Here are a few tips that might help you make your music sound better.

EDIT: Here is one hour of video tutorial explaining the basics of mixing electronic music.
This guy made a video far more indeapth than I have the time to go to.
Here you go:
Mixing:
[[ LINK REMOVED ]]


I will edit as more stuff comes along. Suggestions welcome!



Advise for you to possibly consider:

First off the tracks
Solo the tracks if some tracks sound a bit too digital try lowpassing using logics channel eq at 4050 hz with a 6 db slope not 24 or 48 that is a bit too much.
Low pass is the eq section all the way to the right that looks like

-----|
****|
****|

This will get rid of aliacing digital effects and help your tracks sound better, warmer and more ''analogue''


Same thing goes with the busses.
Reverb sound like **** too grainy and digital?
Try the above.

The Gate

Do certain tracks sound to ''boomy''?
Are you getting noise from equipment you 've recorded in the computer?

Use logics gate and pull it up till youve fixed the problem.

The Mix

Set all your levels to zero with the channels down.
Find a session that has all your tracks playing and loop it.

Then bring in the kick.
Start bringing in the rest of the drums to your liking
then bring in the bass and the rest of the elements.
Don't worry at this point if you are losing sounds in the mix.
Put the levels where you like them and a b with a released tracks whose sound you like.

Amatures have all the sounds too loud and run out of headroom.

Basic Eq.

Use a high pass filter from logics channel eq (the section all all the way to the left) on the bass at 30 hz

A popular trick is to gently lowpass the kick 6 db at (experiment with the setting it could be anywere from 1000 to 4000 cycles)to prevent the sounds from clashing with the midrange sounds and layering a highhat high passed at 5000 to 8000 cycles for the highend.

The content of the high end of the hi hat or any sound like that will create contrast with the low end of the kick and make it sound more bassy. It is light and dark relationship.
Keep this very very low in the mix.

Use a high-pass filter on the kick at 75 hz steep.
Don't solo the kick and listen to it with the hipass.
Of cource you will prefer the bassy one solo.
But in the mix does your bass now sound cleaner/better?
If so then you made the track sound better overall.

This prevents the kick from getting in the way of the bass.

Make sure the rest of the drums do not have any low end frequency content.
Hi pass at anywere from 250 to 400 experiment with the settings.

Bass here bass there will take away bass from your bass.

Stereo:
Another popular trick is to take to midrange or high drums element sounds and pan one to the left slightly and the other to the right slightly if they are fighting for the same space.

But be warned no one in the club hears stereo.
95% of Clubs don't bother with stereo.

More stereo:

Use the direction mixer from logics plug-in page.
immediately after use a limiter to prevent cliping.

If everything is dead center and two sounds are fighting for the same space move the fader out to move that track to the sides.
You will thin the track out but will fix that problem and make the song sound better.

This could also be used artisticaly.
how norrow or wide do you want a certain sound to be?

Rule of thumb bass narrow, high end wider but that is a starting point.

I want it even wider!

Ok. Copy and paste the track to a second channel.
Pan one all the way to the right and the second all the way to the left.

Use a delay plug in (sample delay for example ) and delay the right channel slightly. This creates the illusion of a huge stereo field!

Do not do this shit with the bass.

Trancy delay & Beautiful sounds.

Boot up reason even though you think it is an amatuer program.
Just do it already coz I got news for you. You are missing out!
Run subtractor or any other module.
Preview some sounds. Not very inspiring are they?

Well...
Run a step delay and immediately after run a second step delay.
Keep the first delay at 2 steps and the second one at 5 steps.
Watch the sound bouncing from left to right.

Now preview some sounds and notice how much more interesting everything sounds.

Many hardware synth manufactures have been hidding behind this effect to make their weak oscillator digi synths sound better and sell them for lucrative amounts of cash.

Rewire into logic.

Are You a Nexus Preset Jockey?

Fact. Stacking together a bunch of sounds made to impress you that sound bigger than life itself will leave you with a big mess.
Use logics Direction spread followed limiter to control some of the ''wideness'' of the sound.
Think like an engineer.

Certain sounds you want wide other sounds you want narrow.
Certain sounds you want full other sounds you want thin.

More Eq

Low pass the midrange sounds anywere for 4000 to 7000 cycles 6 db not steep. This makes room for the high end content pads strings high hats ect.

High pass the high end sounds at 500 to 1000 cycles experiment with the settings.


