , that when I listen to my music when Iwas just composing , and just equing a little, it sounded better before, more alive. I'm glad I've gathered those skills, but I've learned that nothing replaces creation and spontaneity. Just trusting your ears and guts/inspiration, is often enough. I will now consider this technical knowledge as a tool for creation, not a step on the road to perfection. My former state of mind : " if I like ti , it is good enough" . Your are the only judge, when it comes to decide whether your music is good /ready to be shared. Thank you Kenny for your clear and accurate videos. they are always interesting, inspiring, and fun to watch. I always learn something....and then I use it ;-) Take care.
Thank you. :)
The mix doesn't matter nearly as much as the passion and the production. There is a reason why people still listen to 60s and 70s songs while very few people will listen to 2020s songs in another decade.
we forgot most of the 60s songs and retained only thé most relevant or memorable. it will bé the same for the 2020s music.
either way it's not the mix that will decide which song passes through but songwriting and performance :)
@@Arkansya No, I really don't think the 2020s music will be remembered even remotely as fondly as the music of old. I was born in the 70s, grew up mostly in the 90s and I can tell you that the 80s music still sticks with me a lot more than the 90s and 2000s music that I grew up with. It's the same for everyone I talk to. There's something about the music that is off. I wouldn't say that there are no talented musicians. There are. It's more like the music industry has gotten really lazy and takes no chances. It's a lot like the movie industry.
@@SomeCanine ppl in the 70s said the same. it wont be remembered by you but by those who are kids today, this how culture works.
WORD! Kenny,
I cannot agree more ...but but GEAR?! 😅🤣😂
Thanks for sharing your videos and points of view
Very true. The mix also sounds very different on different sound devices.
Mixing and writing have always been one continuous process for me. I write directly into the mix/master and can hear the result almost immediately. But yeah, it different flows for different folks.
I mix as I go as well. But it allows me to realize that the mix won't help if I didn't create something worth listening to. IOW - There is no fix it in the mix. If it doesn't work now, it won't work later.
It depends. Mixing can be composing.
Anyway, it's good advice for procrastinators.
Once we get to the one minute part, I fully agree. As a Mix Engineer, when handed poor material (a broken song or performances) there is nothing I can do to make that good, let alone amazeballz. All this blather in forums etc about mixing Tipz n Trix that makes music work is (and always has been) utter BS. If the work is well created, it will make at least a Guide Mix (a natural balance) easily. If not, the issue is most likely a) a broken song and/or b) breaking the balance of the song with overproduction.
:-)
However, many want the mess they make as it is about their fear-driven ego rather than the Scene & Story of the Song.
So, so very true! Number one is the tune!
LoL. I play acoustic drums , so mixing is quite important to me. 😀
I personally set a timer for 15 minutes... I mix, get everything sound good...timer goes off, I make a tea, get a snack, give my ears a break...come back in, make a couple little tweaks....and done.. its been my process for years, and its worked for me
Amen! Thanks as always Kenny.
"You can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear".
While I get your drift, I find mixing to be a very creative aspect of my process. As you know, the selection of FX, Eqs, Compression ect. can drastically alter the final product. TO me that's a creative act. Carry on!
Iron Maiden doesn't even bother mastering their records. What you're hearing is the board mix. That's just how Steve Harris wants it to sound.
Haha I remember when great bands sent poorly demo tape casetes to music labels and producers.
Most of them recognized talent because they had musical ears and listen a lot of good music ...they can imagine how will be final product.
Now mostly illiterate producers , studio technic staff will try you to scam y that without mixing , mastering of ten thousand bucks y can not sound " professional "
Thanks for this video ,Kenny.
Many from your viewers can not understand this .
Good point - Turd polishing never ends well
The reason why mixing has become unimportant its because people are FIXING and believe that is mixing. This "new age" has turned this process into something that it is not as with most things in life and do not want to take the time to learn what it actually is.
If you are a FIXER then it won't be important. But if you are actually mixing then you will understand the importance of it. 👍🏾
If everything before it is great, it becomes important.
I can tell you how releived i am seeing this message being spread through out the audio community. There are mixing videos in the Bitwig community that are hours long and talk about all these garbage steps to take so you can have this notion of "perfect loudness" And it's like...if that's your sole focus when making music, you're not making music.
