100 Recording and Mixing Mistakes to Avoid

you still making rookie mistakes ain't you you've been messing up your recordings messing up your mixing you've been doing this for how long it's cool i got you baby [Music] what's up youtube welcome back to the channel i'm wavy wayne from wavywayne.com and this channel is all about helping you to record and mix better and faster today i'm going to do just that by helping you to avoid not 10 not 20 not 30 but 100 of the top recording and mixing mistakes that i see happening all the time now you already know i work with clients from all over the world i've been a recording and mixing engineer for over 15 years so i've seen it all from home studio mistakes to even the large studio mistakes that people who've been engineering and recording for years are still making so i've thought about this and i sat down and and came up with a list of literally 100 things that i see people doing wrong in the studio and here's how you can avoid them first thing first man is recording in a loud environment okay you want to make sure that your recording environment doesn't have the air conditioner on that it ain't babies crying that it ain't police flying up and down the uh the street outside you want to find a place that is going to be quiet and conducive to the recording next recording in a reflective room okay you might just have a room that is so echo-y and untreated you got to find a way to actually balance that because all the reflections in the room when you talking if you can hear your echoes and reverbs coming back into the microph if you can hear them in your ears then they're going back into the microphone into your recordings and it's gonna make your mixes just sound a little bit um muddy a little crappy okay so definitely reduce the room reflections as much as possible right one other mistake that i see people making for number three is buying gear just for the name now i know as a entry-level engineer you just beginning to record and mix your own stuff you want to go with the trusted brands and that's fine but as you learn more and more throughout this uh career throughout this uh hobby whatever it is for you um in this journey of recording yourself you will learn that it's not just always about the the brands but when you actually learn about the components you'll be able to find that there are some boutique boutique brands that are using high quality components that can actually get you a more unique sound that everybody else just isn't using and it's probably going to be even higher quality for a lesser price because it's not attached to one of those super big name brands another technique for number four another tip is that y'all are not practicing man you have to put the time in you got to put your 10 000 hours in to really um feel appreciated at the level that you want to get to right to actually realize the level of creation that you want to do you have to put that time in and i see a lot of engineers kind of just jumping um from student to professional and not spending that time as an intern or just spending time practicing and doing free work so that they can get their chops up so definitely one thing there another tip that i have for number five is that y'all just not listening before you record you just get in your mind that you're gonna record something and then you set up a microphone in front of it and hit record you only want to record something because it sounds good right because it sounds pleasing because it's what you want to capture um i think about recording like taking a picture if i'm going to take a picture before i snap that button i want to make sure the shot is composited that the light is just right that um whatever is in the background is just right right that the sun is hitting and we got all our angles together and then i'm gonna push that button and take that picture think about those old pictures i know nowadays we got these digital cameras and we can just snap a hundred times on our phone or whatever but think about those olden pictures where you had to pull the string to take the picture right how meticulous everything needed to be perfect because you wouldn't even see this picture for another week after it developed or whatever okay so let's have that level of intention before we hit record and only record uh sounds that we want to keep and not try to fix them later in the mix okay another tip that i have for y'all for number six is don't bring so many people to the studio with you if they are not helping if they're not conducive to the song leave them at home if they're not vocal producing music producing um they just there to hang out and you know and and take up space and end up talking and sleeping in the studio lead them at home another tip is for my recording and engineers and this one even extends for artists and number seven is not having a lot of confidence or having a lot a lack of confidence is what i should say having that lack of confidence is going to just hold you back especially as an artist if you aren't opening yourself up and presenting yourself um over the microphone the way that you want to be felt the way that you want to be heard and seen it's just not going to translate that way same thing for my engineers you need to have that confidence that you are in control of the session and that you can run it based off of the skills and the practice that you've already put in number eight we have lack of communication with the engineers so uh my number eight on things the list man right at the top you know you always notice that some of the most important things here are not necessarily technical things but just being able to communicate and talk with your engineer as an artist um or if you're the artist being able to talk with the uh um engineer but you have to have communication with whoever you're working with in the studio number nine is clipping digital clipping you need to avoid clipping at all costs i see so many people making the mistake of recording too loud and just reaching digital clipping and there's no way to go back from that so i would honestly record refer prefer you to record too quiet than too loud but on number 10 my tip for that is don't record too quietly either okay it just doesn't serve the music to not record loud enough your plugins and processors that you're going to be using operate at a optimal level so they have a certain level you're usually around negative 6 db on average right so if that level incoming is less than that then the plug-ins and processors that you're using won't be working at their full potential either so number 12 is gonna be for my mixers out here don't rely on limiters for your mix loudness okay you need to be building up loudness in stages by using saturation by using parallel processing you need to be building up that loudness during the mix and not waiting until the end of the mix to