Apr 20, 2011
10 Techniques For Achieving Outstanding Music Mixes
This post will tell you everything you need to know about mixing.
OK, not really. If that was possible there would be no need for this site ! In fact, it won’t even scratch the surface of everything there is to say about music and audio mixing – but it will tell you ten fundamental rules that – if you follow them – will enable you to make your mixes sound better and achieve the best possible results from your music and audio productions, every time.
But before I get to the rules, I want to point out a few things that DON’T matter. At least, no-where near as much as the things on the list. These things which are NOT important to achieving a great mix are:
- Dedicated studios or expensive acoustic treatment
- Expensive recording equipment
- Certain “must-have” plugins or software
- “Golden Ears”
Don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong with any of those things.
A purpose-built, dedicated studio with carefully chosen acoustic treatment is a beautiful thing, especially with an engineer who knows how to get the best out of it - and effective soundproofing will make your life MUCH easier. But are they essential to making a great recording ? No.
Similarly, the more expensive the equipment you use, the better quality it’s likely to be, the more reliable, the more rugged and so on. But modern technology means that you can get superb results even on a limited budget.
Some plugins sound better than others, no question. But the best are not always the most expensive – in fact sometimes, they’re free.
And you DO need good hearing to be an engineer or producer – but you don’t need “Golden Ears”. As a mastering engineer I can confidently say that many of my customers have hearing every bit as good as mine. You just need to couple this with focus, determination and ruthless attention to detail – and hopefully, a few of the attributes of other successful producers.
So, enough about what you don’t need – here are my rules for achieving great mixes, every time. They are:
- Use the best monitoring speakers you can find – and even more importantly, learn what all your favourite music sounds like on them
- Find a great-sounding space
- Use the best mics you can lay your hands on
- Find great players, and make sure they have decent instruments
- Rehearse, and make sure the arrangement is sound
- Take time to get the mics in the best positions
- Make the monitor mix sound as good as possible – keep it simple
- Record until you get good takes
- Spend time mixing and editing
- Remember – attention to detail is the key
And that’s it ! If you can follow those rules to the letter, I guarantee your mixes will sound fantastic.
Easier said than done, I hear you say ?
Well, you may have a point. But here’s the good news – even if you can’t follow all the rules in every case, they still work. Even in a dodgy recording space, careful mic placement can help. Even cheap mics can give great results, if you use them well. And there is a common thread that runs through many of those rules - time.
- Take time to find great-sounding monitors. They don’t have to break the bank.
- Take time to find a good space for the recording – it may be someone’s front room, the rehearsal space you’re used to, or even a performance venue, but the bottom line is that if the music sounds great in the room, recording a great sound becomes much easier.
- Like monitors, great mics don’t have to be expensive. For example you can get a fantastic ambient drum sound using a single PZM mic – provided the kit is in a good-sounding space.
- Take time to rehearse properly. Putting someone under the microscope of a recording situation can introduce all kinds of pressures and difficulties of it’s own – especially if you are paying for studio time. Make sure the artists are as well-prepared as possible before you ever get to this point.
- Take time to work on the arrangement – which instruments play when, and what they play. The best way to make sure everything is audible in a mix is to make sure has it’s own space musically. If you can do this, sonically everything will fall into place too.
- Take time with the mic placement. I absolutely guarantee that moving a mic three inches will make more difference than your pre-amps, mixer, soundcard and plugins all put together.
- Take the time when recording to get great takes – modern digital editing provides a great fallback position, but you just can’t beat an outstanding original performance.
- Take time to get these details right at every stage and everything else will just fall into place. So often you’ll hear people asking “what plugin do I need to get my recordings to sound like [insert classic track here]” – but they’re completely missing the fact that when the recording they are asking about was made, there were no plugins !
Of course I realise that in the real world, we can’t all get all these things right all the time – that’s why this site is here. There are tips, tricks, rules of thumb and suggestions to make each stage easier – and, perhaps even more usefully, ways to deal with something that’s gone wrong. So, get yourself set up to receive updates from our RSS feed, and watch this space.
Meanwhile though, keep these ten rules in mind – and always remember to take the time to listen. If it sounds right, then it probably is.
(This post is the second mixing-themed post I’m bringing back to the front page – prompted by Joe Gilder re-opening the doors to his Mix With Us community. Mix With Us is a great way to get advice, guidance and feedback on your mixing skills – and you don’t even need any material to practise with, it’s all included ! To find out more, click here. If you decide to sign up you’ll also be helping support Production Advice, too.)
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You don’t need great-sounding monitors since the majority of people will hear your music on crappy speakers anyway, except if your record will come out on Sony Classical.
Average monitor speakers might do fine, as they make you work harder to get a good sound.
Top of the line monitor speakers give a very detailed high- frequency response, the average speaker, the ones that people listen at home, does not usually display that level of detail in the top end.
