Great short! I would add one step before all this though - gain staging. Set all faders to 0 dB (no gain and no reduction) add a utility to each track and adjust the volume via the utility so that each track peaks around -12 dBs. Then follow the rest of the steps. This makes mixing in the right volumes via the volume sliders much easier
@@jhm8614 Hello! There are a few advantages to gain staging in this way. I'll focus on two. First, the relative volumes of each track are identical prior to moving the sliders. That way, when you start mixing the volumes, the sliders give you an accurate visual representation of the relative mixed volumes. You can easily see that track 2 has lower volume than track 1, but higher volume than track 4, or whatever. Second, it makes mixing with volume automation much easier. If you ever use automation on the volume sliders only to realize that when you're done, the overall volume is too high, moving the slider undoes all your automation. Well, you can apply the automation to the utility's volume knob instead. That way any movement of the slider doesn't destroy your volume automation.
@@shawnmurphy4757gainstaging is a relic of the past and doesn’t matter as much if you’re 100% ITB. If you’re working with analog gear then gainstaging is still needed
You also have a better resolution on the faders themselves. This is important and most people aren’t aware of it. Just take a look at the -dB scale next to the fader and you know what I’m talking about.
So many other things factor Into getting your mix downs sounding like a professional track. When I first started, I was obsessed with spectrum analyzers and gainstaging, which was a total waste of time. I spent most of my sessions nerding out about levels instead of creativity. The most important thing is sample/sound selection… you can write a track that is the same loudness as your reference track, but it won’t sound as good if you didn’t use good sounds and samples. Knowing what sample or preset sounds great and knowing what sounds bad comes with experience and time spent in the DAW.
It’s all about sound selection , stereo processing and bus processing to make things loud. Any spectrum tip is just someone that exploits people’s anxiety to create content !
great one, you also can compare the LUFS to your reference. And for the master stage do the same but with a louder Reference to match it with Clippers/limiters at the same level.
Using Ableton Lite and not having things like spectrum analysis make writing hard. Simple 3 Ch EQ and moving that mid spectrum around as my peak/ valley creator. Can't wait to upgrade, but I feel like working with the limitations is teaching me a lot that I'll probably be overwhelmed with choices again like it was first opening the DAW. Thank you for all of your tips. Even without some of the specific tools, you teach great principles along with the technical suggestions.
That's a great tip ... if you dance to your spectrum analyzer. Otherwise: Use your ears to mix, not your eyes. This visual kind kind of mixing could be already done better and faster by an AI.
You’re suppose to. This is basically mixing by numbers. There are no “industry standard” mix settings. It will always vary dramatically between genre’s and styles. Trust your ears more than your eyes when you’re mixing music.
@@KochiAvenue Yeah that is true. I really hope my ears get better tho. Been at this for 2 years and i see improvement but when i listen to avicii or martin garrix it almost makes me shutdown. I wont give up tho
@@Agent56000 aye been there man. Took me probably 5 years to get my mixes sounding the way I wanted them on all types of speakers. You can consume all the mixing tips and tricks in the world but it really is all about practice and seeing for yourself how plugins function and when to use them. The best advice I could give anyone is to crank those parameters and get a really good sense of how different plugins manipulate your sound, then tone it back from there. Do that with all plugins, different compressors at different levels, eq’s, time based effects, etc. Familiarize yourself with your ingredients then it gets much easier to cook.
