Mixing and Mastering Tips

Anyone got any good tips when it comes to mixing and mastering your music?

I’m particularly coming at it from an Ableton and electronic music point of view but all advice is welcome :pray:

@MyVitrilol ?

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Was reading this earlier which seemed okay but didn’t go into huge amounts of detail.

Like, why does using the Bass Mono switch keep your low end tight?

bass just gets messy if you don’t have it mono

same as reverb gets messy if you don’t cut the bass out before the reverb

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it’s well long but apparently very very good

https://glowcast.bit.ai/docs/view/8JCC7m6kqVyYbfgx

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This is great, cheers!

Lots of stuff I don’t understand but just more stuff to go and read up on innit

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I have this bookmarked from ages ago

and this stuff from a little EQ folder on the desktop


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Been a long time since I’ve done it properly, but when mixing, the way I was taught was to start from nothing and then add things back one at a time, starting with the drums and then the bass. As you add each instrument, listen to the mix and make sure you can still hear everything in there, and that it “fits” together. Use EQ to cut, to make space for other instruments or remove undesirable qualities in the sound - never to boost. As the mix build up, mute things and listen to stuff in pairs or small groups and then build things back up again - does it still sound right? In general, don’t try and fix things with EQ on the master, that’s for shaping the overall sound, not for making things sound good in the first place, if that makes sense?

Mastering is a dark art that I don’t understand but it sounds nice when you put multi band dynamics and a glue compressor on the master bus IDK.

Also those frequency charts are really useful.

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Go by the traditional method:
image

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Makes perfect sense, and cheers! This is super useful

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Subtractive EQ if you aren’t super confident at mixing, or with your monitoring set-up cos you’re far less likely to cause audio havoc by subtracting.

Listen to stuff all the time through your monitoring set-up, not just your own music.

That’s all I got!

My aim when mixing is to make things sound as much like they sound as possible; to change it the least I can. Thus messing stuff up the least I can. But that is not at all appropriate for loads of stuff, obviously.

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also: listen to what you’re mixing through as many systems as you can in general

also: take breaks

sometimes you’ll be convinced something sounds brilliant, then export it and do something else for a day, then you’ll play it on a different system and be shocked that it sounds awful

that’s why mixing so hard

once it sounds good on different systems, including crap ones like tinny laptop speakers or cheap earbuds, and systems with wildly differing levels of bass, then you’re doing a good job

very easy for the bassline to sound sweet on one system and then too big on another and to disappear entirely on another

finally if you mix on proper monitors and/or monitoring headphones, where you can really hear the detail, your mixes will be soooooo much better

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If anyone fancies it, I could do with an extra pair of ears on some new tracks and some feedback on my amateur mixing skills

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Deffo will later/at home. I’m about to start mixing our next record, so I could do with warming up my ears!

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Thank you very much!

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They sound great to me, although I literally know nothing about mixing electronic music; it seems far harder than my stupid rock mixes!

The only thing I thunk, is that the bass on Triple A is very forward compared to the other channels, but that’s not a criticism, just an observation. Could be set back with very minimal delay or verb, or by crunching a bit I guess.

Lovely music!

Sorry for not being at all helpful.

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Thank you so much for checking them out!

I feel the same on the Triple A Battery bass, it’s meant to be central but think I’ve overdone it. And no that is totally helpful, thanks again!

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