rely on slapping a limiter on there to get it as loud as you want it to be next on my list at number 13 is going to be over compressing now the compressor is probably one of the most un misunderstood tools in all of recording and mixing and probably one of the most overused tools as well but over compression will really kill your tracks when you get that pumping sound on the track and it just sounds like you know you're sucking the life out of it you killed it you killed the dynamics it's over okay so don't over compress number 14 is that y'all be using way too many plugins okay i've seen people max out all 10 plugins on the track and then route that track to an aux input just to get more plug-ins you really shouldn't need that much processing on a particular track if you need that much processing you might need to consider the source maybe re-recording that part or changing the instrument if it's uh working with a beat or something like that all right next thing on number 15 is that you have to label your tracks not labeling your tracks is going to lead to chaos and disorganization which brings me to number 16 is that you have to be organized in your session and with the files so not just organize inside the session by labeling the tracks and um and labeling your audio files but outside the session make sure that you have a hierarchy of folders for where you're saving your pro tools sessions or your logic sessions or cubase sessions whatever it is make sure that you're saving stuff appropriately because man this is your art these are your babies you don't want to have to go looking for them and can't find them number 17 is actually getting distracted so we got so many distractions in our world today so many distractions from our phones to people coming at your door people walking in the room while you record it you have to try to find ways to eliminate distractions at all costs all right so whatever that means if that means putting your phone on dnd locking the doors closing the blinds all that um do that to eliminate those distractions that's going to help you to stay focused and get the best out of what you are doing whether it's recording or mixing or even songwriting at number 18 man this is a huge mistake i see people doing and it's not using headphones while you're recording yeah i know to a lot of us that might sound like that simple and we know that already but there are literally people out here recording right now who don't know to use headphones while you record it and they will actually just be blasting out of the studio monitors while they recording with the microphone and then we're getting all kind of feedback happening um into the microphone and into our recordings and it just makes it really really hard to get a clean mix that way when you do that so make sure you are using headphones closed back isolating headphones kind of like the wavy one studio headphones number 19 is that you have to buy a mic that fits your voice don't just buy a mic that doesn't suit your voice this kind of goes back to one of my earlier tips it's where we just buying gear uh for the name specifically you need to make sure that you try microphones out when you can to make sure that they actually give you the qualities that you want to hear in your voice what a good microphone that sounds good on my voice may not be the best for your voice or your client's voice and don't just rely on using that one microphone to think that it's going to be an end-all be-all you have to have multiple choices while you're working next up is that you guys have to use the right type of mic for your recording situation now this can span way beyond uh vocal microphones if you're going to be recording a drum set or you're recording strings or you're recording a room sound or choir right are you recording a car driving by whatever your recording situation is you want to make sure that you choose the right type of microphone for it do some research does this uh microphone does this type of application work best with dynamic microphones do i need a condenser microphone a ribbon microphone does uh my cardioid pattern need to be figure eight does it need to be omni right on my mic pattern does it need to be cardioid right so these are things that you need to figure out and make sure that you're choosing the right type of microphone for the job that you're going to be doing make sure that you are using proper microphone placement placing the microphone too close to a corner of a wall will cause reflections to easily get right back into your microphone also you know if you are placing a microphone up on the source do you want to be really close to the source or far away from the source again that goes all into listening before you hit record and maybe even moving the microphone around until you hear exactly the sweet spot in your recording scenario on where that mic should be placed and then that's when you hit record number 22 too much eq okay i see this a lot i hear it a lot i should say we are spending so much time on the eq changing what we've recorded or changing the sounds that we've used if you have to do so much extreme eq'ing you might need to go back to recording and make sure you're capturing what it actually is that you want to include in your song or go back to the production phase and say okay i've had to do too much sculpting to this particular sound i should have probably chosen a different better sound okay so um when you start eq and start making things sound really unnatural especially um organic instruments and voices over eq and can really kill that that intimate feeling so we don't want to over eq stuff we rather replace it or redo it if we need to add too much eq to it number 23 is going to be that y'all are using some weak samples in the music man a lot of times uh the sounds that i get for working on a mix they just sound like that that fisher price casio stuff man that is really remedial sounding as producers some of y'all have great melodies and great rhythms which are drums but if you kill all that and use a um you know a sound that's just remedial a sound that just don't sound good is not modern it's not big enough then that's really going to kill the production right away number 24 is gonna be a huge problem that a lot of beginning engineers run into and that's going to be the challa recording with latency now what's latency latency is the time that it takes for you to speak into the microphone for your audio interface and daw to process that audio from analog to digital and then spit it back out from digital back to analog and then you hear it in your headphones there's a time gap from you saying something into a microphone and then hearing it back from your computer and that time is called latency the more processing that you add in the way during that process the longer the latency will be so you want to minimize the latency by removing