My first song does not have the quality of Ableton Live Demo set in which every instrument is distinctly clear. In my song, each instrument is clear and clean when played as solo. But the song sounds jumbled and muddled up when all instrument are playing.

 

Man I'm sorry. I don't want to be a dick but if somebody posted on a cooking forum "I have a bunch of ingredients, they all taste great individually but when I put them together into a dish they taste like crap", the answer would be "learn to cook." It's not like you're just going to post a message on a forum and somebody's going to tell you some magic freaking spell. Geez. Make a pentagram, draw some blood and pray to Satan. That's my short answer.

 

Compression, EQ, and Saturation. In that order. Use it during mixing to taste and during mastering the same. That is the formula.And add effects (reverb for depth of each track) to taste but only after compressing because you will compress unwanted freq. theres a crap ton more like panning, ambiance, outside routing etc. but.... thats a start.

 

Last edited: Mar 30, 2025

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Last edited: Mar 30, 2025

hello my friend, one thing that I learned listening to the beatles stereo masters is that Paning is a very simple and efficient technique

sometimes 2 instruments dont fit in my mix, so I pan one 20% left and the other 20% right, example

 

Equalization is god. All else is secondary to EQ.

 

A mixing engineer is called engineer for a reason, youtube wont really help.

 

why is the compression before the EQ a necessary step? thanks

 

Agreed, but there's no 20% panning in the Beatles mixes to which you are referring. It's all hard panned. The mixing consoles of the early stereo era had no pan pots. They had three position switches instead, Left-Center-Right.

Hard panning is a powerful mixing technique even today.

 

It is not always necessary to compress an element. It can be if the dynamic range is too big. The most relevant bit of information was the order. First compress, then EQ. Can there be exceptions to the rule? Sure, but in general it is a good idea to first compress and then EQ.
You could also use an EQ before and after compression, but if your source signal is clean a lot of the time it is enough to first compress and then EQ.

 

Last edited: Mar 30, 2025

So you only get the mud when listening on a Mono system?

 

Only if you have an optimal signal in terms of frequency balance to begin with. If that's not the case, any excessive resonances, spikes etc. will trigger compression in an unwanted way so no amount of EQ after the compressor will be able to fix it. Oftentimes EQ is necessary both before and after compression.

 

Basically you should remove the mud regardless of whether you have a mono or stereo signal. That is why mixing in mono or at least checking your mix in mono always is a good idea. The hard panning technique does help with separation though.

 

I dont think so, nowadays this is not a problem at all

where do you listen in mono? your car? your cellphone?
even the cheapest portable speakers I have here has stereo

if you are going to play in big festivals with big PA systems maybe you need a special mix, but even these system has a good stereofield nowadays

in the early 2000 I played in big open air raves, as a DJ and Live action with my own music, and I did special mixes to that parties, but only because I knew very well the systems I was playing

 

I've said it many times on this forum and i will say it again: ignore the soys here, they dont know nuffin. (Talking about compression and EQ proves it 100 %)

learn to obtain a clean and full sound already in the recording or sound synthesis process; you can't have clean mix with details if the individual components dont have it.

 

Please don't always generalize. There are some, not all!!!

The compressor always comes last!

 

There are no rules is the first rule to learning mixing. Trial and error yourself for the necessary 10K hours to gain the achievements of the Master mixer No shortcuts.

 

No easy way out, sorry. You gotta learn how to mix.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6e8wfdmIuLGALV-6x3arKIK2Hw5Mjlxx
This playlist of 9 short and concise videos is a good starting point.

It's not. In fact, EQ changes dynamics, so unless you're explicitly EQing to resolve frequency masking (and even in that case you'll be EQing both before and after compression), or otherwise know what you're doing, it's better to EQ before the compressor.

 

hp filter on everything at 80-160hz which is not kick and bass. also cut some highs. compression for consistency. never mix in solo. i'm mixing for 20 years, still learning. enjoy your ride ! Rome wasn't built in a day

 

Learn mixing.

This might help:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0RedBZrBGjGXsj8J5Rf9GNsONx84BNLC&feature=shared