Top 8 Ways to RUIN Your Mix (and how to FIX it!)
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- čas přidán 1. 07. 2024
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I unpack over 15 years of the BIGGEST mistakes I've seen when trying to mix music in a home studio. You will learn WHY these mistakes will ruin your mix, what to listen for, and how to quickly fix the problems using free or cheap plugins.
Great video for all skill levels including beginners and pro mixers! Enjoy 🤘
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⌚TIMESTAMPS⌚
00:00 - Biggest beginner mixing mistakes
00:26 - Download my favorite FREE mixing and mastering plugins guide
00:46 - Fixing sibilant vocals
03:25 - Increasing drum loudness using limiters
05:45 - Ways to bring back punch and power of drums
06:04 - How to dial in WIDE mixes
09:07 - How to dial in PERFECT vocal reverb
12:07 - Editing guitars, vocals, bass, and drums like a PRO
13:53 - Stop using one plugin do to everything!
16:54 - How to dial in attack and release on compressor plugins
18:58 - Why the correct attack time matters so much!
20:00 - Dialing in Release times on a compressor
20:51 - How to reference and prevent ear fatigue
22:13 - Avoiding ear fatigue when mixing
Have you made any of these mistakes when mixing your songs?!?
👉Don't forget to grab my Favorite FREE Mixing & Mastering Plugins Guide: bit.ly/plugin-book
Guilty on all counts. Thanks!
Ive been watching mixing and mastering vids from the big channels for a few years now. I have to say I really enjoy your vids. Very practical, no nonsense, straight ahead advise. Biggest takeaway for me was what you said about performance. So many times I let those glitches go and I really cant. Great advice!
Referencing always seems to slip my mind. Thank you for the reminder haha. Great video. Thank you !!!
Your explanation of compression in the drum bus was extremely helpful. It actually brought me to the point of where I think I’m able to grasp how attack & release work. They were kind of confusing & unclear to me no matter what I’ve read or how many vids I’ve watched about it. You explained it in a couple of minutes in a very clear & concise way. Thank you!
Means the world to me! Thanks so much. Glad you found it helpful!
Fantastic video! I’m terrible for the last tip, definitely need that timer!
Nice one! Keep 'em coming!
I really like your no-nonsense approach, your absolutely right on all of the points. Thanks for the knowledge!
Great video!
appreciate the knowledge!
Thank you so much for the video/tutorial. It was very helpful. Thank you for sharing your experience..
You just enlightened my mixing techniques. Thank you sir 💯🏆💝
Bro I want to say thank you for your video tutorials you really have one of the best channels out there right now on mixing techniques and tips! Appreciate you!
Finally, a number as a referance for attack times! It's always 'fast attack' or 'slow attack', with no referance as to what is deemed fast or slow. The default on a lot of compressors is 8, so I assumed that must be about average, but in hundreds of videos, nobody has said "30 is a slow attack time', so I wouldn't have even tried it. Thanks! 🙂👍
Great video as always! Another way to ruin a mix, which applies mostly to beginners, is to have a bunch of plugins on a track thinking a preset will magically improve the sound and add even more to correct things that weren't fixed earlier and without understanding what each plugins do and diving into fine tweaking to better fit their mix.
Fortunatly we all have to do mistakes and learn from them in order to become better, that's part of any processes.
I definitely de-essed the vocals way too much starting out. I didn't really feel like it sounded like getting a lisp. The big problem was that diction and clarity just went out the window.
Now, I actually prefer doing manual de-essing. Basically just cutting out the sibilance and adjusting the volume with clip gain for each bit individually. It's not the fastest way to do this, but for me I feel like it gets the best outcome.
Another thing I try to do is not having sibilance in the vocals, if I need layered vocals, harmonies and such. Simply record them and don't hit the sibilance. It can really add up quickly, and since sibilance isn't harmonic, you don't really need any in the backing vocals.
I really enjoyed your videos and very informative. I am just curious what drums plugins do you use in the songs in this video. This is the drum sound I am looking for..
Thanks, great vid.
that last 3 sections really helped me a lot :) thanks
the last tip is gold! thank you
I am beginning to get a better understanding of compression thankyou.
