Day 9 of 11eleven easy ways to improve the sound of your music
How do you know when a mix is finished ?
Tough question – but my personal opinion is – when you’ve thought about every single bar, and know exactly why things sound the way they do.
There’s something about working with a real mixing desk that makes us want to move faders – and something about DAWs that makes not bother.
I often hear mixes where I think “why didn’t they ride the vocal there ?” or “it would have been good if that synth part had stood out more just there” – or something similar.
In the extreme case, you get “set it and forget it” mixing, where the sound is great in the chorus (say) but loses focus in the verses, or vica versa. There are no moment-by-moment tweaks to make sure every section of the song reaches it’s full potential.
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Day 8 of 11eleven easy ways to improve the sound of your music
Yesterday I recommended you mix naked.
Today’s tip follows on from that idea, but whereas yesterday I was suggesting you take everything off when you’re quite a way into the mix, this assumes you’re starting out with nothing on.
No idea what I’m talking about ? Read yesterday’s post first 
So, today the idea is – keep your mix as bare as possible. Start with no processing at all, and keep everything as minimal as possible for as long as possible. Get it sounding as great as you can, just by balancing levels and automating changes. Maybe add some minimal EQ & compression, and a little reverb.
Now stop.
And start panning.
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Day 7 of 11eleven easy ways to improve the sound of your music
We’re into the mixing stage now, and this tip couldn’t be simpler.
Take everything off.
Mix naked.
Wait – no, not like that…!
This is inspired by my experience as a mastering engineer. There’s a point with every song where you have to ask – “Does it sound better than the original, even when level-matched ?”. At which stage you turn the mastered version back down to match the raw mix, and flip between them. If the mastered song still sounds better, you know you’re on the right track.
This is a similar idea, but for mixing.
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Today is 11.11.11, and this post is my contribution to a great idea inspired by that fact – the 11elevenproject.
Check it out, and get involved !
I know there are lots of people submitting music (not surprising given that Imogen Heap is the executive propducer) so with that in mind, I’m going to do a quick daily tip every day for the next eleven days - 11 easy ways to improve the sound of your music.
To see all the posts in the series, click here.
Just think, if you do one of these every day for the next eleven days, at the end of it your music will sound 11 times better ! (*)
(*) This may not be strictly true
So without further ado here’s the first tip:
“Propeller Seeds”, by Imogen Heap, formerly known only as “heapsong2“, has been released – on the same day as the last ever shuttle launch, and like it, a little late – but such a success that no-one minds !
The song is superb, the video is beautiful, as you can see (despite having me in it) and I’ve already written in a previous post about the unique way that Imogen is involving her fans in the writing of the new album. Now that the song and video are released though, I thought I’d quickly explain a few of the reasons I love it so much.
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