latency heavy plugins like if you got some brands of auto tune and pitch correction those can be very heavy even some compressors and other processors can be very heavy on the latency but also learning how to properly set your hardware buffer size low when you are recording and then send it back high for when you're mixing will help to reduce the latency so that the timing of your performance is going to be more accurate and more enjoyable for your artist or client that you might be working with stop relying on presets man y'all are just leaning on the presets so heavy it feels like you're not even trying sometimes to uh be in innovative and come up with fresh ideas you slap a preset on and think it's going to be a setting and forget it yes presets can be a great starting point they can also be great to learn certain processing techniques but every sound and every source is unique and it needs to be treated as such number 26 is using pitch correction all right now when you get way too much tony uni it started sounding a little silly so um try to make your singer sing the part over again if it's not working don't just rely on the pitch correction we just want to uh be in this microwave age where it's like we record the thing one time and think that the auto tune is gonna save us no make sure you're sparing that pitch correction and use it appropriately and lightly if possible number 27 is going to be having a fix it in the mix mentality i'm so heavy on this i want y'all to remember these words is that you want to mix before you ever hit record okay be mixing before you be recorded now what does that mean again you're just listening to the source you're listening to what's coming through those speakers there is a button in pro tools got the little eye on it look green dot you click that i that's called input monitoring now you click that before you hit the record arm okay this way you just able to listen to what it is and it needs to sound like how you want it to sound damn near on the finished project product okay so don't wait till you get done with the mix so we're like oh we just gonna record this i got all these eqs and stuff i'm gonna transform it no let's make sure that the source that we're capturing is what we want to keep 28 drowning everything in reverb okay stop using too much reverb period number 29 improper routing and with this i mean y'all are using sends and returns wrong you're using uh buses and groups wrong make sure that when you are using um reverb and other time-based effects like delays and courses that you're setting them up as they send and return that's going to be the best way to get the full effect okay you know i got videos on how to set up reverbs and delays on my channel so for more in depth on that go watch one of those videos number 30 the tip number 30 is going to be that y'all are using compression instead of using the fader right instead of using level adjustment everything don't need to be compressed some stuff can just be uh turned up by using clip gain or using your fader or you can turn it down even using automation is a great play replacement for using compression where compression can make your signals sound processed and unnatural you can start getting that pumping sound you won't have to worry about any of that when you are using volume automation or even clip gain based uh level adjustments okay so definitely uh before compression maybe you want to try clip gaining and making sure you're doing some volume automation before compression understand your tools is going to come in at 31. um just knowing what everything does and you can do this by studying yes but getting the practice and getting the hands-on taking an official course like my pro 2 certification course will definitely help you out there's a lot of courses out here a lot of videos on youtube but the more you know about your tools the better that you will be able to mix if that includes like when you get something new actually cracking open and reading that manual so that you can know about how to use that tool okay at number 32 3 another mistake that i see is that y'all be editing without using phase and just having really crappy edits all together be careful when you're editing for when the whole point of a fade is to prevent the clicks and pops when you're going from clip to clip anytime that you make a edit or cut a clip you should be adding a fade at the beginning and the end of that clip right it's called tops and tails and as a professional audio engineers that we know that we want to top and tell every single one of our clips in our sessions just to prevent any clicks and pops as the song is playing along also with the bad editing y'all be cutting stuff a little bit too close make sure you zoom in you're not editing this little tiny thing you zoom in and you edit right up on the waveform as you can see it okay next up at number 33 is mixing without proper low end response now how you gonna get that 808 to be slapping if you don't have a subwoofer right how you gonna know whether you are really got that kick jumping if you're listening on the tiny little boombox all right there has to be a balance yes small speaker systems can tell us a lot about our mixes especially around the low mid frequency range but if we really want to dial in the sub low frequencies and that bottom end of our mixes we need to be listening on systems that can support that low end frequencies okay so make sure that you have a subwoofer or two in your setup when possible and that you are actually monitoring those low frequencies next up at number 34 is going to be mixing on improper monitors yes i see some of y'all mixing on monitors or speakers i should say that were not designed for monitoring at the studio level like for example let's say we got the beats by dre headphones some people actually record and use those to mix while they are mixing a song is some dre headphones now those headphones have an eq curve that enhances certain frequencies of the music if you're using that to mix all the out of then your music could be limp or it could have be overhyped in certain areas because the actual curve of the headphones or your listening device is changing that so make sure that you have as flat as possible frequency responses on your monitors okay as flat as possible next up at number 35 main one big mistake that i see people making especially uh when you are just starting out is trying to self master your songs stop trying to master your songs yourself you just learn how to record you barely learn how to mix him and now you are already trying to attempt to master your songs yourself that's crazy b there's people who would have spent their whole life dedicated to this and they are mastering engineers there's definitely something that they have to offer there and if anything else even if it's one of your buddies who says you know what i master