Production Advice

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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Way back in the dim and distant past (well, July 2009 ;-p) I featured the YouTube video of a song called “Future is Now” – it was one of the first pieces of music I’d heard produced entirely on an iPhone, and it sounded pretty good, albeit entirely electronically generated.

Well, time has moved on, and today I saw this song featured by Bobby Owsinski on his blog, and I thought you’d be interested too.

It’s a great example of what can now be achieved with a “studio” you can carry around in your pocket.

Personally I’d like a little more on-screen real-estate to work with, but there’s nothing like a challenge to get your creative juices flowing !

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Day 6 of 11eleven easy ways to improve the sound of your music

The great thing about modern technology is you don’t need to get the performance perfect in a single take.

You can just pick the best bits of multiple takes, loop the difficult sections, and in fact you can even build an entire song note by note, if you like – no-one will ever know the difference.

…right ?

WRONG.

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Day 5 of 11eleven easy ways to improve the sound of your music

I’m not going to labour this – you need to be able to play or sing your stuff well.

That doesn’t mean you need to be a virtuoso, but you do need to be able to do your material justice. And that means you need to practise.

A lot.

Here are four killer advantages to being well-rehearsed.

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Day 4 of 11eleven easy ways to improve the sound of your music

If you’ve followed the first three tips in this series, with any luck your recorded sound and mixes will already be starting to sound better.

And if you’re like me, you love recording and will be fired up and ready to make a start.

Hang on, though.

Before we get ahead of ouselves, let’s tackle a seriously powerful studio technique – but one that is far less talked about than the more popular topics – planning.

Wait – stay with me !

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