Okay, I am sure no one out there has a mixer like the one posted above – instead you are mixing in a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). If you do have something like this SSL Console and you need to read this edition of the Nerd Alert then you don’t deserve it. Anyhow, when you are just starting out doing mixdowns, your natural instinct when you want to make something louder is to simply turn it up. While that makes logical sense before you know it your audio spectrum is bloated.
Instead, the idea is to get your overall master to read around –6db. This may seem too quiet but the idea is to give your mastering engineer lots of headroom to do his thing. If you are rendering out the final mix to a 24 bit file you will keep all the detail. If you need it louder to hear, turn up your audio interfaces master. Here is a good way to start the process. After you get used to the concept you can start just practicing this as you build tunes.
- Drop all faders to down.
- Turn your kick & bass up to where they add up to about –10 on the master. Get these two elements playing nice together with EQ, sidechaining, etc.
- Decide on what the next focal point of the mix is. Most likely a sample or synth line. Get it balanced with the kick/bass.
- Continue this process through every channel until everything is playing.
- Remember to watch your master as you progress – the goal is to keep the master at –6db!
Now let’s say your bass is too quiet now. Instead of turning up the bass channel and starting a chain of events that ends up making your mix bloated, try turning down everything else down a bit (you should be able to select multiple channels at once).
This idea is also relevant to EQ (subtractive EQ) but this is something we will cover in the next Nerd Alert. For now I’ll just say that to clear up room for your bass/ kick, it is a good idea to high pass everything below 200K. Of course, as with anything in production, there is always more than one way to skin a cat. But this technique has been working good for us…
I always appreciate these blogs. Good shit, tinfoil head.
Much appreciated