Mixing/Mastering advice

#2
There is a whole lot of stuff to go into here, but I’ll start off with this.
Others will be along shortly to give their input.

Just like live mixing you need to leave spaces for everything to sit in.
You can’t just have every track fill the entire sound spectrum.
Also just like live mixing you will want tracks to be dynamic.
Don’t have everything turned up to 11 all the time.
Some subtle raising and lowering of tracks to make other tracks pop out when they need to goes a long way.

As far as EQ goes it’s more important what the track sounds like in the mix then when the track is soloed.
Lot of tracks soloed can sound bad by themselves, but in the mix work.

These are very generic guidelines that are basically mixing 101 but at the end of the day if it sounds good it doesn’t really matter how you got there.
 
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#3
Another tidbit I wanted to throw out there.
Always use multiple methods of listening when checking your mastering.
Listen to it with your studio monitors, studio cans (headphones), generic ear buds, bookshelf speakers, Bluetooth speaker, and lastly check your master how it sounds mixed down to mono.

A master mix can sound great through one medium and terrible through another.
Not everyone is going to listen to your stuff through the same quality or type of playback medium.
Other thing that can be rough is making a mix that sounds good stereo and mono, a lot of portable Bluetooth speakers are just summed mono and are a widely used playback medium.

I’m no pro studio engineer, most of my experience is in live audio, but I’ve been dabbling at home with Ableton and Logic Pro. So far my biggest struggle has been making something sound good mixed in stereo when played back mono. Going too crazy with stereo panning effects and automation panning has lead to some serious phase cancellations when stereo mix is summed to mono.

Cheers.
 
#4
AK Bass Guy said:
Another tidbit I wanted to throw out there.
Always use multiple methods of listening when checking your mastering.
Listen to it with your studio monitors, studio cans (headphones), generic ear buds, bookshelf speakers, Bluetooth speaker, and lastly check your master how it sounds mixed down to mono.

A master mix can sound great through one medium and terrible through another.
Not everyone is going to listen to your stuff through the same quality or type of playback medium.
Other thing that can be rough is making a mix that sounds good stereo and mono, a lot of portable Bluetooth speakers are just summed mono and are a widely used playback medium.

I’m no pro studio engineer, most of my experience is in live audio, but I’ve been dabbling at home with Ableton and Logic Pro. So far my biggest struggle has been making something sound good mixed in stereo when played back mono. Going too crazy with stereo panning effects and automation panning has lead to some serious phase cancellations when stereo mix is summed to mono.

Cheers.
Click to expand...
Yes thanks for that. It's definitely a learned skill!
 
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