@@EDMTips this is a video that suits anxious people that produce bad music and think that the problem is mixing. This technique is probably used by no one in the industry because a kick drum is not all about low end. And a good kick drum that fits a track doesn’t need any magic… if it does, it needs heavyweight changes (sound design) or replacement. you have videos where you show some good tips, but that one is merely for content creation !
i mean you dont even need a ref track lmao - you could have just said set your most important element to -12db now bring each of importance after that, boom you balanced your mix by yourself without listening to other peoples music and using your own brain and ears to determine that lol
Great short! I would add one step before all this though - gain staging. Set all faders to 0 dB (no gain and no reduction) add a utility to each track and adjust the volume via the utility so that each track peaks around -12 dBs. Then follow the rest of the steps. This makes mixing in the right volumes via the volume sliders much easier
What’s the difference? Seems like just an extra step
@@jhm8614 Hello! There are a few advantages to gain staging in this way. I'll focus on two. First, the relative volumes of each track are identical prior to moving the sliders. That way, when you start mixing the volumes, the sliders give you an accurate visual representation of the relative mixed volumes. You can easily see that track 2 has lower volume than track 1, but higher volume than track 4, or whatever.
Second, it makes mixing with volume automation much easier. If you ever use automation on the volume sliders only to realize that when you're done, the overall volume is too high, moving the slider undoes all your automation. Well, you can apply the automation to the utility's volume knob instead. That way any movement of the slider doesn't destroy your volume automation.
YES! Love this 😎
@@shawnmurphy4757gainstaging is a relic of the past and doesn’t matter as much if you’re 100% ITB. If you’re working with analog gear then gainstaging is still needed
You also have a better resolution on the faders themselves. This is important and most people aren’t aware of it. Just take a look at the -dB scale next to the fader and you know what I’m talking about.
So many other things factor
Into getting your mix downs sounding like a professional track. When I first started, I was obsessed with spectrum analyzers and gainstaging, which was a total waste of time. I spent most of my sessions nerding out about levels instead of creativity. The most important thing is sample/sound selection… you can write a track that is the same loudness as your reference track, but it won’t sound as good if you didn’t use good sounds and samples. Knowing what sample or preset sounds great and knowing what sounds bad comes with experience and time spent in the DAW.
Sound selection is a part of producing. This is a mixing tutorial
It’s all about sound selection , stereo processing and bus processing to make things loud. Any spectrum tip is just someone that exploits people’s anxiety to create content !
Been using this tip for a year and it works perfectly. Low end on my tracks in my DJ son's nightclub sound fantastic. Thanks Will.
You’re welcome, glad you’re using it already! 🙏🏻🙌🏻
Will, THE man!
Cheers, glad you liked it! 🙂
This is great, thank you!
great one, you also can compare the LUFS to your reference. And for the master stage do the same but with a louder Reference to match it with Clippers/limiters at the same level.
Absolutely!!
Yes, it’s that simple! Will with the fire 🔥
Cheers, Ian!
THIS IS ACTUALLY EXTREMELY USEFUL FOR ME! THANK YOU!!!
You're welcome, glad it helped! 🙂
Recommended best spectrum analyzer
Aways good tips Will 👍🏼
Thanks Darren!
Using Ableton Lite and not having things like spectrum analysis make writing hard. Simple 3 Ch EQ and moving that mid spectrum around as my peak/ valley creator. Can't wait to upgrade, but I feel like working with the limitations is teaching me a lot that I'll probably be overwhelmed with choices again like it was first opening the DAW.
Thank you for all of your tips. Even without some of the specific tools, you teach great principles along with the technical suggestions.
It doesn’t make writing hard. It makes mixing hard.
And there are a milion free visual analysis plug-ins anyways
He's using voxengo span which is free
Smooth!
Cheers! 🙂
🔥🔥
Useful
Glad you think so! Hope you can apply this in your next track :)
Nice life hack 😎 👍
Cheers!
Amen brethren. ❤
😎🙏
Is there a link to this full video?
Amen brother 🙌❤
Appreciate it! 🙌🙏
Amen 😎 Brother 🙏🏻🔥🫶🏻
Appreciate it! 🙂🙏🏻🙌🏻
Good tip
Cheers, glad you liked it! 🙂🙌🏻
@@EDMTips Yes indeed
Very cool
Hell Yeah!