However, as a lowkey Caveat to your statement: messing with reverbs, delays and other forms of moduclation it its self is very much part of the creative proccess for many, especially from a sound designer perspective. But this is differnt than the whole traditional sense of mixing..as more experimental, weird sound design type productions are LITTERALLY mixing them selves if one wants to make sure it's musical enough to be listenable.
Well, most of the time, when doing home-recording it’s true. But with live-recording, you normally get that one single chance to record the event. Than mixing is essential to get the best out of that material, often in creative and unusual ways🤘🤘
Wow!! Kenny in flames!!
too the point and low key inspiring. Thanks!
Angry mixing engineers comments in 3, 2, 1...
I agree with you, and with one of the other commenters: a song can only be good if the steps preceeding the mixing are good. Poor writing, poor arrangement, poor performances, poor recording and poor editing cannot be saved even by the best mixing engineer in the world. Or maybe they could be, but it would take so much time that it would be easier to just start from scratch instead.
It is the mafia clan mixing " engieneers ".
Many of them are dirty con men.
I heard lately psy trance with so much sounds data and channels, and the mix techniques becomes part of the track texture and completely part of the creative part of the song...in other simple singer song writer songs indeed mix should take less weight and effort...overall Reaper is amazing 🤟🎸👍
Perfect! 🎯
It's been a bit of a soul-sucking dynamic for me over the years - writing is hard, and it can be hard to sit down to write and spend time and not feel like you did anything good. That isn't true of course - reps are good and you have to put the reps in and make lots of bad stuff alongside the good stuff. But if we "learn a lot of new mixing things" by chugging youtube videos and trying new plugins, we fool ourselves into thinking we've been productive. I appreciate your words and insight Kenny - would welcome more of this kind of content alongside the awesome tips/tricks.
Didn't you release this before? Getting serious dejavu here.
I did but the editing was complained about with zooming in and out.
I dunno. I have sent several of my tracks to someone (a youtuber :-) ) for a mix/master and was consistently blown away by the results. Without a doubt the best decision I ever made in my (meagre) music production.
This advice is GOLD
Preach!
I just have my guitar along with a backing track Irealpro. I do use TRS 5 for mixing but just use a couple of things. And I have everything set in a template so I can record a whole album without the extra work.
Yes yes yes! Great info Kenny.
At this point, going to CZcams for mixing tips and advice is just worthless. Everything is contradictary, you got one guy telling you fix everything with EQ, another guy telling you to use as little EQ as possible, one guy using 700 plugins on his guitar and and another using 6 different snares for one sound.
Just gonna do it my own way. Keep it simple and trust my ears.
Do you think we should all get together and come up with one vision? Most youtubers are trying to create content. Whether it's useful or not. I'm telling you the opposite. Worry about the song and performance first. I'm not trying to create more content. I'm just sharing my opinions.
truth
much love
I've always thought if it's a good signal going into the box, it's going to sound good coming out of the box, and vice versa.
great advice as always.
thanks fot everything, kenny!
i am currently recording my band. we went into a LOT of detail to record the best sources possible. over the course of mixing it, i barely touched any plugins.
Best advice ever!!!!!!
Is this a re-upload? I swear you have made this video before, either way worth repeating. Much love.
It is. Most of the complaints about the first upload were that I zoomed in and out during the editing so I removed all of it.
@@REAPERMania As if the visual is what is important in a video like this. . . zooms or no zooms you bring the knowledge and I really appreciate it!
Kenny i love you, i know you are the reaper God, but im Just wondering how you go about if you get clients Who work on pro tools or any other daw but primeraly pro tools, you should make a video on how you would work around that or how u would export the stems or if you would be limited if u only use reaper plugins and the client needs something for protools etc
He surely only accepts multi tracks or stems.
@@podespault WAV Files.
Amen!!!
Shit in = Shit out
wow, this is good for me to hear.
My opinion on this subject is YES BUT:
1) True, the song is king, for example all Motown music was recorded and mixed in subpar conditions and nobody cares, you just hear one bar and start humming and dancing. On the other extreme, without a good song you're just polishing the proverbial turd (i.e. covering it in glitter).
