THE 10 MAJOR MIXING MISTAKES

T H E U L T I M A T E M I X I N G F O R M U L A P R E S E N T S THE 10 MAJOR MIXING MISTAKES The 10 Most Common Mixing Mistakes And What To Do About Them 2 0 1 4 P R O S O U N D F O R M U L A. C O M

T H E 1 0 M A J O R M I X I N G M I S T A K E S PREFACE I once received an angry email from a guy who was very upset that I had sent him a book on the common mistakes to avoid in mastering. I don t remember his exact words, but it was something along the lines of: I ve had it with all your negativity! I only want to know the positive things. Being a pretty positive person myself, I could only laugh at this :) There s a difference between being positive and just walking around with your head in the clouds totally oblivious to reality! All improvement starts with awareness. When I was learning how to record / mix / master music, I WANTED people to tell me what I was doing wrong and where I could improve. To me, this is the FASTEST way to get better. To get where you want to go you have to go in the right direction, and the first step to going in the right direction is to STOP going in the WRONG direction. Don t be fooled by the size of this short book. Wrapped up in these few pages are lessons that took MANY years to learn. If you want to improve your mixes, and you re not sure where to start, start by working to eliminate these 10 things, and you ll be well on your way. So again this is NOT meant to be negative! It s meant to serve as a guide so that you can avoid the common mistakes that many people make for YEARS without even being aware of it. I hope this will at least help to steer you in the right direction on your journey to making your music sound great. Rob 2 0 1 4 P R O S O U N D F O R M U L A. C O M

1 THE 5 KEY OBJECTIVES Not accomplishing ALL 5 Key Objectives of Mixing. Most people only focus on making the mix 'sound good', but this is only ONE of the objectives. To get a GREAT mix and bring out the BEST in a song, we must accomplish all 5. All great mixes accomplish 5 Key Objectives: 1. Final arrangement & composition 2. Emotional experience 3. Sounds good technically 4. Sonic consistency 5. Format ready for mastering Leaving out any of these 5 key objectives will make it virtually impossible to get a great mix. Learn the 5 Key Objectives of Mixing and exactly how to accomplish them these are the 5 things that you must achieve if you want your mixes, and your songs to sound their BEST. In short: Fix any arrangement issues and optimize the arrangement to make sure that it works BEFORE you mix the track. Identify the emotional message of the song, and bring that out in the mix. For example, if it's an intimate love song, you're going to want to create an intimate, warm sounding mix. Use ALL 5 Drivers of Mixing to get the best sound possible. Balance, Fix, Enhance, Shape, Space. Make sure the mix has 'Sonic Consistency' so that it will sound great on the majority of playback systems. Finalize the mix and get it into a format that's ready for mastering.

2 NOT FIXING PROBLEMS 2 Trying to mix a track that has problems. It's pointless trying to mix a track that has problems that need to be fixed. To get a great mix, we need to build on a 'solid foundation', so fixing problems from the recording stage is the first priority. What makes a production sound 'professional' is really the LACK of any problems, and what makes a production sound 'amateur' is hearing mistakes and issues with the sound. There are 6 things that we must fix in our mixes if we want them to sound professional. These are the '6 Mix Fixes' : 1. EQ problems Lack or excess frequencies 2. Tuning problems Autotune, Pitch Shift, Chorus, Reverb, EQ 3. Timing issues Cut out sections & put on the grid 4. Musical mistakes Copy a note or part from another 5. Noise & glitches Digital glitches, Edits, Clipping, 6. Deal-breakers Redo, Resample, Re-amp, Replace

3 GAIN STRUCTURE Not setting up the correct gain structure. Gain structure is about optimizing the gain throughout the signal chain. If the gain is too low, it can introduce noise and be difficult to mix. If the gain is too high, you can run out of headroom which can lead to clipping. Make sure to give yourself enough headroom right from the beginning of the mix. Start out by setting all the faders quite low you can always bring them up later. Each time you add a new plugin, make sure that the input and output gain is not too low and not too high. If you find yourself running out of headroom, select ALL the tracks and bring everything in the mix down together so that you retain the relative balance.

4 MONITORING TOO LOUD Monitoring at a high volume while mixing a track. The quickest way to get a small, weak, flat sounding mix, is to monitor really loudly while mixing. EVERYTHING sounds better when you turn it up, so what most people do is they keeping turning up the mix thinking that it's getting better. Monitor at a low level most of the time you should be able to have a normal conversation without raising your voice. Monitoring softly keeps your ears from tiring out too quickly and makes things like EQ adjustments MUCH easier to judge accurately. If you can make it sound great at a low level, it'll sound EVEN BETTER when turned up.

