Each lesson will start off with a few ~big things~ you need to know, summarized into one sentence.
Today's BIG THINGS:
ANYONE can create a pro level mixing setup at home. Whether you're in a studio apartment, a bedroom in your parents house, or a mansion in Hollywood Hills.
There are 2 paths you can take to set this up: the EASY way or the HARD way.
EVERYONE needs to do the easy way but some people really want to do the hard way too.
Let's break them down into 4 steps and let's start with the HARD way...
If you really want to mix with speakers, it's important that you get the desk placement, speaker placement, and acoustic treatment setup properly.
(If you have no plans to ever mix on speakers, you can skip to Step #3)
How your speakers are positioned really impacts how you hear them.
Biggest Mistakes:
You want to be sitting centered in your room with equal distance from the walls on either side.
This is important in order to hear your music equally and evenly in both ears.
If you're in a rectangular room, place your desk on the shorter wall. It would look something like this:
Getting the height of your speakers right is important. The space between the tweeter and the cone...
... should be at ear level. This might require you to buy dedicated speaker stands or adjustable desktop speaker stands (which will also decouple the speakers from the desk, helping reduce tones from your desk vibrating)
Next, you want to setup your "mixing sweet spot" by creating an equilateral triangle between both speakers and your ears.
AKA: your speakers should be the same distance they are from each otheras each speaker is from your head. Like this:
You want to be relatively accurate with this, so bust out the tape measure to get the distance right.
Setting up your speakers at ear level and equal distance from each other and from you ensures you'll be hearing your mix accurately across the frequency spectrum and stereo image.
But we still need to factor in how the room affects the sound from your speakers...
Did you know your room is causing your speakers to lie to you?
Sound is coming out of your speakers and bouncing back and forth around your room and building up at specific frequencies that aren't actually in your mix.
There are a lot of issues this can create, but one example that ruined my early mixes is that I was hearing WAY more low end from my room than was actually in my song, so I never added enough low end, resulting in thin, sad, weak sounding mixes.
By using acoustic treatment, we can stop these reflections and accurately hear what is coming out of our speakers.
When it comes to placing acoustic treatment, there are 4 levels. These are in order of importance.
If you can only afford to do 1 at a time, treat these areas in order, starting with level 1.
The first area you need to treat is the point of first reflection. This is where the sound coming out of your speakers bounces off the walls on either side of you and directly back into your ears.
It's easy to find this exact point with 2 things: a buddy and a mirror.
Start by sitting in your mixing position facing the left wall. Have your buddy slide the mirror along the wall at the height of your ear. The moment you see the cone of your right speaker in that mirror add a small mark on the wall. Continue sliding the mirror along the wall and once the speaker disappearsfrom the mirror, make another mark. Repeat steps for the right wall.
Place treatment to cover the area between these 2 marks.
The next areas you want to treat are the wall directly behind your desk and behind your head.
Bass frequencies get caught in corners and build up energy. Bass traps trap it.
Levels 1-3 would look like this:
A cloud is acoustic treatment that hangs above your mixing position to prevent reflections from hitting your ceiling bouncing back into your ears.
So that's the HARD way. The fact is, using speakers comes with a whole slew of setup and acoustic problems we have to address.
That said, it's important to keep in mind: It doesn't have to be perfect. The best you can do with your current living situation and budget is all you can do. Mixing in a home studio often has some tradeoffs.
The EASY way (that we are about to discuss) will help compensate for some of these tradeoffs.
But before we move on, if you are going to be using speakers, I want to drive home that there are 3 bare-minimum things you need get right:
And if you can't afford to hang acoustic treatment, there are 2 things you can do to minimize reflections:
Which perfectly leads me to...
You can skip steps 1 & 2, but you CAN'T skip steps 3 & 4.
Even with a perfectly setup speaker system, you still need a good pair of mixing headphones and to learn the system you're mixing on.
"When you put on a pair of headphones, you are wearing the studio on your head” - Andrew Scheps (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Adele, Green Day, Lady Gaga)
For the last 3 years, I've mixed almost exclusively on headphones and I honestly think my mixes sound better than ever.