That said, lots of big names in mixing, time after time, speak of their craft as, first and foremost, another CREATIVE tool to enhance the song and make it more powerful: Dave Pensado, Michael Brauer, Jack Joseph Puig... As a musician who mixes his own music, I've acquired a new gusto and interest for these techniques after getting into this mindset. For example you can use a compressor to make a part punchier, then automate it different for a more mellow part... Just like everything else in the song, it doesn't have to stay static from beginning to finish. When you start to see it that way, it becomes an exciting new tool -but of course in the first place you have to have a worthwhile piece of music, a sonic vision worthy of applying these techniques-.
And 2) A sign of the messed up world we live in: "mixing is not that important"... OK, but the marketplace seems to think otherwise; mixers, as far as I know, earn decent human rates, while the guys who do the "more important" part, write, perform, arrange... earn nothing, zero, nada. The whole value chain is corrupted. It works badly for everybody because, with musicians having to face these difficulties, the "raw material" they hand out to mixers is going to be by force poorer, therefore mixers aren't comfortable either, they don't have so much room to enjoy themselves, create and render their best work... And here we are all reminiscing ad infinitum about how good was the music of yore... I hope I get to see in my lifetime some change in this sad state of affairs...
100% agree Kenny!!
So this is why my creations sound like malformed monstrosities.
Too much creation, not enough foresight.
Music was just fine for thousands of years with no mixing at all. Later with just a single microphone, mixing by the player’s proximity to the mic was enough for many great recordings.
Yes thousands of years 😂 the Beatles used eq and compression, just on a smaller scale since they had to bounce everything because of input limitations.
Agree 100%. If the potato is rotten no matter how you cook it, it will always be bad. Stay safe.
glad to see an intro again!! n
You don't like the new one?
I can’t hear the guitar, cello, bass, or vocals. Good thing mixing just isn’t that important.
You don't have to get the point if you don't want to.
Words of wisdom! Keep'em coming, Kenny! ❤
good tip for everyone
Wonderful 🎉
Thank you :)
Phil Collins said if you can't mix the song in an hour you don't have the right arrangement. Of course, he was working with the best musicians and producers out there. So maybe give yourself a day instead.
A great song, arrangement and performance will mix itself.
Totally get the message, and have embraced this outlook for chunks of my last 15 years of music making. But I kind of disagree. Of course it goes without saying that The Song Is King but mixing can transform good raw ingredients into a true masterpiece. Some rice and fresh fish and soy sauce is a great meal and will taste good and sustain a body, but a great sushi chef will transform it into something that truly maximizes and surpasses the goodness of the ingredients. This is true of a songwriter too, of course, but I think mixing has the potential to make or break a song. Maybe that falls under your disclaimer at the beginning. Just my 2¢
"mixing can transform good raw ingredients into a true masterpiece" - I agree. What it can't do is transform something from "meh" to "great". The ingredients must be good.
Sounds like Kenny is trying to gracefully exit CZcams. He's already given us all the tools we need to use Reaper in all its potential. I have to agree with his point here - the art of making actual music seems to be fading and the "art" of post production is taking over. I admit to enjoying messing with reverb and other plugins and such, but it's a distraction from coming up with new music.
I'm not going anywhere. :)
@@REAPERMania Good to know! I was being facetious, too. Your's is the best audio engineering channel on YT
@@roberthunt1540 Thanks. :)
If mixes don't matter then what about translation issues to other systems? This is one of the primary problems that recording studio tech is for. Also bad mixes are tiring to listen to, so you end up not wanting to listen to albums or long pieces by that artist.
They do matter. They just don't matter THAT much. Your point is a good one but it won't matter if everything that came before was uninteresting to the listener. IOW - Nobody cares about a great mix of a meh song.
@@REAPERMania of course, but isnt that generally accepted as the priority in all creation... you need to have good music, then dont be at a disadvantage with poor production values for finished presentation ? If its not these days then am baffled whats going on out there.
so true....
My terrible produc😅tion has made me a good mixer
Yep.
Well said!
Absolutely agree
I completely disagree with your title, and songs do not mix themselves even if the recordings were great. Mixing is based on the ideas of the person/people mixing and is a great way to express sonic creativity.
Sir how can i listern to my mixing while recording.. im using umc22 to reaper i want to listen while im adjusting my procesors
Thank You ❤❤
GOAT
We're lucky to have you