With top of the line monitors there is the temptation to overload the high end of the frequency spectrum by adding more complex hihat patterns, more shimmering double tracked acoustic guitars etc, all this can turn into a high frequency soup.
Mix on average monitor speakers and check your mix on a crappy ghetto blaster, on a friend’s stereo, in your car, while driving & while stationary, at very low volume in your studio, and at a higher volume listening from the corridor with the studio door closed. All tricks to judge levels and balance between instruments.
Then, if it sounds good in all these places, it is good.
Thanks for the comment ! I agree with everything you say about checking on a wide range of other systems, especially if you can’t afford to have it professionally mastered.
But I stand by the suggestion to mix on decent monitors. If you don’t, all kinds of problems can slip past. For example:
- If the monitors are too toppy, your mix will end up dull
- If they don’t have enough bass, all kinds of low-frequency stuff that you don’t want can cause problems – flabby bass, compressors working too hard etc.
- If they distort, you could either end up with a sound that’s cleaner than you wanted, or add too much distortion because you can’t hear the difference between it in the mix and the monitors
- etc.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s possible to make great mixes on almost anything – NS10s(*) aren’t a speaker I would choose to use anywhere but the studio, for example, but are invaluable for mixing purposes – but the better your speakers, the easier it is to get great results.
Otherwise why would mastering engineers use the best possible monitors ?
Having said all that, I’m going to change the post slightly, because even more important than the quality of the monitors is that you know them well. If you know what all your favourite music sounds like on your system, your mixing instincts will be sound.
Having two sets of monitors available is a great idea, too – one “typical” and one accurate.
(*) John Leckie once said that all he need to make a great recording is some SM58s, NS10s and an SPX90. Personally I’d like something with better top end for the drum overheads, but you get the point
Even though you are talking about mixing I want to add one more, somewhat off topic, item – take your time recording.
I just finished mixing an album with an amazing band that has great songs and fantastic arrangements. The only problem was that they spent as little time as they could tracking and expected great results from the mix.
Once example is that they tracked everything live, occasionally overdubbed some guitars and some bass, but the lead vocal track was loaded with drums and guitar bleed. It took me forever to tighten up the vocals because I had to gate it and then mute almost every break in singing.
Unfortunately I think this is going to be the norm rather than the exception because recording has moved out of the studio and into the bedroom. So most recording artist don’t have any education on how to record. They think that if it’s in the machine it must be fine. What they don’t realize is that if they spend a decent amount of time on the recording quality (sonics, timing, phrasing, pitch, etc.) it will cut down on my time and therefore reduce their budget.
Also, I have to agree with author – good quality monitors DO matter. If I have to turn knobs to compensate for what’s missing in my monitors it’s going to take longer to get the results I’m after.
Btw, “John Leckie – SM58s, NS10s and an SPX90″. When was that written? 1987?
I couldn’t agree more – in fact, Rule #8 was supposed to be specifically about this – I’ve edited the post a little to try and make it clearer.
In fact, if you look carefully, only the last rule really applies to mixing – that’s the irony, in my opinion some of the most important rules to achieving great mixes have nothing to do with actual mixing !
I think Leckie made that comment when being interviewed about OK Computer, so actually closer to 1997 !
Hi
I agree: the best investment in a home studio are the monitors.
It was for me – the big difference -
It´s not about sound quality but levels accuracy.
Too much bass is equal to mud and lower overall level. Too much high is the opposite
You must play your dream cds through it and enjoy
the only thing i disagree with is on the acoustic treatment.
there is NO point in great monitors if you don’t have a room that won’t alter the freq response you hear. most people will have little choice in rooms to set up their gear in, a ‘great sounding space’ sometimes must be made!
most rooms will totally mess up the freq response, esp of the bass. telling people not to worry about acoustic treatment is a mistake unless you spell out that they *may* need it badly.
you can build your own bass traps if you are skint, if you buy them it is still much better than throwing money at high end speakers you won’t benefit from.
GREAT SITE, keep up the excellent work
I find that most people’s unwillingness to address the acoustics of their home studio is the root of the greatest frustration in mixing. This is a shame because simply by reducing first reflections and adding some sort of diffuser on the rear wall you can eliminate a large percentage of inaccuracies in harmonic balance. Bass traps are easily built as well. In my opinion any decent bookshelf speaker with a decent amplifier will work as long as you scope your room. Most digital audio programs have a spectrum analyzer and some sort of graphic eq built into the program. You can use these two items in concert with some pink noise to ensure that what you are hearing is the truth. You only have to do it once and then save the Eq settings as a preset which you apply to the master channels. Your mixes will translate much better when played back elsewhere, on any stereo system, ipod whatever.
