Hello, I'm on my audio journey for over 10 years, but lately I'm starting to doubt everything I've learned about mixing, mastering, vst plugins, audio gear...
Let me give you an example...You do a mix...You decide that the snare needs a boost in 10K...But what you did with this simple action has a much bigger impact because it phase shifts the snare sound and then this sound has a completely different interaction with the other instruments than before in terms of phase...So it's not at all just a boost of 10k here and 5k there...
Now imagine 100 other instruments playing together, and on each one you use EQ, comp, reverb, saturation, delay, panning, etc... Followed by busses and again comp, eq, etc... Then mix bus, master bus, rear bus and I don't know what else... All filled with effects...
As the icing on the cake at the end you have a plugin for headphone or room correction...
Then the mixed song travels to the mastering engineer who continues doing his voodoo with bunch of other plugins...
Do we really know what we are doing or is the result just a coincidence? Or is it all just marketing,when you see old sound engineers mixing 200 track projects with millions o plugins,doing 2db correction on vinyl cracking background noise effect...At the end of the day you only hear what fits in the 6db range,anyway...Which means kick,snare,vocal,bass and some wet background sound...:D

 

Last edited: Dec 7, 2023

dont get high on your own supply.
It should sound good, its not an exercise in superior knowledge.

in the mixstage its about balance and problem solving, NOT mastering
its not that deep, at least it should not be

 

dont over think shit bro
Focus on making good music
Remove all effects and just listen to the music
Your audience doesn't care if you boosted the snare 10k

 

If there's one thing I'm increasingly convinced of, it's that rather than spending hours tweaking a sound that doesn't fit, it's better to look for a sound that fits in "naturally".
It seems to me that mixing is about enhancing the recording, not fixing it.
Of course, this means mixing your own recordings.

 

If you can, take a break and watch this video :
Deconstructing a Mix №26 - Phoenix "Lisztomania" [2019, ENG]
available on a certain russian website.

Doesn't matter if you mix everything in the box or have a full on Analog studio, doesn't matter if you are mixing metal or techno.

Philippe Zdar (Motorbass Studio) will drop some gems on you while cracking jokes.
A good chunk of the video is about being lost during the mixing stage and it's genuinely fascinating to watch him work and listen to his thoughts.

https://mixwiththemasters.com/fr/videos/philippe-zdar-phoenix-lisztomania

 

it's not just a coincidence or luck. if that was the case, some producers would not have such consistently good output. it is practiced, methodical, analytical, and systematic. Someone who might really be bad at this stuff can get lucky, and someone very good at it can make a bad song. But that should come out in the wash.

Ever watched the movie Rounders? It's about poker. At one point the main character is explaining that it is not luck, it is skill. He points out that every year, the same 10 guys end up at the final table at the World Series of Poker, and asks if "are these just the luckiest 10 guys in Vegas?" Which of course they are not.

it's like that.

 

At some point we all get to this stage as producers... trying to figure out the perfect way of doing things. In the end you realize that keeping it simple and trusting your ears is all you really need to produce great music, and the more you limit yourself, the easier it becomes. Ive been making music a quarter of a century now and that was the biggest revelation to me.

Once you start treating music as something to be enjoyed and less as an exercise in knowledge flexing, it changes everything. I do my best to spend less time looking at my screen and just trusting what I hear. I don't add hundreds of tracks or plugins to a session when only a few will do. Keeping things simple and creating a vibe is what's most important to me now.

This video changed everything for me and got me to the point where I began trusting myself enough to finish music that I was happy with. I still watch it as a reminder whenever I feel I'm overthinking things or uninspired... specifically what he says at 7:56:

 

Last edited: Dec 8, 2023

Most important is to keep you goals clear: do you want to make good music or do you want to become a mastering engineer? At some point as a producer, i realized i spent more time on mixing and mastering than on making music, the balance was gone, and thus the fun too.

If you're a musician/producer, focus on your music (the elements) and arrangement first and foremost. It can be hard to have to throw away a really good synth part when there's no space for it in the track etc..

Mixing it is of course very important. Making sure the balance is there, and there's space for all the elements of your music. Often there's not enough space, so mixing or mastering won't save it. It's more brave to delete parts than to add them. Only add fx to elements if you know why they need it. etc etc

And when the arrangement and the mix are done, you could ask yourself what you'd want to achieve when mastering it. A few options are obvious: gain staging, EQ, compression, limiting. But the rest not so much, and also almost always differ per track you master. Do as little as possible, and when you do it, know why: know what you want to achieve.

Also there's a huge difference between mixing/mastering dull pop songs with 1.6 billion streams for earpods from teen girls, and experimental tracks that might get played in a club, where no one gives a f*ck that there might be some resonances or the snare has a 5K boost or synthdoctor told you the plugin aliases.

 

If you're writing tracks and mixing your tunes with the mindset that "this should be something that will blow them all away"... Then It will most likely suck and most if not all who listen to it will look upon it as mediocre.

If you're writing tracks and mixing your tunes with the mindset that "hey this sound really cool, and I like it". Odd's are probably others will as well.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what others think when you're in the creative stage. If you're trying to create from idea that you think others will like, you'll most likely never get anywhere, and the final result will not represent you as an artist. If you're staying true to your own nature you'll be making stuff that represents your talent and creativity and not someone else's... You gotta do you, because no one else can or will. Yeah, I know that sounds like dialog from a disney movie, but it is what it is...

As far as mastering goes in this day and age I hear very little being done that actually ENHANCES the tracks. It makes everything sound like trash no matter how good the track might actually be. It's all attributable to the "louder is better" credo that has crept up and permeates the audio industry. There are a very few folks out there I hear every so often who "get it", and will actually leave some air in a track, the mastering of which was used for what it was intended - to add final ENHANCEMENT and to prepare it for mass production. However the masses subscribing to this insane credo continue to produce the drek that now passes for mastering. Clarity and musicality in a mix CANNOT be achieved when everything is finally smashed to -1 or 0 VU with an overall dynamic range of ±0.5db . All that time spent tweaking that vocal, or getting just the right amount of compression on that bass or drum track is now wasted. It's wasted because everything that's left after "louder is better" get's thru with it sounds like a mashed up pyle driver of a mess to where Pink noise sounds more compelling.

 

Last edited: Dec 8, 2023

100% agree. Every people that will use chains of plugins and get a good sound probably know those chains more than his/her mother's birthday. And the result is never a matter of luck because no one is randomly putting plugins on a mix without knowing how it will react. If you're mixing random this way, probably you're leaning on luck, and at least for me, getting a consistent result is never a matter of luck or just a coincidence.

 

I only wanna say... the scene of audio it's overhiped...plugin here, overthere, ohh new plugin, that brand, (lately that GUI)... The thing about that is, that every person is diferent, also the taste and knowledge, for that reason the only 2 advices that i can tell, it's make your own way and use your ears in mono. Yeaa puting just one ear into the stereo field of speakers is good,.
Other thing, mix in context not in solo and decide what instrument you wanna make more precent. That sound that make you say... Ohh sh.. listeng thaaaaat. (Smiley face)
At the end of the day, músic it's for enjoy, work quick, be happy.

Maybe that help you.