Weekly Mixing/Producing Tips [Videos]

[mithu]

I'm going to start post stuff weekly (well I hope weekly) to help out mixers and producers. Specially stuff that has helped in since day 1.

When I first started out mixing, I reached out to tons of mixers and producers when I started out to help me. One of the best advice I got was: If I can tell your mix/song/track is layered, you're doing something wrong. Pranna (previously known as 2Nyce) told me this, and it's what pushed me to learn the ins and outs of audio as a whole.

DAW's that I'll post videos about: Ableton, Sutido One, FL Studio

Most of the stuff I post here shouldn't make a difference what DAW you use if you grasp the concepts.
For ACID users, you may want to download Waves Mercury or FabFilter since ACID plugins are terrible for most of the stuff I will post.

I'll start this off this week w/ EQ. What is EQ. How to EQ. Different types of EQ.
What is EQ:

Pensado is hands down one of the best out there, he really helped me understand when to compress, when to EQ, etc. You'll see his videos a lot through out this thread.


Here's an example:
Khair Mangdi (https://soundcloud.com/ssk-productions/khair) FX Chain:
Chain:

Whole Project:

EQ on Khair Magndi (As DJ BAAJ calls it Khair Mango... I know auto correct):

Plus a little boost in the 3k area (not shown). This removed all the low end because I was adding my own. Boosted 3k area to bring out a little bit of the vox

Compression:

Did this to bring out tons of the mid and mid-high. Vocals were low in the original song, so I had to use a MB to bring them up w/out bringing everything else up with it. (Will post what MB is on week 3)

Keep in mind this is ONLY on khair mangdi, there is a lot else going on with the other tracks.

UPDATE Week 2:
I didn't have time last week to make a video of me EQing a song such as Basim suggested. I've made something, but nowhere near the quality I'd like to have it, I'm having issues routing my DAWs to my external interface while having screen capture record the audio live. If anyone knows how please message me. But I put something together to show how simple EQing can make a work of difference.

Before watching, I did this through Windows Audio Driver which is garbage when it comes to this kind of stuff. So it's not the best, but I did my best to recreate the setting I did w/ waves using stock plugins and fabfilter. You'll notice there is a Audio Effect tab when you first view the video, that's my actual chain I'll be using in the released mix. I'll remake this video once I figure out how to get everything working properly and show you those chains.

Ignore the report crash window. Ableton crashed on me multiple times, and just got fed up closing the window. Here is a quick video of me EQing Tahna for a mix I'll be releasing eventually.
https://youtu.be/-lPcqc1wWzs

• First thing I notice right away is that Tahna is peaking A LOT. (0:13 - I did make a small mistake, instead of resetting EQ Three, I boosted the bass. That's why I turned it off and back on).
• Before I apply a limiter, I try to cut down the low end
  • First I set Lo Gain to -inf, starting at 50hz
  • Then I slowly move up the cut off freq and listen to where the low is mostly gone while vocals aren't affected
• And high end
  • Same process as the low end, except on the High gain and upper frequency
  • BUT notice how I brought back the high gain and experimented with the frequency and gain. I did this because the crispness of the vocals are also there.
• Cutting low and high ends didnt seem to help a whole lot w/ the clipping issues, this is where a simple MB can help.
  • Basically told it to push anything that goes over a certain DB down between certain frequencies
  • I had issues w/ my video here.
  • I wont go into detail for this, it'll be the topic of Week 3
• This is when I turn on the limiter. You can put it at the start and then work with audio, or at the end. Depends on how your chain effects the audio.
• Trackspacer - wont go into detail at all right now. New plugin to me, and still learning to use it. But loving it so far.
  • What I did before turning on trackspacer was I had deleted a send to trackspacer (sidechain- I'll cover that in week 4 or week 5), so I had to add it back so trackspacer could its job

Don't know if I'll continue this thread. Doesn't seem as active I'd hope it would be.

 

[Jasnoor98]

Awesome idea! I'll look forward to your posts!

 

[Aka$h]

this is legittt

 

[Fahaddd]

flames

 

[Basim]

Nice, easy to follow post. I'm really like the idea behind this initiative! Thanks for posting this Mithu.

Hadn't had a chance to go through your first weekly tip until now, but some suggestions are below..

My first suggestion would be to post "understanding this concept" (i.e. EQ) videos that are shorter, but still cover the topic. Or maybe post 2 small videos that talk about different aspects of the same concept. This will give a basic understanding of what is going on and how it applies to mixing, then people can research more on the topic themselves (if they want).

Also, if would be awesome if you could post a screen capture of your PC as you go through the process.. for example with EQing, just showing one simple song and how it's EQed horrible.. then show how you go about cleaning it up (or emphasizing a certain frequency.. to say, bring out the vocals of a track more). I think that would make more of an impact than just showing images of bands post-EQed.

Just some friendly advice as I think it will be easier for people to digest the information better this way,

~ Basim

 

[mithu]

Nice, easy to follow post. I'm really like the idea behind this initiative! Thanks for posting this Mithu.

Hadn't had a chance to go through your first weekly tip until now, but some suggestions are below..

My first suggestion would be to post "understanding this concept" (i.e. EQ) videos that are shorter, but still cover the topic. Or maybe post 2 small videos that talk about different aspects of the same concept. This will give a basic understanding of what is going on and how it applies to mixing, then people can research more on the topic themselves (if they want).

Also, if would be awesome if you could post a screen capture of your PC as you go through the process.. for example with EQing, just showing one simple song and how it's EQed horrible.. then show how you go about cleaning it up (or emphasizing a certain frequency.. to say, bring out the vocals of a track more). I think that would make more of an impact than just showing images of bands post-EQed.

Just some friendly advice as I think it will be easier for people to digest the information better this way,

~ Basim

That's the plan once I get time to sit down and reroute all my audio outputs and what not.
I'll be posting more after this week.

 

[mithu]

UPDATED WEEK 1 POST

Sorry for crap quality on video. I will remake it once I figure out how to do it w/out losing quality