The 6 Most Common Mix Problems (And How to Fix Them)
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- Опубліковано 24 лют 2021
- What's holding your mix back? Justin Colletti shares his picks for the 6 most common mix issues, and how to overcome them in your own mixes.
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Don't have time for the full video? Here's the list:
#1 Unbalanced low end, without a clear lowest instrument.
#2 Too much low end in the areas you can't hear.
#3 Poor mix balances on obvious instruments.
#4 Too-apparent reverb from poor reverb treatment.
#5 Unbalanced top end in a specific area.
#6 Vocals that are too low for your genre.
More details on the whys and hows in the episode here.
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The most common mistake I make, all the time, is record all day and somehow believe I can knock up a rocking mix after all that fatigue sets in. The times I have finished up, thinking I have a great mix, only to discover the next day with fresh ears, I sucked. Best plan, I guess, break after several hours of recording and come back to mix much later. Recognise fatigue is your enemy and work with this understanding.
This the one
yup I cannot record and mix at the same time. I have to dedicate time to each and approach them with different mindsets, cause otherwise the mixes always end up trashed
Exactly!
1. Listening at a lower level
2. Take regular pauses
3. Take off your headphones
4. Referencing
Very important lesson! The biggest problem was the leveling in my mixes. As a beginner it was very, very difficult to understand that the mastering will bring up the high mids and highs and all "quiet" elements. Reverbs and delays will be louder. And the most shocking was to hear professionell mixes. They are darker than you think by the reasons above. A mastering engineer told me: "It is easier to make a dark mix brighter than a bright mix darker." That is even in my mind... (dark means not too much bass)
As a drummer, my snare is always about 1 db too loud. Right where I want it!
🥁
All great points and great reminders.
"If you try to have both your kick and bass be dominant there, you're gonna have a bad time" XD FACTS! I realized later in life that I can tune the kick drum to the key of the bass guitar. When those are in sync... its soo crisp man.
The previous video you did about deciding what's going to be 'lowest' has really worked for me. I've found focusing on this as early as possible... when I'm arranging / composting & sound designing is very effective, makes mixing a lot easier! Focusing on 'lowest' also being 'simplest' seems like another golden tip... thanks :)
That’s awesome to hear!
amazing advice thank you
Another great one! I'm going to steal some of this for my students! Thanks Justin!
Such a great material, thank you! I can relate especially to too much top end on hihat and vocals in comparisson to the rest of the instruments in the mix.
Thank you SO VERY MUCH, Justin!
Best advice along with Matthew Weiss'
Man... I absolutely love your content. Thanks for all of these wonderful videos!
Thanks for stopping by!
Amazing advice! Thank you.
Just want to say a massive thank you as I've been following you for some time and the guidance you provide has meant I've now got my first single coming on the 30th April mixed by myself. When taking it to the mastering engineer I was absolutely terrified, but they actually were pleasantly surprised of how it sounded considering my low cost setup - not perfect by any means - but good enough for us to work together and really bring the track to life. Wouldn't have got here without your help. Thank you so much!
It’s great to look back at when Instarted mixing and say “ok, been there.. and there also.. also there” throughout the video and then on the flip side, receive the same mix examples when mastering and realize that it’s just the process and it’s great to have walked down that path!
Who else watch up to 3times
Incredible content. So helpful. Thank you!!
I Always reference your mic tip videos. Really enjoying these mixing discussions. Keep it up
Another very good Video. Thank you, George
some great advice!
Thanks for this, I just realised I've been making the cymbals a little brighter than the rest of my mix. Time to fix that.
Common problems here, poor vocals (moving forward and backward mostly), noise (sleeves against a guitar, or hum, bad microphone placing) clicks from hitting a bass guitar strings, giving annoying clicks around 2,5 Khz. Another classic, phase problems, like three tracks, just doubled or tripled. And there you go. And still running the PPM till -1dbfs, and distortion as a result. I always ask to record as much as flat as possible. The EQ, compression etc is part of the Mixing/ Mastering. And not to forget, all of the above, Justin thanks again :)
Great tips - the first tip is certainly true - I can vouch for it. My listening environment was fine - it was my sense of hearing that was skewed towards too much sub and low-mids - I simply didn't know how to hear adequate brightness, much less discernment of key frequencies in the mids, upper mids and air. It just takes logging a lot of time mixing. Now, I can hear the difference between 1500 and 1800, or I can hear 4.8k versus 5k. Spectral balance is probably the most important aspect of mixing, including masking/making space and all the effects that come from spectral balance. This was THE breakthrough for me. And once you achieve that you'll understand Chris Lord Alge's answer to "How much compression?" to which he replied "As little as I can get away with". Or, I heard a mastering engineer asked = "How much compression in mastering?" And the engineer said "Preferably none". Notice he said "Preferably" not "Absolutely".