a few songs having a second set of ears over your music can sometimes be very helpful especially if it's someone that you trust and they have the experience to lead you in the right direction next up at number 36 is recording uh at too low of a bit depth when you record at too low of a bit depth you just don't get the proper head room so we want to i'm sorry you don't get the proper dynamic range so we want to make sure that we are able to have our mixes be very dynamic so don't record that 16-bit if you have the option to record at 24-bit or even 32-bit floating point nowadays which i definitely recommend that y'all do next up is going to be using too low or too high of a sample rate mainly too high of a sample rate now 44.1 kilohertz is most of the time where uh you know that's that's the base most interfaces won't go beyond that and that's actually okay to record at 44.1 i prefer recording at 48 kilohertz but if you want to do 44.1 that's fine it has a flavor and texture of its own but definitely there's no reason to record at extremely high sample rates there's no reason for me to be recording my next rap song at uh 192 kilohertz that's as uh as that's pointless okay all it's going to do is take up more space on my drive than necessary and it's just it's not going to give me any better results so no need to do that next up at number 38 one tip is to stop rushing y'all stop rushing the recording process take stuff over take it again record it again take your time with setting up the mics experiment with different types of microphones experiment with different microphone placement experiment with different takes and different styles of delivery and just stop rushing the process so next up is to make sure that y'all instruments are in tune all right now this is tip number 39 you have to make sure that you tune the guitars tune the drums tune your bass whatever instrument that you're going to be recording if it's a um some type of woodwind instrument make sure they're using the right read right this is all that stuff again mixing before we hit record don't try to fix it in the mix make sure that we're capturing something that is quality capturing something that is worth being recorded next up at number 40 that's from my mix engineers when i was writing this one is that y'all are lacking on taking notes during the mix during the mixing process you should be taking notes writing down things that you want to change writing down what you want to hear writing down what your plan of strategy is and then going into the mix and knocking out those big key ideas don't just go in freestyling the mix you actually need to go in and you'll you'll finish a lot faster and start to create a system for how you mix once you start to actually think about it in a more methodical way and take notes before you start the mixing process next up at number 41 is that y'all be mixing for way too long your ears only have certain amount of time before they get tired your brain is going to get tired you're going to be tired of mixing and all that so take breaks take frequent breaks don't just mix for too long um especially if you mix in at too high of volume okay my tip that's coming in at number 42 is that you should be using a reference mix okay now whether that's the rough mix that the artist or the producer had already gave you or you just referencing another song that's similar in quality you can realize your mixes sound a whole lot faster when you actually compare it to a reference and you're being truthful about what you're hearing and the differences about what you want to achieve and what you actually hear in your own mix next up at number 43 i'm leaning heavy on my mix engineers and this is making everything be heard man now i used to have this problem when i was a a young mixer i was coming up man i used to think that if the producer put it in the mix if he put it in there in the session then it needed to be heard and i need to find a way to make sure that we can distinguish every single little element of the production sometimes stuff is just layers sometimes stuff just need to be there and be felt and not be heard so don't think that you need to find a special place for every single element especially with a condensed saturated mix next up at number 44 this tip is going to be to stop ignoring phase issues make sure that you're checking phase correlation between like sounds especially those low end sounds where a lot of phase issues can start to present themselves number 45 is that y'all are not using a click track man use a click track please um if you are not recording to something that is rhythmic that has a constant beat you're gonna need to have a click track when you land your beat down for the first time or even um if the b let's say you did have something that was a beat but then all of a sudden that beat dropped off into a piano melody for uh four to eight bars you need to be able to switch uh switch gears and jump off into using a click track to still keep your timing then you get rid of that click track and it'll be like you was rapping on beat the whole time right next up at number 46 is that y'all taking too many takes recording too many takes all right now as a producer there should be somebody either the artist is producing or you got the engineer producing or you have an actual producer there but somebody needs to know exactly what the vision is for the final output of those tracks and once we have it we need to stop taking the takes right don't just be having your artist record 10 times the same part because you don't know what you're looking for that's going to tire them out tire their vocal cords out the whole experience is just going to be dragged out all right so um don't record too many takes next up at number 47 i know i just said don't record too many takes but number 47 i'm going to tell you how to be recording doubles certain stuff does need to be doubled and i don't want y'all to make the mistake of actually doubling the track inside of your doll now when i say doubles that mean you record it once then you record it again and record it again if you need to and by doing that with all those three or four different recordings stacked up together they create a nice wall of sound now if i just take one recording and then duplicate that same recording that same recording it's not going to do anything but reinforce the loudness on that recording and possibly start giving me phase issues especially if i start changing them and panning them out to different ways so keep that in mind uh don't do the double up um where you just duplicating the tracks if you need doubles actually record those doubles next up uh number 48 is that sometimes y'all are placing the microphone way too close to the source especially when you're doing vocals now when you get a microphone too close we get this low end pickup that's called the proximity