5 OUT OF PHASE Not checking the mix for phase alignment. Having tracks that are out of phase can lead to a thin, weak sounding mix and no amount of EQ can fix that. In fact, when tracks are out of phase, EQ can actually make the problem WORSE. Always check for phase alignment: 1. Whenever augmenting (adding to) a sound e.g. Adding samples, duplicating a track, parallel processing 2. Multi-miked / multi-tracked instruments e.g. Drums, recording a bass DI and mic track simultaneously The easiest way to check for phase alignment is to solo the two (or more) tracks and 'flip the phase' on one of the channels and then listen to whether that improves the sound or not. If the tracks were out of phase, you'll notice that the sound gets thicker and fatter when the phase is inverted. Some DAWs have phase buttons built right into the channel strips, others you can simply add a plugin.

6 TOO LONG IN SOLO Spending too much time processing instruments in solo. Mixing is called "mixing" because we're MIXING instruments TOGETHER. Spending too much time processing instruments in solo is counter productive because they need to work in CONTEXT of the mix. It doesn't matter how great something sounds in solo, the end listener only gets to hear the finished mix where all the instruments are TOGETHER. Start out a mix by getting most of the initial processing out of the way. Put on EQ's, compressors, and whatever other effects you think will work. The idea is just to get the sound of the various instruments 'in the ballpark' sounding close to how you want them. Once you've done this, your focus should now be on making the instruments work in CONTEXT of the entire mix. It's fine to solo things from time to time, but often it can be more helpful to tweak an EQ or compressor while listening to the instrument IN the mix.

7 TOO MUCH LOW END Too much low end. The low end, or the bass, is without a doubt one of the most difficult aspects to get right in a mix. Getting a clear and solid low end is something even the guys at the top struggle with from time to time. One reason that it's so challenging is because most near field monitors don't reproduce the very low frequencies, and most rooms are not acoustically treated which leads to certain frequencies being overemphasized and others virtually disappearing completely. It s also tempting to keep adding more and more bass because it makes the mix seem bigger and fatter, but it actually PREVENTS you from getting a commercial level track because it's the low end that eats up most of the headroom. In reality, the LESS bass, the louder the mix / master can be. Of course, we need to find the right balance. Use a spectrum analyzer on the master mix buss to get a clearer idea of what's going on in the low end. Compare to other commercial tracks. Listen at different levels, on different systems, and in different environments to get multiple perspectives.

8 BIG MONO Using too many 'stereo instruments' in the mix results in a 'big mono' sound that's not very wide. Stereo patches on virtual instruments or keyboards, and instruments recorded with multiple mics to give a stereo sound, may sound good on their own but can be very confusing in a big mix. Make most instruments mono unless you have a specific reason for using a stereo track. If it's a big mix and you're going for a big sound, pan instruments either center, hard left, or hard right.

9 JUST TOO MUCH! Too much processing, too many effects, too much compression, too much EQ just too much of everything! Ironically, an OVER processed mix can often sound more 'amateur' than a mix that hasn't been processed at all! When there's too much processing the mix starts sounding 'plastic' and unnatural and it can become tiring to listen to because everything has been so overdone. This is possibly the most common mistake made by those new to mixing the thinking that 'if a little compression makes a vocal sound good, then a LOT of compression must make it sound GREAT!' Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work this way Processing and effects are like makeup on a woman, the right amount can enhance and bring out her beauty too much can look more like well, not good! It looks fake, artificial, like she has something to hide. The same goes for an over processed mix. This may seem like a contradiction, but one of the best ways to figure out how much is 'too much', is by PURPOSELY overdoing it. For example, purposely adding WAY too much compression to an instrument will help you to hear the side effects that the compressor introduces. Your ears will now be more 'tuned in' to the effect that the compressor has and you'll be less likely to add as much. It's important to remember that a great mix is the result of a LOT of small, incremental improvements. A good general guideline for mixing is that 'less is more'. If an instrument isn't sounding quite right, first try adjusting any plugins that are ALREADY being used on it, before adding more.

10 LOSING SIGHT OF THE MUSIC Getting so caught up in all the technical stuff that you lose focus on the music. With all the shiny plugins and technical options it's VERY easy to get distracted and lose sight of what it's all about, which is making the song sound great. VISION. Start the mix by getting a VISION for what you want the song to sound like. You may want to write down some of the attributes that you want to create. What's the song about? What is the emotion it's conveying? Does it need a big sound or an intimate sound? What's the main groove of the song? etc. Every decision that we make in the mix stems from our VISION of what we want the finished product to sound like. This doesn't mean that the vision can't evolve as the mix progresses, but it's important that we have a clear direction that we're moving in otherwise we're just turning knobs and moving faders. Yes, the technical stuff is important, but ultimately it s simply there to support and enhance the SONG.

T H E U L T I M A T E M I X I N G F O R M U L A P R E S E N T S For in-depth trainings on all the topics covered in this book and more, visit prosoundformula.com 2 0 1 4 P R O S O U N D F O R M U L A. C O M