I certainly agree about the importance of treating your room – in fact, I have an article planned on exactly that subject. I’m not sure about “almost any decent bookshelf speaker” – all speakers are not made alike. Certainly there ARE hi-fi speakers which are extremely accurate, but there others which are hopeless. The EQ preset is an interesting idea, and one which can work quite well if the adjustments are small – only a few dBs here and there, for example. There’s no substitute for learning your own room, though.
Rokit 8s, cant get enough of the darn things. Nice flat response, clearly tells me when things are wrong. Heres one: after going with the rokits i spun up some older Reason cuts that i felt were pretty good for the midi giant. Whoa, lets just say i spent some time remixing a few cuts i really liked. I checked this by stomping out a CD and listening to the old and new hard copies on the home theater system. Monitors are crucial. I do agree that most will listen on standard PC speakers, i also will say that the MP3 is just as damaging as poor monitoring is. Ive taken to mixing for mp3s in some cases, as its just more true to mix inferior copies than to have them automatically trashed by generation loss. Id love to see a FLAC player hit the market.
Great post (as always!)
I’ve been wrestling with the room sound / monitor issue as of late. (Funny – ’cause when I saw Immi Heap in NYC, she talked about having to to a remix on a few tracks from her latest, because the low end in her room was off, and she didn’t know until she got to the mastering room. )
Two things – what about using a subwoofer when mixing? I’ve always been disturbed by the extra lows that resonate in a track of mine when I hear it with a subwoofer system.
Second – the room itself. I’m in the process now of getting my room at least a little tuned, so I get an accurate representation when mixing. This site comes VERY much in handy there:
http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php
Again – thanks for the great post! I’m printing it out and taking it into the studio with me!
xo
M.
Hi Mark,
Glad you liked the post !
Subwoofers can work fine provided they’re set up right. The downside is that this can be quite tricky – hm, maybe I should do a post on that…
The question is, are the extra lows you hear actually part of your mix, or because the playback system’s sub isn’t set up right ? Lots of “home cinema” setups come with a sub, and people just turn it up till the doors rattle on their favourite blockbusters – this doesn’t work so well for music !
The solution is either to set up a calibrated sub and then work on the treatment ’till the room can handle the extra bass (I have a post on acoustic treatment in the works, too!) – or, get it checked out by a friendly mastering engineer [grin].
Ian
PS. Thanks for reminding me about John’s forum, it’s a fantastic resource – I need to add it it to the links section here !
Great topic for an article. I am new, to both recording and subsequently all literature on it. I was wondering if there is somewhere I am suppose to start. A bible of sorts. Everyone here sounds up to date, happy with their jargon and more than capable, and I would like to be as well.
Any help would be an asset. Perhaps a primer on home recording practices. Such as microphone placement, types and leveling methods. USB audio interfaces, codecs, software tutorials, etc.
Basically, I am plugging in directly from an amp to an audio device that records directly to my computer via usb(firewire) and would like to switch to mic because it sounds like ass, and many people claim placing a mic near your amp is the better method, as opposed to directly plugging in.
Tube amp, semi-hollow body guitar, piano and acoustic guitars are what will be recorded.
Thank you.
Glad you liked the article ! You’re right, this isn’t really a “getting” started site. The trouble with all of this is, it’s such a huge subject.
Here’s an (in-progress) post from AudioGeekZine that covers some useful points:
http://www.audiogeekzine.com/getting-started-a-guide-to-home-recording/
But my best suggestion though is to check out Sound On Sound – have a search in the archives and you’ll find plenty of stuff on microphone techniques etc.
Ian
Great post. I like the fact that you say the best that you can afford or get you hands on. There are a ton of guys with great gear at home that don’t know how to use it. Prep and playing account for more than whether you mic it with a vintage Nueman or an Sm57.
11…..make sure the arrangment is good to start with. A good arrangement which gives the sounds their own space will produce a better mix than one where aall the sounds are fighting with each other to be heard. Check out my site for a few more articles
Thanks David, although I thought I’d covered that in my discussion of point #5:
“The best way to make sure everything is audible in a mix is to make sure has it’s own space musically. If you can do this, sonically everything will fall into place too.”
It’s an important point though, so no harm in reinforcing !
I took a look at your site and couldn’t find any articles on recording or mixing, was I looking in the right place ?
Ian
Hi Ian, sorry must have missed that point! I’ve just posted the first article in the blog section as we’ve had the site re done, should be posting a few more soon.
I need help recording sounds. I have no clue what to do.
That’s a bit too general to answer ! Take a look around the site and let me know if you have more specific questions ?
Hi guys, I have read all of the above posts and found, That the artist recording should prepare before recording. And wont need much mixing should the vocals be recorded well first time. I record all my music at home and i have to let you know that, every new production i come up with sounds better than the previous one. Thanks guys for your input. One last thing. I use a demo version of Fruity Loops 10. A Sure mic, A four channel Behringer Mixer and crappy speakers.