You get the picture... the basic idea here is to keep sounds in their frequency range not all over the place.

Advanced EQ.

Run a spectum analizer that you can find at logics plug-in menu on every channel.
Run a channel eq.
This analyzes the frequency content of all your tracks.
You will see for example that a track peaks at 75 250 2000 and 7500
and 16000 hz
Now with that as your guide using logics eq with a very narrow q of 30 to 100 go on all the other channels and take out those frequencies
cutting (start with the q very narrow all the way to 100) and go down till you hear the sound of the other channel (the one with the spectum analyzer clearing up.)

After you have set all your levels and done your eq everything will start sounding a lot better.

Dynamics.

Now that you have your levels set and your eq done its time for the final touches to help the sounds cut through the mix.

If controling the sounds is what you are after you can use a limiter as a compressor. Throw a limiter on tracks that you need to limit their dynamic range to help them cut through the mix and boost till you hear each individual sound cut through and its loud enough to not get lost and burried in the mix. experiment with the settings. There are no stock settings for this use your ear. This depends on the tempo of the track. Faster shit needs more limiting.
Short sounds short release.
For longer sounds use a longer release.
The more you limit the louder stuff will get so limit till everything sounds controlled and not all over the place.

Bussing/limiting.

Bus your kick and bass and the rest of the drums one bus1.
Process them together using some multiband compression or limiting and some de-essing.

The trick is to get the drums sounding as a whole drum track and make them gel together.

Bus your synths on bus 2.

Bus pads highs on buss 3.

If you have vocals buss them seperately.

There are no rules here and different producers bus stuff differently so find a way that works best for you.

Mater Bus
Your master bus sould have a limiter set to zero to prevent clipping even if you will send your tracks to get mastered proffessionaly.

We will leave mastering for another tutorial.

In the mean time here is gabriel talking about why using eq to make sounds sit in their sonic space is important

http://www.youtube.com/v/yREiV0yWdsA&hl=en&fs=1

I hope this has been helpful :]

Last edited by Existo22 on May-22-2009 at 10:55

high pass the kick at 75 hz to make room for the bass ?
Low pass the kick at 1000 hz ?
A limiter to prevent clipping on the master bus ?

IMO , that is some awfull advice.

quote:

Originally posted by RichieV high pass the kick at 75 hz to make room for the bass ?

Yes. If you start both bass and kicks at 30 there will be too much bass and nobody will move on the floor. You will have those frequencies clashing with each other and your track will sound muddy on a club PA.

quote:

Originally posted by RichieV Low pass the kick at 1000 hz ?

You can low pass higher than that but you should keep it in the low end of the spectrum where it belongs.

quote:

Originally posted by RichieV A limiter to prevent clipping on the master bus ?

Well... Unless you like the sound of digital cliping a limiter should be used at the master bus. I do not know ANY producer that doesn't use some type of dynamics contol at the master bus.
But hey! live and learn... Maybe they are doing it all wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by RichieV IMO , that is some awfull advice.

This works for me.
But go ahead and give me your advise on why the frequencies of the kick should be all over the place so that the kick should compete with the lead and compete with the clap tell me why there should be no dynamics contol on the master bus whatsoever to tame peaks and prevent clipping and why it is better that both the kick and the bass start at 30 cycles for a cleaner tidier low end on a club soundsystem usually optimised for bass in the 75 cycles range.
I am waiting in anticipation.

Last edited by Existo22 on May-14-2009 at 16:58

quote:

Originally posted by Existo22 This works for me.

Let us get a sample of one of your tracks then...

most people just adjust the levels of their faders to avoid clipping. If you are using a limiter to avoid clipping, you don't know how to engineer. And i never mentioned anything about not controlling dynamics. Clipping is not dynamics and that is definately not something you should use a limiter to control. Lower the fader. You are running 24 bits, i think you can spare at least 10 db.

You mention killing the highs of a kick. It is these frequencies that actually make a kick audible. That is why most people stack a hihat sound to their kicks so that it will cut. 1000 hz highpass seems really inappropriate.

I personally think lowpassing a kick or bass is retarded in the mix. Leave that to mastering.

everyone develops their own set of tricks and techniques to mix and produce

there is no right or wrong way, just listen to what you hear


the important thing is to know HOW to do what you want to do (ie if your kick is muffled and doesnt stand out in the mix, bass is flat, etc etc)

Unfortunately there are some very bad points you make. Alot of what you recommend should probably be avoided in my opinion. Roll off at 4000hz? You especially wouldn't solo whilst equing like this. You should do it in context with the mix.