effect right so the closer you get to the microphone the more the louder the low end frequencies will be picked up so we don't want that proximity effect let's avoid that and stay a safe distance away from the microphone so that that would be like maybe 8 to 12 inches all right next up at number 49 is that you got to stop recording with those cheap and broken cables yes if your cables are cheap and they're not shielded well they could be uh subject to picking up interference now this is rare a lot of cables nowadays are pretty good but there are some cables that may have issues and if you realize that hey maybe this issue is coming from this cable get a higher quality cable or make your own to make sure that it's shielded from possible interference and also like you know if the solder points are weak then you know any little movement in that cable could cause a noise or something like that and you just don't want to have to deal with that next up at number 50 is gonna be bad singing oh my god okay get a vocal coach before you start recording it get a vocal coach don't have a mix engineer spending hours trying to melody your uh your poor performance get a vocal coach practice your singing practice hitting those notes and it's going to make the recording come out so much better it's going to make the mixing come out better because it man unless you got it like that it's going to take a lot of hours of meticulous um a piece by piecing your um recording together or you could just you know practice those vocals and deliver a great performance all right cool all right chad so you know i just can't go with the singers without going at the rappers so coming in at number 51 is bad rapping man if you offbeat you trying to pull a blue face on us or whatever it is that you think you calling it get your wraps together make sure you got your cadence tight and you got some bars because we can't have a good song or a good recording or a good mix if we don't have a good rap performance either so that's gonna be the next tip for y'all to stay away from coming in at number 52 on my list of 100 things to stay away from while you're recording and mixing 100 mistakes to avoid it's going to be bad timing now using the click track was definitely going to help you with your timing when necessary but you just have to make sure that you're listening to the music maybe if you need to tap your feet or something but practicing your rhythm practicing that delivery and if you need to actually get in and edit after so this is for my recording engineers if you need to actually edit that performance to make it more in time and make that time and more congruent whether that's quantizing or literally manually moving items around to put them more closer on the grid you need to do that number 53 on my list of mistakes to avoid it's gonna be leaving your cell phone on man it ain't nothing worse than you performing the best take of your life of your hip hop career and then you get a phone call right in the middle of it and then you got to do it over right between that phone call wasn't even important but this time that you spent um in the studio of making your creations right that vibe that you were delivering you really can't recreate moments so take the time out to put the phone away turn it off put it on dnd while you are in the studio number 54 one of the top mistakes to avoid is not facing the mic imagine setting up the mic perfectly getting the levels just right and then i just go and do one of these or better yet i'm wrapping off my phone lyrics so i'm doing one of these and then oh i'm doing one of these or off to the side right you see you hear how that actually changes the projection of my voice so make sure that you are facing the microphone and you're delivering directly into the microphone so that may require you to memorize your lyrics or just make sure that you're giving the proper mic position if you are reading the lyrics number 56 is for my artists my engineers and my producers all of y'all need to take breaks you need to take ear breaks you need to take vocal breaks you need to step away from the music so that you can come back with a fresh perspective hammering away at the same song for 12 hours super focused in sometimes it's just going to lead you down a dark path that you just don't want to be in you spend a few hours working on that song but then you step back and look at it from a wider view right you get a different perspective and come back at it with a fresh and renewed energy and that's how you're gonna really kill it the next mistake to stay away from is not being professional so this is number 57 on my top 100 mistakes list is just not being professional what does that mean that means showing up late that mean you know you as an engineer trying to slide and act like you the producer and you playing beats for artists when you shouldn't be playing them um you know all kinds of things you know what professionalism is treat your studio work as a business no matter if it is a home studio you want to be professional with yourself so that you can get professional results and take the time to do the meticulous things that you need to produce the outcome that you want this for my artist number 58 is stop letting the engineer change your plan don't let the engineer change your plans yes it's good to get input and have advice from the engineer but you are the artist you should come in with an idea of how you want to finish product to sound what you want that finished product to be and just because an engineer has been doing this for years or whatever don't let them just influence what it is that you came to create you're there to have the engineer facilitate the recording for you all right remember that um next up number 59 back another tip for my audio engineers my mixing and recording engineers just please stop mixing in solo so much it's fine to occasionally hit that solo button and check out what one sound sounds like um by itself and fine tune it but you do that for a very brief period you want to put it back into the mix as soon as possible and check things in context it doesn't really matter so much how things sound when they're soloed versus how they sound when they're working with all of the other elements of your mix so spend less time working with that solo button and more time working with everything in context to one another number 60 on my top 100 list of mistakes that uh you guys are making in your recording studios is forgetting about stereo width right now i see this on a lot of newbie recording engineers and mixing engineers is that they are neglecting the pan knob all right that pannop is your friend we have two speakers or even more with all of the uh immersive audio that we have going on now so panning is super super important don't forget and don't neglect to get creative with your panning and pan stuff away from that center