😎🙌
Thx
You're welcome 🙂
That's a great tip ... if you dance to your spectrum analyzer. Otherwise: Use your ears to mix, not your eyes. This visual kind kind of mixing could be already done better and faster by an AI.
I was wondering why I need spectrum analyser for) Ty mate
Amazing! I instantly subscribed
You can route the reference track as a sidechain signal into SPAN in order to overlay both spectrums on top of each other for easier monitoring
dawg how did I not know about this until just now
Now I’ve been exporting stems from reference tracks and matching the eq that way
Glad to hear that! 🙌🏻
Do one for FL please
This is really DAW agnostic
Same process, just use the mixer sliders to set your kick to the right level and switch between your track and the reference track.
Shouldnt you first set the reference track to external audio so that it doesn't go to the master channel and its plugins ??
interesting... but why did you edit the music in the end out of sync! : D
Nice
Cheers, glad you liked it 🙂
This is cool. I just use my ears and a banging sound system. But I'm no pro.
Glad you found it helpful! 🙂
Ah okay .so my clap and snare should be separate from my whole drum clip/track ready to master?
Not easy to use if there are guitars, pianos, synths etc all in the mid-highs, is it?
Easier than not using it, though. You can also roll off the lows or mids to help
I just noticed you look like the camp director from Camp Rock
Oh dear... I guess... Thank you?
Great...
Unfortunately, I'm a FL user. Idk how to recreate this
What is this track..?
Song name ?
Wait! Could you run through it again, only FASTER?
I certainly could 🙂
let’s not mention the reference track is a mastered published song tho…
Nothing is the same style as I'm producing... I think it's music for aliens.
Mix with your eyes?
How to mix with your eyes... 😢
You’re the only person in the comments talking sense. Christ like
Won’t let me have both analysers open at the same time
Preferences, plugins, check the box for multiple plugins. You're welcome :)
Is he using the mouse with his left hand?
I am suing a trackball, in this instance with my left hand. I like switching them to give one or the other a break :)
🤔
My toxic habit is that I keep breaking rules regardless
You’re suppose to. This is basically mixing by numbers. There are no “industry standard” mix settings. It will always vary dramatically between genre’s and styles. Trust your ears more than your eyes when you’re mixing music.
@@KochiAvenue Yeah that is true. I really hope my ears get better tho. Been at this for 2 years and i see improvement but when i listen to avicii or martin garrix it almost makes me shutdown. I wont give up tho
@@Agent56000 aye been there man. Took me probably 5 years to get my mixes sounding the way I wanted them on all types of speakers. You can consume all the mixing tips and tricks in the world but it really is all about practice and seeing for yourself how plugins function and when to use them.
The best advice I could give anyone is to crank those parameters and get a really good sense of how different plugins manipulate your sound, then tone it back from there. Do that with all plugins, different compressors at different levels, eq’s, time based effects, etc.
Familiarize yourself with your ingredients then it gets much easier to cook.
I can fix it in 1, just format your hard drive ezpz
Oh dear... that bad?
I don’t find this useful, is there a way to follow for less?
😆
Nmms usas ableton eso ya te quita mucho como productor
What??
What what?
Lol
Cheers!
@@EDMTips this is a video that suits anxious people that produce bad music and think that the problem is mixing. This technique is probably used by no one in the industry because a kick drum is not all about low end. And a good kick drum that fits a track doesn’t need any magic… if it does, it needs heavyweight changes (sound design) or replacement.
you have videos where you show some good tips, but that one is merely for content creation !
That works .. not. For any style other that EDM.
Let's agree to disagree :)
@@EDMTips Cool. Dream on :-)
WTFFFFFFF
Eh?
i mean you dont even need a ref track lmao - you could have just said set your most important element to -12db now bring each of importance after that, boom you balanced your mix by yourself without listening to other peoples music and using your own brain and ears to determine that lol
Wow, this is the least musical thing I've ever seen.
Thanks for the feedback!
Ha ha ha ha
What's so funny?