There are 2 keys to success when mixing with headphones:
If you keep trying new headphones, you'll never be able to learn how the pair your mixing on sounds and ultimately learning how they sound is all that matters.
It's important you get quality headphones intended for mixing.
Consumer headphones often have big boosts in the high end and low end, which might trick you into thinking you have more high end or low end in your mix than you actually do.
"Recording" headphones often don't have accurate high end or low end, making it difficult to hear what's going on in those areas.
My favorite headphones are the Beyerdynamic DT770 They are reasonably priced and produce excellent sound. I recommend the 250 or 80 ohm models (80 ohm is a little louder, 250 is SLIGHTLY clearer).
Even if you're mixing on speakers and you've setup your room perfectly, you still NEED to be checking your mix on headphones.
The main reason for this is because most speakers aren't producing super accurate low-end all the way down into the sub frequency range.
You can't mix what you can't hear.
Headphones fill this gap and give you accurate low-end representation.
They also give you a quick second "system" to check your mix on so you can see how it sounds outside of your studio monitors.
FAQ: Should I get Open-Back or Closed-Back headphones?
A: Closed-Back. Open-back headphones give you a more "natural image" of the sound, but you can't record with them because all the sound of the headphones will bleed out into the microphones. Unless you have money to blow, I recommend closed-back because they are great for mixing AND recording.
This is one of the most important things you can do.
Music sounds different everywhere. Your phone sounds different from your car which sounds different from your bluetooth speakers which sounds different than the loud speaker in Kohl's.
The pros have figured out how to make it sound great everywhere.
So learning what PRO mixes sound like on your system will help YOU make mixes that sound great everywhere.
To do this, you need to listen actively to what individual elements of their mixes sound like.
Learning to actively listen is SO important that I'm going to give you a little challenge today...
**If your song doesn't have any of these elements, replace it with the primary elements of your song**
Learning how to listen is one of the most valuable things you can do and will help your mixes tremendously.
Today's BIG THINGS:
If you want your mix to sound great, it has to start with setting the right volumes for your individual tracks.
There's a pattern I see just about everyone fall into when they are starting out (myself included). We start playing around with our recording software and learning a little bit about mixing and then we focus on all the fun stuff (reverb, eq, delay, etc) and not nearly enough on the most important thing: the VOLUME we set the individual tracks.
If you want your mixes to improve, you HAVE to flip this. You have to get your volumes set right first, THEN move onto the "fun stuff."
I start all my mixes now by spending 30-45 minutes focusing ONLY on getting the volumes set right.
So, what does it mean to get your volumes "right"?
It's all about BALANCE.
Fun Fact: Back in The Beatles era, mix engineers were called "balance engineers"
There are 3 types of balance you need to achieve:
And there are 3 checks we can do to make sure we are nailing each of these:
This is a simple but powerful way to test if any of your elements are too loud or too quiet.
I prefer to turn my mix down on my interface for this so I don't accidentally throw something off in my session. These knobs look different on every interface, but generally something like this:
It's important to know that your mix will sound different at a quiet volume. You won't hear as much low end or high end, so you might not notice your bass sources as well, for example. So your mix won't sound "perfect" at a quiet volume, but you don't want it to completely fall apart either.
As long as you can clearly hear the key elements and nothing is jumping out as being WAY too loud, you've passed the quiet mix check.
The frequency spectrum shows us if the TONE of our mix is balanced.
If you've struggled with muddy sounding mixes or harsh, thin sounding mixes, the Frequency Spectrum Check will help you.
Think of this as generally being like the "Bass, Mids, Treble" adjustment on your car stereo. The bass is on the left, mids in the middle, and treble on the right (we'll break this down a little more in tomorrow's lesson on EQ).
For just about every song*, you want the frequency spectrum of your entire song to be a gradual curve from the bass (left) down to the right (treble).
To check your Frequency Spectrum Balance:
If there are BIG bumps or gaps, this could be an indicator that individual volumes in your mix are off.
For example, if you your song is at a point that should be big and full, but bass (left side) is low, it could be an indicator you need to turn your bass source(s) up.
Or if you see a HUGE bump in the mid range, maybe you need to turn down your guitars, synths, pianos, etc.