channel all right next up number 61 on my top 100 list of mistakes for recording and mixing um is going to be killing the dynamic range now this is definitely a big tip for the mixing engineers you don't want to squash the dynamic range in your mix now how would you do that by adding too much compression by putting too much limiter over your mix bus you want to make sure that your mix is alive and flowing where everything is not the same level you have certain elements that are super loud in the mix and then you also have more elements that are soft and subtle right this can also uh be the job of the composer the producer when you putting together these tracks to make sure that you are including these high and low in your energy areas number 62 on my list of the top 100 mistakes that audio engineers and artists make in the studio is not checking your mixes on different monitoring systems right you got the one monitoring system and then you spend an all day in that room that may even be flawed and you're not even bothering to check your mixes on multiple systems yes at the very least you want to be checking on one pair of headphones and a pair of studio monitors that's at the least but think about all of the mediums where your music is going to be played and think about how many bases you can cover um in that way number 63 on my list is gonna be not leaving enough head room okay you need to make sure that you have head room while you're mixing now what does that mean that means that you got zero db that's the point of digital clipping if any of your sounds exceed that 0 db mark then it's going to be clipping and it's going to distort so when you're mixing make sure that you're watching your meters and that you are leaving enough head room so that um you know for as you start to add sounds and add more processing and then do your mix bus processing and then whatever mastering is going to happen to that song you need to make sure that you have enough head room for all of that number 64 on the list is not using a high pass filter definitely a tip for my mixing engineers you need to use high pass filters um whenever it's necessary right listen to those elements of your mix if certain instruments and vocals have unnecessary low end rumble like for example vocals always right just in case you want to use a high pass filter and roll off the super low frequencies that aren't needed and a lot of other instruments may have unnecessary low end that could just bother and mess up your whole mix so make sure you're cleaning up the uh low frequency areas by using a high pass filter next on the list number 65 is not using a low pass filter right just on the opposite edge of that some instruments are going to have too much high frequency energy that we're going to want to attenuate so definitely make sure that you're using a low pass filter also whenever necessary number 66 is on my list is that you guys are eq and the master bus to fix the mix oh my god right don't think about putting stuff on your mix bus to enhance the mix if you have to go and spend time eq'ing um heavily on your mix bus on your master channel on whatever you call it your two bus channel if you have to spend time putting eq over that whole mix right to fix elements you need to go back and find what's the problem in that mix that i could fix before affecting this right that should be a very last stage the last draw kind of thing um if if that is getting too extreme you definitely need to go and fix stuff in your mix before you do any eq on the miss on the master bus okay number 67 on this list of things to avoid is not using automation y'all okay automation is going to be your best friend while you are mixing you can use automation volume automation pan automation you can even automate all the parameters within a plug-in this is going to help to make your mixes move so much more to where instead of even using compression on certain parts of the mix you could automate the level of that vocal it will work a whole lot better than using compression so think automation um to get movement in your mix before sometimes even reaching for some effects right i know a lot of times people will use like the auto pan plug-in and stuff like that when you could really just do this yourself and probably make it even more custom and fluid how you like it just by doing it manually through automation in your daw next on my list number 68 is doing the same things too much right now what do i mean are y'all doing the same things too much that means that every single mix you approach with the same mentality and you just start doing stuff because you are like trained and it's ingrained in you to do certain things so you're being more proactive when you're mixing instead of being reactive right make sure you're listening to what's coming out the speakers and then reacting to that with the best knowledge that you have instead of just being proactive and attacking the music attacking the mix before you even are giving it a good chance to to to listen to it and see what it needs from you number 69 on my list is gonna be for you to stop trying to turn a sound into something is not okay now what does this mean that means you're using too much eq using too many effects too many filters and shape shifters and stuff pick a different sound choose a different sound stop trying to turn the sound into something that's not when it's in the mix if it's just not working you can replace it right replace the samples replace the vocalist replace that snare stop trying to turn stuff into something that's not number 70 on my list of these mistakes that y'all need to avoid is stop relying on those fix-it plug-ins right those rx plugins i know someone that told me that that's one of the first things they do on every single mix is lean to the rx and clean up the recordings why do you have to clean up the recordings on every single session you don't okay stay away from that don't rely on that those are very last um last measures they degrade the quality of audio yes they are great tools to have when you absolutely need them but you know don't lean on a d clipper just don't clip right right don't lean on a background noise remover plug-in just make sure you remove the noise before you start recording all right number 71 is not being clear on what it is that you want to achieve when you go to a studio and you go to work with a client um you go to work with an artist right and i'm this goes for everybody for the engineer what do you want to achieve producer what do you want to achieve artist what do you want to achieve during this session you have to have clear goals otherwise you're just out here freestyling and that could really waste a lot of time and money in the studio number 72 is not paying attention to your gain staging please do your research on game stage and learn game station make sure that you are probably paying