I really appreciate all your videos. Teaching myself how to mix and you've been such a great reference. I have an off the topic question for you. The main problem I have right now is I don't have any songs to mix. I have a little pieces are written myself but I would love to work on full recorded project. Is there a place you can buy raw studio tracks or even better, download for free? I really appreciate what you do!
Limiter on the main, that is me. I have started using compression to keep the limiter from doing too much, thanks for the attack and release bit, that will help.
i am guilty of almost all those mistakes mentioned, thank you for this video!~
one thing people dont mention is this.. does your reference have to be a similar sounding song? how do you pick the right reference??
I just started mixing for what seems like the first time and honestly your youtube channel has been extremely valuable. Thank you sir.
also the rule of thumb i learned with reverb is turn up to where you notice it and then turn it down, if your just trying to add space or whatever
Automation is key! Great comment ☺️👍
Richtig guter Inhalt. Danke Dir.
Um, Ok Bobby, I use way too much REVERB! Dang I almost thought you were gonna say my name. I am an awful mixer unless it's a drink or cake batter. But I am smart enough to have hired you to mix and master for me! Thanks Bobby!
That explanation on drum buss compressor extremely helpful
Glad it was helpful!
Good tips. The ear fatigue thing and losing perspective because of it are the great dangers I face. Frequent brakes that reset your ears are mandatory. It literally takes a few seconds to lose perspective sometimes when you're eq'ing a voice. Sometimes I reset the gain or go in the opposite direction for a few seconds to reset. Experience speeds the whole procedure up a bit. I'm a diallogue re-recording mixer most of the time.
Great advice here.
Thankyou so much.
Good video
Referencing is key to maintaining perspective.
Idk how I got your Email, but I’m glad.
Thank you for the video.
Really good video. To point #8 I'd say that it's a good idea to also mix at a pretty quiet level 90% of the time. It's like viewing the mix zoomed out.
Ah! This is really important as well! Thanks for mentioning it!
What an awesome video! As is usually the case with "The Interwebs", everyone can be right and wrong all the same time online! I just watched videos from a different engineer camp that says referencing is ruining music because everyone always sounds the same, find your own sound, trust your ears, mix with your ears, not your display, etc... And of course, as many music production videos these days will tell you: Mistake #9: jumping down the Waves ecosystem rabbit hole.
😂😂
Balance / making everything play nice together seems to be my biggest issue (at least MPA says so)... maybe EQing to prevent masking?
so I see the stereo enhancer is like a slight delay on one of the channels ?
so that gives a wider effect ? my question is how does that wash out the snare ? is it the frequencies that are similar doing this ? this is really some things I don't get...
6:00. Stereo Enhancers That was my evil in my early days. There is only one good time that I will use this( solo acoustic performances sometimes),and the waves S1 is a good one, but when you have a lot stuff in the mix then panning is much better. Panning traditional L,C,R has made the most difference in my tracks at making things wide. No longer using 45% there, 75% there. All music instruments are set hard left or right. Vocals are the only thing that I give leniency on that rule
Thanks
The last one is also so inspiring
What is when I use the "Diamond Lift Mix"Plugin from Acustica Audio on the Drum Bus? I Use Mode 3 with Clipper on. I can't hear any difference with or without Clipper focusing on the lower frequencies.
I'm new to learning how to mix/master my songs. Is it wrong to put a stereo enhancer on an individual track? I haven't ever tried it on the master and have only used it individually, but have no clue what I'm doing
DOPE
Why not using reverbs with Sends instead on the channel itself?
why has nobody made plugins that has that chain with the different limiter adjustments or compressor adjustment, so it's just a one plugin thing instead of making the chain ourself?
I would just add... mixing at too high of a volume is a killer also
Interesting point about the snare. Would this goes against the famous "Nolly trick"? Where he uses a compressor with fastest attack and release, 4:1 ratio in the whole instrumental bus so the snare can cut through the mix "louder" but controlled in comparison to the rest of the instruments. I've been doing that myself and now started to question it.
I think that has a place. That will, in essence, act as a saturator to "thicken" it up and probably bring out any ambience in the track. He MUST have some parallel processing or something to bring back or enhance the transient info on the snare. Otherwise his music would sound VERY flat (which it doesn't).
Hope that helps!
@@RaytownProductions Thanks a lot for explaining man!