3 important notes here:
*If you are working on a sparse arrangement (like an acoustic guitar and vocal song, for example), you likely won't see the bass extend all the way down into the sub range. To have sub frequencies, you need to have a source that generates sub frequencies (like a bass guitar or kick drum). In sparse arrangements you might also see more gaps depending on what the elements are doing.
You don't want your listener to feel like their head is leaning to one side when they are listening to your song.
The Stereo Balance Check will make sure your mix is balanced in the left and right ears.
You can see this on your Master Meter in the top right corner of your session (and/or on your Stereo Out track in Logic).
If you're checking the master meter, the top line is the left side and the bottom line is the right side.
And if you're using the Stereo Out meter in Logic, the left is... left (shocker, I know) and the right is right.
There are 2 ways to check your stereo balance:
It's totally okay for your mix to be unbalanced and "leaning" to one side for periods in the song, but you don't want your entire song to feel unbalanced.
Today's BIG THINGS:
There are only 2 tools you have to learn to create great sounding mixes:
We'll cover compression tomorrow. Today is all about EQ.
We're starting with EQ because it's the most powerful tool in the mixing process and the most important tool for you to learn.
Whether you're mixing in GarageBand, Logic Pro X, Pro Tools, or even on a console at a live concert, EQ is the #1 tool that will make your mix sound professional.
In fact, before I understood anything else about mixing besides volume and EQ, I created a mix that was played on the radio.
So what is EQ?
Well, in short: EQ determines how our mix sounds.
Think of the EQ like the bass, mids, and treble control on your car stereo, but better.
Instead of only being able to apply that EQ to your whole mix (like you would with a car stereo), you can get into individual sources and make them EACH sound better and fit together in the context of the mix.
To do this, we have to understand the goals of EQ.
When working with EQ, we have 3 goals...
Let's break these goals down a little further.
1) Minimize the BAD:
There are no "bad frequencies" (as in frequencies that are always bad), but a lot of times our recordings will have some extra frequencies that are clouding our sources and making them sound muddy, dull, or harsh. Reducing these frequencies will give your mix more clarity.
2) Highlight the GOOD:
Again, there are no "good frequencies" that are always good on every source.
That said, a lot of times our mixes sound amateur because they sound dull and thin. If we reverse that statement, it tells us what our mix needs instead:
To make make your mix sound professional, it needs to be brighter and fuller.
These frequencies primarily live in the low end (bass and low mids) and high end (upper mids and treble) of our mix. Finding frequencies on individual sources that sound good in these areas can give your mix a brighter, fuller, more professional sound.
3) Make SPACE for every source: There is only so much sonic space in a mix. Cutting away or reducing frequencies from one source creates more space for other sources to "live" there.
For example: In most songs there are only 2 sources that really produce bass frequencies: 1) Kick Drum and 2) Bass Guitar (or synth).
Yet all of our other tracks might have some sound in the bass frequencies. This sound doesn't actually help those sources (it's often just rumble from the mic stand or some other noise), but it gets in the way of the kick and the bass. By cutting these frequencies on the sources that don't need it, we make space for it on the sources that DO need it.
Similarly, electric guitars tend to have a lot of "fizz" in the high end (treble) that doesn't help the tone of the guitar... but it DOES get in the way of the vocals. By reducing or cutting the high end on our electric guitars, we make more space for our vocals.
So, those are our goals, now let's talk about how to actually DO them.
EQs may look complicated, but they are incredibly simple tools. There are only 2 moves you can do with an EQ:
And while it looks like you have infinite options on where you can make these boosts or cuts, there are actually only 6 places you can make them.
I call these the 6 Zones of EQ:
Each of these zones sound completely different, so I put together a little guide to help you make EQ decisions.
And finally for today's lesson, I want to give you a HUGE tip...
To be honest, this is something I only really came to understand in recent years and it has helped my mixes tremendously.
Every sound has 2 parts:
On an EQ, they look like this:
The fundamental is always the lowest musical pitch the source is generating. The harmonics are kind of the "tone" above that fundamental note.
The fundamental and harmonics are related to the note(s) being played/sung, so they will move around as the instrument/vocalist changes notes, but they will generally lay in a particular range.
How do you use this?