attention to your meters throughout the whole recording and mixing and mastering process super important okay number 73 is gonna be stop making vocals so thin do not make your vocals thin i talked about using a high pass filter a little bit ago but some of y'all are doing it way too much way too much high pass on the vocals it just makes them so thin and they're piercing through the mix you want to keep some of that body in so yes you don't want super lows on your vocals but you don't want to cut them all out either find a nice balance while you're using that high pass filter and rolling off low end frequencies on your vocals don't make your vocals too boomy yeah number 74 right behind that is don't make your vocals too boomy you get the picture man you have to find a balance everything in mixing here is about finding balance number 75 on my list is gonna be bad beat selection man some of y'all just be picking crappy beats artists come on now get the beat game together just because that's your cousin you know that beat it's not that fire okay we need to actually go ahead and get some high quality beats if that means you got to go to beat stars or whatever download juice and bees work with a producer make your own beats whatever it is stop laying on them on them weak beats man all right chad coming in at number 76 on my hundred things to avoid in your recording that mixes is going to be too much boosting instead of cutting okay remember that when you're boosting frequencies with the eq you're actually increasing the gain of that signal so start off by doing subtractive work first if the signal seems like it needs to be brighter try reducing the low end and that will give the perception that it's brighter and vice versa alright so think about cutting before boosting number 77 on my list is just not knowing your room not knowing if your room is giving you too much bass response not knowing if there are frequency buildups in that room or even phase issues in your room know your room listen to music in your room through the monitors through your mixing situation and understand where the problem areas are understand where the sweet spot is so that you can produce your best music number 78 is going to be not knowing your monitors all right that goes right along with not knowing your room you really need to spend time just listening to music through the monitors that you're planning to mix on like so a good practice is when you're coming in just getting set up for your day before you start your session play some popular songs play some of your favorite music through those monitors in that room so that you can familiarize yourself uh with the environment that you're going to be working in number 79 is just mixing mindlessly now what do i mean by that that means you're just not thinking you are literally just clicking away moving stuff doing stuff just not even having a real plan and mixing mindlessly okay again you want to bring out a a tablet or something right get your piece of paper take notes and have a plan of action um while you're actually mixing that song number 80 on this list is going to be not knowing when to stop now this is something that a lot of people struggle with and for me the stopping point is going to be simple right it's going to be when can i actually listen to this song from start to finish and forget that i'm working on it and actually just become a consumer for a few minutes right now when you're able to do that or when you hit the deadline it's time to stop number 81 on this list is not being reactive if you are being too proactive with the mix you are missing moments and opportunities to let the music speak to you to let the instrument speak to you and tell you exactly it is what they need from you they want to ask for compression when they want compression it's going to ask to be brightened up when it needs to be brightened up react to what's coming out of those speakers a little more number 82 it's just going to be having a lack of energy in your mix having a lack of and chest in that mix right when you're mixing bring that energy by using saturation tools by using parallel compression by keeping the mix dynamic and not squashing stuff and then also having moments of excitement little effects here and there that just tickle your ear and re-energize and re-engage the listener number 83 on this list is going to be too many low-end sounds yeah we talked about using high-pass filters on stuff because if it doesn't need that low frequencies it's going to muddy up your low end so much your 808s won't have definition your kicks won't have definition so if you have too many low end sounds in the composition start off by reducing those out of the composition first right let's just get rid of them mute them delete those tracks if you have that liberty to do that and whenever you need to also use filters all right lack of clarity right so number 84 on this list is there's gonna be a lack of clarity in your mixes you know not enough high-end not enough definition on those vocals on those things that need to actually shine through the mix your mix is a little dull and so the clarity isn't coming through so um you know don't go too heavy with the low-pass filters don't go too hard with the de-essers we want to make sure that we keep some of that high-end sheen for that clarity on our mix next up 85 is looking for a mastered sound something to avoid for sure is looking for a mastered sound while you're mixing if you're chasing that master sound you're going to be neglecting the nuances in the music as you're actually mixing it so don't worry about comparing yourself to a mastered record don't worry about chasing a master sound focus on the mix don't think so much about is my mix too loud worry about i mean is it going to be loud and competing right think about dynamics that's what's going to matter the most when you get to that mastering stage is making sure that your mix is nice and dynamic the next mistake to avoid is not using groups you can accomplish a lot and get a lot done more quickly and more efficiently in your mix by grouping tracks together grouping plugins together and working with groups of tracks all at one time next up is not going to be properly using buses right so 87 on my list is not using buses properly buses in your daw are the pathway to get from one track to the other they can be used uh for setting up parallel processing for adding uh time-based effects they could be used um for even um grouping and sub grouping your tracks and routing everything through a aux input whatever it is however you work doing the workflow try to find the best use of buses in your workflow number 88 is that y'all ain't using enough shortcuts you're just not an editing ninja you know you got to be taking away a whole lot faster right so become an editing ninja learn your shortcuts and whatever dawg that it is pro tools