I agree with all of this, except the editing thing. First of all, you're comparing it to the radio. Not everyone wants their music to sound as polished as mainstream radio. Some people would argue that sounds inhuman. Also, the more we reinforce this "everything's got to be perfect" mentality, the more it literally affects how we hear music and what we expect. So many of the greatest bands of all time existed in an era before editing. There are all kinds of imperfections in their performances. It's not that they don't detract. It's that they actually add to it.
I can imagine someone responding, "Well, that proves those mistakes are not taking your attention off the performance." But no, they totally would take our attention off of it if we listened to those songs with modern expectations. It's just that we don't expect perfection from modern performances. And so we're listening to modern music WANTING inhuman levels of perfection and thinking that sounds normal. But if you grew up in era where that didn't exist, and where bands just played as tightly as possible and lived with the flaws, I can assure you it does NOT sound normal.
Look, I edit my music. I'm not saying to never edit. But I keep finding that channels like this one are basically arguing "you have to edit out the noticeable flaws for the music to be enjoyable." And I don't agree. At all. People need to get outside, walk down the street, find a really good street band, and stop to listen. Hear that? That's how actual people sound when they're performing music. We've gotten to the point where even "live" performances are completely post-processed, and people listen to it saying "Wow, they sound great live." They literally can't tell the difference because we're so divorced from what actual humans actually performing music sounds like.
Oh, also, guess what? Those flawed performances from yesteryear? They were recorded by professionals. You think Pavement, one of the sloppiest bands of all time, wasn't recorded by professionals? Was Nirvana not recorded by professionals? I get that the standards may be different now. But that's exactly what I'm saying. That's the problem. And you're telling those of us that that bothers "Don't fight against it. You have no choice. Submit to the perfection!"
at least a handfull i'm guilty on... but hey i do write killer riffs :)
What about just sidechaining reverb with your vocal so that reverb only plays after it stops?
This is a great approach! I do this all the time to add clarity if the song needs it. Cheers!
my thing is dnb, the drums are so loud and clear and precussive. i can not figure out how to get all three of those aspects without sacrificing another
The trick is to make room for those elements to live in your mix. Focus on clearing out OTHER elements and not the kick/snare/bass.
I need to make some videos on these genres...
What DAW are you using?
Cubase 12
The longer I mix the more I wonder where to actually apply widening... It just doesn't make sense in my applications. Hobbyist here.
Please enlighten me, folks
And then you wonder how 1176 compressors do it, those things are lightning fast even on the slowest attacks but sound good on everything, yes, even on drums!
They do sound good. Maybe it's the release character or something? To be determined in another video haha! Cheers 🙂
@@RaytownProductions waiting for that vid to come through. Cheers 🥂
I'm that amateur, but I'm really trying my best here
Anyone recommend Tonal Balance from Izotope?
It's a great tool. Highly recommend it as a sanity check 🙂
@@RaytownProductions okay! Thank u man❤️🙏
Yeah I made the mistake of recording 1 terrible band. Bad songs, bad playing, bad everything. Then they blamed the crappy product on me. I blamed me to, because I knew better from the start but did it anyway
Sorry, but no. Each mixer got some space to work on. I slight use of limiter or a compressor does the job. The examples above, well I cant se the point. The most important is to use your ears, and adapt the sound from there. Stereo tools should be used strictly, and never on the master bus, I agree with that. As far as you experiment with your song/mix, I would say the same about about the final mixing and mastering
1ST~!
LIMITER/ ST ENHANCER ....DANGER
Good morning boss
Please, I want to make you my mentor
#8
Definitely not checking references enough, getting too focused on the track.
better manual deessing !!
The limiter was my sin... 😬
Lol same here! Live and learn 🤘
I’m GUILTY 🥺 lol
Point 5. can somebody tell Guns N‘ Roses that they are not professional. Knocking on heavens door at 1.56😂 or tell Metallica they forgot to record bass. I bet this list is longer. Anyway. Bedroom Producers should not make professional mistakes.
you're using a stereo enhancer on a master and teaching us how to master us the proper way. the irony
Haha, you've now made the worst Pro-Mb preset of all time with that re-esser preset. 😂
It's awful lol
That vocal sounds terrible. Can’t understand a word he’s saying!
Mixing mistake NUMBER 1: not deleting a song that sounds like the one in this video.... put that into the recycle bin then permanently delete anything that sounds anything like that.