Well, if you want a fuller sound, try boosting around the fundamental (or cutting some of the harmonics).
If you want a thinner sound, try cutting around the fundamental (or boosting around the harmonics).
This can be trickier on sources playing chords, but on monophonic sources (that play one note at a time) like vocals, bass guitar, and even drums, this can be extremely easy and powerful.
Concepts like this always felt like "secrets" to me because you can't really find them unless someone teaches you. It took me forever to discover them.
Pull up the song you're currently working on, pick a source that only plays one note at a time and identify the fundamental vs harmonics.
THIS is how you learn EQ.
Today's BIG THINGS:
I used to find compression so confusing and intimidating.
It took me YEARS to learn it.
But compression is actually kind of simple- people just make it confusing.
So let's learn compression the EASY way, yeah?
Compression is just automatic volume control.
I like to picture a volume fader that a bunch of little minions are controlling for me.
I tell them what I want the volume to do and they do it for me anytime the mix needs it.
But in order to tell them what I want them to do, I have to decide what I want to happen.
That's where the 3 Goals of Compression come in:
We'll talk about these goals and how to achieve them in just a minute. First, we need to understand the settings on a compressor.
Stick with me here, I PROMISE this email will be worth it.
1) THRESHOLD:
Imagine drawing a line and telling your little minions "If the sound passes this line, I want you to turn the volume down."
2) ATTACK TIME:
The attack time is how quickly your minions turn down the volume fader after the volume gets too loud (passes the threshold).
A fast attack time (>1ms) means they run up and pull it down almost immediately.
A medium/slow attack time (1- 50ms) means they let it pass for a few (milli)seconds while they walk over to turn it down.
3) RELEASE TIME:
The release time is how quickly they bring the volume fader back up to its original point.
Again, a fast release (50-100ms) is like them running it back up almost immediately and a medium/slow release (100ms+) is like them walking it back up slowly.
4) RATIO:
The ratio determines how intensely they turn it down.
A high ratio (5:1+) means they you are telling them to turn it down HARD. This is typically more obvious and aggressive sounding.
A low ratio (up to 5:1) means you're saying, "Hey, when it gets too loud, just turn it down a little bit, will ya?" A lower ratio is often subtler and less obvious.
5) Make-up Gain:
Because a compressor is turning down a signal, make-up gain is used to bring it the total volume back to the original level, so you don't lose any volume on the source.
6) Gain Reduction (GR) Meter:
Gain reduction indicates how much volume the compressor is turning your signal down in decibels (dB).
Don't get too hung up on specific numbers here, just use it to get a sense of how hard your compressor is working.
If you want subtle results, you probably want light compression. If you want intense results, you probably want medium or heavy compression.
Okay, now let's look at how we can apply these to reach our goals.
A lot of people are afraid of over compressing their song and losing the dynamics.
While this is possible, it misses 2 important facts:
One of the main ways I use compression is to add energy or "life" to my mix.
The biggest place you'll do this is on drums.
If you use a medium-slow attack time (typically 10-30ms) on drums, the initial hit is let through before the minions turn down the volume, making the impact of that hit feel even bigger.
The sharpness the compression adds to the hit will make it feel punchier and more dynamic in the mix.
This also works great on guitars to make them feel really "in your face." The initial pluck is let through then the compressor turns down right after, adding more dynamics to the performance.
If you want a source to feel like it has more energy or life, try:
This is the main way a lot of people think of compression.
"If it gets too loud, turn it down"
And this is a REALLY helpful use of compression.
If something just has occasional hits that are too loud, I can use compression to just quickly turn those big hits down a little bit and make the whole performance more consistent.
To contain the dynamics, you want a fast attack and fast release.
If you want to contain the dynamics on a source, try:
Thinking of a compressor this way completely unlocked a new level in my mixing.
Instead of focusing on what is being turned down, focus on what is being brought up.
Let me explain.
Most sources have a big dynamic range with louder parts and quieter parts.
And when we think of compression we often think about how we are turning down the louder parts.
But that's a mistake.
Unless your goal is to contain the dynamics, than you should be focusing on how we are actually bringing up the quieter parts!