What you say about the limiter on the master buss is also riduculous as well as the stereo imaging trick. Have you tried summing to mono after using this trick? phase cancellation heaven.

quote:

Originally posted by RichieV most people just adjust the levels of their faders to avoid clipping. If you are using a limiter to avoid clipping, you don't know how to engineer.

This is why a limiter is made for to ''limit.''
Who would have thought? It is right in the ****** word.
A loud fx crash. A snare roll and youre over zero with no dynamics control. But don't use any dynamics contol on your bus.
It is your track.

quote:

[i][b]You mention killing the highs of a kick. It is these frequencies that actually make a kick audible. That is why most people stack a hihat sound to their kicks so that it will cut. 1000 hz highpass seems really inappropriate.

No. I did not say kill them I said roll them off.

A 6db low pass is very appropriate to keep the low end in the low end of the spectum were it belongs.

Similary you should keep the sounds that occupy the higher end of the spectrum in... yes you guessed right the high end...
Who would have thought?

I actually remember reading a gabriel and dresden remix interview.
He mentioned using low pass and high pass filters to keep the sounds were they belong sonicaly.

I took gabriels advise and my music strated sounding a lot better but if you think it is bad advise then fuck it. Dont use them.
Run all your sounds full on and stack em on top of each other.
See if I care.

Josh Gabriel on vocals:
''Leaving several vocals with all the high end in place ends up being overload for the ears, Gabriel adds. “If I take off all the things that are killing high end, watch what happens — it hurts,” he says. “In this case, we're using a shelf, so if we pull 5 dB down from 5,600 Hz, it's like the vocals are losing a little bit of the edge. It just gives the feeling that they're falling behind because they don't have the same cutting power. And then to kill the bass, I've got a highpass filter at 1,100. It doesn't sound full, but it's acting as an in-between.”

On kicks and basses:

choosing a bass rhythm in which there's nothing on the downbeat or fading in or EQing it, taking the low end out only when the kick is happening — whatever we can do to get rid of the kick conflicting with something else,” Gabriel says.

To keep things from getting in the way of the kick (and for a general economical use of space in the mix), Gabriel and Dresden use a lot of shelving filters to take away high and low end. “You'd be surprised at how much you can take away from something and have it still function,”


Full interview.

http://remixmag.com/mag/remix_fresh_air/index.html

quote:

I personally think lowpassing a kick or bass is retarded in the mix. Leave that to mastering.

Mastering can't do fuck to fix a bad mix.
And a mix were the kick and the bass are fighting with each other is a bad mix.
The best mastering in the world can fix that problem it can only try to hide it.

Some good points but written terribly
Nonetheless thanks for your efforts Existo22

___________________

quote:

A loud fx crash. A snare roll and youre over zero with no dynamics control

Have you ever heard of headroom? Just brickwall limiting peaks like these will take away the "snap" or punch of the sounds themselves. Why not leave headroom and leave this work for the mastering engineer?

And why would you want to solo a instrument and make a low-pass rollof from 4khz? Why not eq the instrument in relation to the rest of the track? If you need to be making huge cuts like this, it may be best to just choose a better sound to begin with.

Everything should be done in relation to everything else when working on a mix.

Haven't gone through all of them yet - Thanks for sharing, this forum needs more of this.

Existo - could I suggest that this be a work in progress and maybe you could amend it and update as people chip in their suggestions. Stuff like this can be useful for a lot of people, having it for reference and possibly making it sticky worthy?

Screen shots might also help build a better tutorial.

Anyway - just suggestions if you can be bothered and thanks again for sharing.

Does your DAW have faders ? What bit rate do you mix in ?

Why use a limiter when you can fix the problem without. it seems like most of your advice is just taken from other tutorials except that in the process, you distort the original message.

Your advice is the sort of advice that doesn't teach people to engineer, it teaches people to think they have to eq every channel, compress every channel, lowpass everything in the low end, highpass everything in the higher registers. In essence , it is this sort of thinking that has created a generation of over engineered shitty sounding music. It isn't that all your information is incorrect but i really have a hard time taking anyone seriously when they preach about putting a limiter on the master bus. For me , that killed your credibility

Last edited by RichieV on May-14-2009 at 19:01