Every technique has a time and a place that comes with experience. A fast attack on a compressor will take away a transient, not good for vocals, but good for sidechained kick and bass. The goal of compression in most cases is to make something sound louder without actually being louder as you compress the peaks down and allow everything else to be louder with the makeup gain. A brick wall compressor is a limiter. A rule I learned from a member here years ago
@Formant024 "Level in = Level out". You want the peaks going in to match the peaks coming out. It will sound louder even though the level on the meter is the same.
As for saturation, that can make a low bass have a bit more presence, by boosting resonant harmonic frequencies higher up in the freq spectrum, adding "warmth" making it sound a bit thicker. You would want a sound to sound stronger when the frequencies are clashing and getting muddy, so you would do some eq shaping to give each track its place in the mix and (especially with hiphop) some sidechained compression on the kick and bassline. Sidechained compression is used heavily in dance music to get that pumping sound.
Basically it comes with a lot of experience, I mean A LOT. Loads of practice, loads of getting it wrong before you get it right.
My basics of mixing article should get you started, then youtube channels like "In The Mix" and "Produce Like A Pro" will explain the finer details
Some interviews with Andrew Scheps are very informative too, hes a grammy award winning mix engineer. The resources available today are vast compared to what I had to work with.
All that info is gold, I've spent half the day reading this thread and re-reading it again 50 times. tbh I wish I could be your beatmaking intern. like I'd clean up the studio n cook tea n shit just to sit there & watch when ur working lol. the problem though is that I'm kinda afraid of making mistakes when it comes to music, especially when it is getting released, so I'd need raw vocals to practice on. the other thing is all that you just said opens up a whole lot of new windows for questions that I'm not gonna ask because I know you'll answer and I don't wanna waste your time
. (like for instance, why'd you want a sound to sound stronger when the frequencies are clashing? wouldn't that be the opposite of cleaning the mess up??)
tbh what I mainly need is a trusted source that I can look at and say "Ok, if I watch and practice ALL that this guy says, I can actually mix/master a track", most youtube people just tell you What the effect is and not when you should and more importantly, when you Shouldn't use the effect. but I'll start drilling that produce like a pro guy with the weird beard from now, then move on to andrew and in the mix. I still feel like I don't have "the ears" for it, I hope that grows on me throughout the time.
One other thing that makes me unconfident is that I don't really have mixing gear, except well this apple earplug that my brother "borrowed" and I actually borrow it from him everytime he's sleep or not using it. but still, I'm not confident if that's enough for learning my stuff. I'll still try tho.
This is the problem.
When i first started out armed with tonnnes of knowledge, i used to compress and eq for the sake of it. Before i even knew if it needed it.
Now, unless it's for sonic purposes (non mix related), I don't use 'em at all.
Mix; balance your levels first, get the volume and panning sorted. Then LISTEN.
Notice what's wrong then use the "techniques" to fix them;
- instruments clashing/masking. EQ
- kick ain't popping enough in the mix.. may need slow attack to pronounce the transient.
Listen first for what NEEDS to be done, then do it.
Yeah no exactly. that. I just miraculously mixed one track for this indian dude and it came out to be one of my cleanest mixes ever, I still don't know how I did it but everyone loves that mix, even professional people in their studio as far as he said (one of their studio guys actually contacted me and now I'll be mixing for him too. hopefully.). so now I saved all that I did on that track and I use it as a preset on most of his tracks now
or at least I use that as the starting point.
(also ngl, most of the time I don't really notice what the attack knob does unless I tweak it All the way.)
The knowing what needs to be done and when is the key, and that only comes with experience and trained ears to even hear what needs to be done in the first place. Thats why it all takes a lot of time to get to grips with as the ears slowly get better at diagnosing problems, and yes as you say, never add anything for the sake of it. Everything you add affects the final out, you could murder a good sounding track with poor mixing choices and do more harm than good. Every time you add something, turn the plugiin on and off to hear if it sounds better or worse, if its better, roll with it, if it sounds worse, then retweak or remove the plugin. Every technique should make it sound better, if it doesnt, then cancel or refine until it does.
I would also advise to avoid presets like the plague until you know what each plugin is doing, and only when you know, then you can start with a preset and tune it to save time. A preset isnt the answer to your problem, its just a place to start to save time before you tune to what sounds right. I never use presets, they mask what is going on under the hood and dont sound perfect straight off the bat and always need some tuning.
The problem starts when I listen to my mix and I really can't tell if some sound is better or worse, Most of the times I only get to notice that it's different if I'm having a good mixing day. and sometimes I only use presets with Slight tweaks by myself because I'd rather have a slightly good mix than whatever random bullshit my brain can come up with.
The best book I have ever read on Mixing is this one
Zen and the Art of Mixing. It changed the game for me. Mixing is a lifelong art in itself. Also for not a ton of money you can get the slate digital plugins and get the mixing courses that go with those. I would do both asap, but have patients and practice a lot!
I'll definitely read that if I find the free version
Really tho, one problem I have is that there's no straight way of learning mixing, like there's no school for mixing
it's just you play around with it till ur good enough. same with music producing. it's actually understandable tho because it's 80% experience. it's not like school bullshit.
I think you first need to wonder what you're trying to achieve. Before you apply any of these techniques, wyou need to know why. If the sound in your head is "less snappy" or "more crunched"... then you know what to do. Techniques are a mean to an end. I think you need a clear idea first... or a reference track for that matter...
I find good practice to write stuff down on paper before getting into the daw... stuff like "bass : same as song X", "snare similar to song Y" or "synth sound like the intro in song Z"... that sort of stuff.
Once done, I let it rest for a day. I will listen to the track on mp3 or wav, but not into the daw (because the temptation is too strong to alter things on the go). And I write, again on paper "more bass on the drop", "less reverb on the piano"... and then get to the daw.
It's too easy to get yourself lost in all the techniques and endless possibilities inside your daws these days. You need to keep an eye on what the goal was when you started the song or mixing the song.
That being said, I am guilty of letting myself wander about in the never ending fun of tweaking the sound for hours... but more often than not, the end result is crap. Good way to learn the ins and outs of your plugins though.
That's actually a wonderful advice, I only do that with my orchestra stuff. like I make up like a staccato riff in my head and instantly I write down All the things I hear around it before I open up the daw. as soon as I open the daw I feel like my creativity gets destroyed
so I can use the texts. I do it in notepad tho. (90% of my life revolves around notepad, ngl).
I'm not surprised that's the best take your dumb ass could have outta this whole discussion
or I guess you didn't have the patients to read anything else on the thread.