learn your shortcuts so that you can work a lot faster and more efficiently number 89 on this list is just not understanding how inserts are processed in most daws you're going to realize that inserts right when you're applying those effects processors they're going to be processed in a certain order in these daws they're processed in series from top to bottom or from first to last meaning that the insert before affects the one that comes after so if i put an eq first then that signal will be eq going into my compressor that compress and that eq'd and compressed signal will then go into whatever effect um i have next number 90 on my list is not eq in your reverb man if you got a loosey goosey reverb man and this just got too much high end and too much low end you really can't tame that thing down so one thing that you definitely should avoid in the mix and is is is not eq and that reverb really scope that reverb sound and make it exactly what you want it to be and make it fit into that mix and really all of your time-based effects number 91 on the list actually is not um getting creative enough with your effects you can get more creative with the effects add an eq to the reverb add flanger to the delay tracks right add a chorus to that delay or add a reverb to the delay whatever it is right you can compound effects and get a whole lot more creative maybe even distortion on some of the delays right number 92 on my list is going to be that you're not setting the tempo right um make sure that your tempo is locked into your session this is just going to help you a whole lot with editing a lot quicker and whenever you're applying those time-based effects you can use the sessions tempo to automatically make sure that your effects are in time with this session next up 93 on my list is that you just can't put reverb on everything so avoid that avoid putting reverb on everything the if you have a drum set for example typically most of the time you can get away with only putting reverb over the snare and it'll give the illusion that the whole drum set is covered in reverb you don't need to put reverb on every single element in your mix on every vocal because that just going to create a wash okay number 94 on my list is processing everything again you need to be reactive when you're mixing every single track probably doesn't need to have a plug-in on it maybe some tracks just need you to change the fader level and put it in the right um position every track does not need to have plug-ins every track doesn't need to be eq'd every track does not need to be compressed you don't have to process every single thing in your session number 95 is that you sometimes are going too heavy on the high pass filters leaving your mix overall very thin so i know that we keep stressing this that you want to take off some of the low frequencies whenever possible whenever it's not needed but be very careful with that don't take off too much because if you go too heavy your whole mix will sound disjointed and it won't have the glue right that low mid area is really the glue that glues a lot of the stuff in our mixes together and if you're missing those frequencies it just does not gel together so well next up on our list is going to be not using parallel compression now you know one of my favorite techniques to getting more oomph out of a certain signal getting more um a presence out of a signal whether that's a vocal or um drums or even bass right if i want to get more presence and more girth out of that signal parallel compression upward compression new york compression all of those different terms relate to the same thing but yes do it in your sessions number 97 on my list is a huge one that you're definitely gonna uh regret if you don't do it and that's gonna be not saving you know if you don't save early and save often you will be sorry command s always control s if you want a pc yes you need to do it all right next up on my list number 98 is not reading the manuals how you think you're gonna know how to actually properly operate the equipment properly operate these plugins that you're getting if you've never even glanced at the manual yes you can get a lot done with the guesswork but you can get a whole lot more done if you know um the the full operation and how things behind the scenes are working in the plug-in so that you can better make decisions when choosing those processors number 99 the biggest one of the biggest mistakes that y'all need to avoid is not using wavy one isolating headphones yeah i mean it right the headphones that i have the wavy one studio headphones as as seen here as available on wavyweight.com they attenuate 33.4 db of sound from escaping the headphones meaning that you won't have a lot of music bleeding off into your microphone and also um they're really good for my engineers and artists who are recording in the same room you put the wave you want isolating headphones on and you can hear what's being recorded what's coming out of the doll versus hearing what's happening in the room right passive isolation no batteries required go to wavyweight.com right now and copy one of those i mean two of those or a few of those all right number 100 on my list is that you don't have an engineering community to lean on man so that's a huge mistake is that you don't have mentor you don't have any guidance you're sitting here watching youtube videos and i'm your mentor right but i can only take you so far through this video and i really want to help you and guide you a whole lot further which is why we created a community called the wavy seals elite the wavy seals elite guides engineers just like you to the next level in their career by offering mixed critiques exclusive master classes um practice mixing right recording and mixing techniques right no matter what doll you are in the wavy sales elite will definitely help you to get to the next step in your journey text elite right now to three one four four zero zero two eight eight zero to join the only community that's helping audio engineers get to the next step i'm wavy wayne from wavyweight.com i hope you enjoyed these 100 mistakes to avoid while recording and mixing i'll see y'all back next time let me know if i forgot any i'm sure i left off about a thousand more y'all be dope now

Channel: Wayne.wav

Views: 25,631

Keywords: Wavy Wayne, 100 Recording and Mixing Mistakes to Avoid, mixing, mixing mistakes, home studio, mixing tips, how to mix, mixing tutorial, home recording, common mixing mistakes, music production, eq, how to mix vocals, studio one, mixing vocals, mixing mistakes to avoid, top 5 mixing mistakes, mixing techniques, mixing tricks, compression, how to mix music, joe gilder, presonus, plugins, vocal mixing mistakes, vocal mixing, biggest mixing mistakes, 5 mixing mistakes

Id: airDiZDeHnE

Length: 57min 6sec (3426 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 19 2022