About tip #1... What about when the busyness of the kick and bass fluctuates through the track, then what? How do you decide which to put lower?
I think that’s an arrangement and production issue. The creator should be producing the vision of that tone at the arrangement level- creating the definition. Otherwise you’ll need to work to provide separation between those elements. There are more ways.
It's very unusual to find an arrangement where there is say, a busy kick and a plodding bass in the verse, but a busy bass and a plodding kick in the chorus. Can you think of many right now?
In this case where there is such a shift, it is possible to have a shift in tone as well, because that's a pretty major shift in arrangement. It's also possible to just keep them one way throughout. I did say "usually" here, not "always" :-)
Hope that helps!
-Justin
@@SonicScoop it could be possible in pop EDM songs I think but it rarely (fully) reverses roles. For example the build in “Don’t Start Now” has a lower sub bass but during that time the kick is absent. Once it returns, the bass becomes a fast mid range element again. But to your point, they don’t fully reverse roles (maintaining a foundation).
SOLID JUSTIN C!!!!!!
really good help , thanks !
I got your ad while viewing this video lmao... Thanks for the tips buddy. It was really helpful
Hey Sonic Scoop. My take away from your other video was this: Which instrument you’d want to be “lowest in level”. I now see that you were really talking about the “lowest in frequency”.
Common Mistake: Using too much and too many instances of eq during production and mixing to get the right tone. There are plenty of other ways to get the tone you want without resorting to eq all of the time. The problem with eq is that it changes the phase relationship within the sound. If you are dealing with a stereo signal or a multiple miked sound these phase changes from minimum phase eqs will smear the sound, especially the higher frequencies due to their short wavelengths, and clarity will suffer as a result. Mic technique, mic placement, saturation, compression and reverb can all change the tone of the sound without having to use eq. Sometimes you just need to change the instrumentation and sound. No amount of mixing can make a less than ideal sound fit a song better than finding a more appropriate sound/instrument. Lastly, linear phase eqs are a last resort when you need to use eq while preserving the phase relationship. The only issue with linear phase eqs is the pre ringing artifacts.
I think I've recently been going overboard with saturation and/or distortion as I'm discovering gain staging and hitting things just right.
This was worth watching, 99% on topic and no need to fwd.
Thankfully I’ve learnt these issues but I have one issue that beats me every time, perhaps someone could offer some suggestions.
Having a nice clean and good separation in the stereo mix, tried them out on various listen devices, good and bad.
The problem however appears when listening to them outside the stereo field, like outside and to the side of my car “with windows and doors open. High end goes and low end is just yuk.
I’ve ensured the bass and other low end instruments are in full mono, no reverb or delay. Usually cut 30 htz off the bass and kick and do a cut on the kick at 80-100 htz
The interesting thing is even when I sent a couple of mixes to get mastered, they still came back with the same issue.
I know I can work on all of this 🙌 and i am haha .... daily 🙌 thanks for the great advice as always 🙌 oh I recommended you to a mixing and mastering Facebook group yesterday day 🎯 I’ll continue to do that 🎯 it’s so important for the learning proses to have a pier critic your work 🙌🎯 I look forward to our phone conversation ✌️💚🔱
Awesome thanks so much!
I tend to boost midrange here and there to make different instruments more present and cut throught the mix ending in very abbrasive mixes... lately checking if it really needs it, mixing in context with better results...
can make a video on how to execute frequency sidechaining properly in a mix and when to use it ?
Yes that's a great idea. Mostly these will be used inside of compressors, and many compressors will have them built in these days. But it's definitely a good topic. Thanks!
As soon as I saw ur tittle I was jumping. Thnks icon
I think I make all these mistakes!! 🙄 But for me low end is the biggest issue especially because I can't set my studio up "perfectly" yet. So my question is, for a mastering engineer, is it preferable to work on a mix with too much low end, or a mix with too few? And if one acoustic room is not good, what do you think of mixing with headphone and plug in that simulate studio rooms, at least doing it partially to check stuff like lows and highs? Thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge, this is always very helpful 👍🙌
For me the most difficult problem is making each instrument sound like they are playing in the same venue/room. When tracks are recorded one at a time, it is hard to make them sound like they are all playing together. I think understanding reverb is essential to solve this but there is probably other issues too I’m unaware of.