Because we are adding make-up gain after we compress the signal, we are bringing the louder parts back to their original volume and turning up the quieter parts.
This brings up all sorts of subtleties and makes your listener feel like they are IN your mix.
This can help bring out the subtleties in vocals, little flourishes in a guitar part, and even help increase the sustain and fullness of a bass part.
Because there are a lot of ways you can do this, I can't give specific numbers except that you should use a fast release time (around 50ms).
A fast release time means the compressor will quickly return to the original volume after turning down loud parts, allowing the quieter parts to not be turned down by the compressor.
Starting with a PLAN for how you want to use compression is the most important thing. You could barely be able to "hear" compression and still be able to create an awesome mix with it by following these principles and going in with a plan.
Today's BIG THINGS:
A mix isn't complete without considering the "space" the song is in.
A lot of people starting out (myself included) just slap reverb on tracks here and there because it sounds cool.
But throwing reverb around and not thinking intentionally but what space your song should live in can ruin an otherwise amazing mix.
So today I want to give you 3 foolproof tips for adding depth to your mixes.
Your main tools for adding depth to a mix are reverb and delay... right?
While that is somewhat true, it's completely ignoring how we actually perceive distance (depth, space) in the real world.
Reverb and delay are essentially the sound of a source bouncing around in a room.
But if I were to ask you to describe what it sounds like when someone is trying to talk to you from across the room, what would you say?
Really think about this for a minute.
You're probably thinking something like...
And neither of those things have to do with reverb or delay.
The first one, "they sound quieter," is fairly obvious: Things that are louder sound closer, things that are quieter sound further away.
So start setting your depth right away just by setting your volumes to make some elements feel closer and others feel further away.
The second, "It's harder to make out what they are saying," has 2 variables: tone and dynamics.
For tone, you're thinking about EQ. Really bright sources (lots of high end) feel closer, while darker sources (less high frequencies) feel further away.
So if you want something to feel distant, try reducing the high end on an EQ.
I use this trick all the time on background vocals.
For dynamics, the key is that transients (the initial hit of a sound) aresoftened over distance.
Using a compressor with a super fast attack time can make elements feel more distant while using a medium-slow attack time can make them feel closer.
So ONLY using reverb and delay to add depth is a mistake.
But also notice that, when describing someone talking to you from across the room, you might not even mention hearing the reverb.
Which leads me to...
When I was just starting out, I would SMOTHER my mixes in reverb.
Then I'd take my mix out to my car and be confused and frustrated that it felt so washed out and muddy.
Years into mixing I saw a video interviewing Greg Wells (Adele, Taylor Swift, Aerosmith, Elton John) and he said that he likes his effects to be felt, not heard.
This blew my mind.
The concept is so simple, but improved my mixes overnight.
Unless I want a source to sound REALLY distant (or I'm doing a creative effect, I always follow the same approach when setting my reverb and delay levels.
Are you ready for it? It's incredibly simple. Just 2 steps:
IMMEDIATELY my mixes started to feel clearer and more present while still having a sense of depth
Seriously, try it out on one of your mixes.
This is one of those tips that feels kind of like a "secret" because I don't know how would have figured it out unless someone had told me.
The idea here is fairly simple: in order for the reverb to work with the song, the length of the reverb should match the tempo of the song and rhythm of the source.
A couple of important notes before explaining this more:
Let's start by talking about matching the tempo of the song:
If you're working on a song with a faster tempo, it likely does not make sense to have a 4 second reverb because it's just going to keep building up more and more as each new measure layers on top of it.
Instead, try to have your reverb end more in time with the song. Basically:
Faster Song = Shorter Reverb
Slower Song = Longer Reverb
That said, you also have to keep the rhythms of the source that's getting reverb in mind.
Even if your song is slow, if the source is doing 32nd notes, you probably don't want a super long reverb on it.
Or if you have a fast song but occasional, long drawn out notes... it might make perfect sense to have an 8-second reverb on it.
So ALSO be thinking:
Fast Source = Shorter Reverb
Slower Source = Longer Reverb (if you want)
These aren't "rules," so feel free to break them. But using them as starting points has helped me get better mixes much faster than just aimlessly trying a bunch of random reverb settings.