We go back to school to deal with cutting bandwidth and Nasty pre gain distortion, quantization and lag all for the sake of digital inconsistencies. Like some comments on getting all separate take tracks to gell as in the same room. Didn't have any major problems with tape when recording the next track while the others bled thru the open monitors, there's the air unless theres a FX recapture. Oh, oh, go back to hands on hardware with knobs and multi track tape, but retain these video posts tips on cutting freq and Q's as needed. now,, recess everybody. 😮🎉
I always thought EQ stands for Equalize, and that's what I try to do make everything basically Equal?
Tnks Justin.. Really helpful tips...
I have a question : since I don't have a flextone speaker or any of the common mid-range speakers, are there other speakers u cud suggest that I cud also check my mixes on??..especially my mid range....
Tnks!!!
Great stuff! I am going mix by mix for my music videos and learning as I go. Thank you for the help!
Hey Justin, I have a question about oversampling, in mixing or mastering: Not all plugins offer
oversampling so on my mix bus or mastering bus, if my last plugin has
oversampling, will that take care of everything that comes before it?
Oversampling really only applies to the processing happening within that plugin. It's only very useful for things like saturation, compression and synthesis. ope that helps! -Justin
Hey Justin - You mentioned issues in a mix stemming from the listening environment. That for sure describes what im dealing with. The room i have to produce in is simply never going to be a good mix environment for using monitors, even with tons of money in sound treatment. So im just wondering, in your opinion - what are my best options for open back headphones? I would like to avoid spending thousands on a set of headphones (crazy they get that expensive), but something in the $500 range seems reasonable. Do you have any suggestions on what i can check out?
PS - I would normally just go to my local music store(s) and demo different cans until i found something with the right sound and comfort - but i emailed all local stores and they have next to nothing in terms of open backs, and even if they did covid restrictions in my area wouldnt allow for this activity.
Here are my picks. Hope this helps!
sonicscoop.com/2019/10/30/the-best-open-back-headphones-for-mixing-and-mastering/
-Justin
@@SonicScoop thank you!
@@SonicScoop I read over your list a few times now and it was very helpful! After researching online i have also noticed AKG openbacks being recommended often. I didnt see any akg cans on your list so im guessing you just didnt test any of their stuff? Have you had the chance/know anyone who might have tried their stuff? (maybe a reputable person who has a review for some of their offerings?)
Apologies for the bother, i really just wanna make the most informed decision i can and really look into all my different options.
Is it a waste of time recording vocals on an iPad and IOS DAW like Cubasis LE3 with a leased beat that’s been mixed and mastered before you’ve purchased it? If the mic and audio interface are working well and the room has sound deadening materials in place and WAVE file exports ?
In you opinion its worth paying extra 150 euro for the shockmount? For the TLM 103 ?
If you plan on thumping the mix stand by accident, or don't want thumping sounds picked up by the mic when you thump it by accident, then a shockmount can be very useful.
It can also potentially be helpful if the mic stand is sharing the same floor space as a instrument or signal source that puts out a lot of floor shaking bottom, like a kick drum with pedal or a bass amp right on the floor, or if you have rumbles from subway or truck traffic.
@@SonicScoop Ok any pre amp recommendation? I have a Steinberg UR22C and a TLM 103
After all those years of producing I find balans is all it takes. Maybe some eq. But balancing makes or breakers the mix.
I like the two hands showing us six fingers.
If I could have done it with one hand or three, I would have! 🤣
-Justin
@@SonicScoop I always wondered how could someone crucify himself without a third hand !
Kick and bass separation...
In what genre? In a lot of modern music the kick and bass are anything but separated... they're blended together as one seamless element which can sound amazing.
A lot of my old mixes suffered from a build up of low-mids. Turns things to absolute mud.
"...I think you should definitely try the salmon...." 😂
Seriously: if you enjoy watching these videos and haven't done Mixing Breakthroughs/Mastering Demystified.....what are you waiting for?
I might have to use that line in an upcoming episode sometime!
@@SonicScoop it's a great analogy... XD
Why is there a three minute intro ? It’s mad it’s UA-cam loads of videos are like these.
Tool has the lowest vocal level ive ever heard. But ive never heard anyone complain about it.
Low vocals totally work for some genres! That's why it's more about having appropriate vocal levels for the style you are going for, rather than trying to hit any one specific vocal level. One thing that's interesting about Tool however, is that Maynard Keenan's vocals are almost always intelligible, even if they're not loud.
Hope that makes sense,
Justin
@@SonicScoop Thanks for the tip
@@SonicScoop vocal intelligibility w/o loudness is a really cool depth move. Reminds me of your masterclass with Jeff Ellis.
you forgot one. the song sucks. that's a big problem too.