4 key tips for getting LOUDER mixes (from a pro engineer)

have you ever struggled getting your mixers louder or often left wondering why commercial releases sound so much louder than your own well outside of mastering there's a few mixing tricks that go into achieving that professional loudness your own mixers could be lacking and in this video I'll break down those tricks into four simple steps to achieve loud Punchy mixers every time so let me show you how but before we start if you want to get your mixers to soundlight Pro songs I highly recommend checking out Sage audios mixing a mastering membership as a member I have to say the experience is incredible just for signing up you'll receive 10 free mastered songs per with your own dedicated mastering engineer unlimited mixing feedback and access to their Flagship mixing a mastering education program called The Sage audio engineer but more on that at the end of the video as I mentioned there are a few ways of building loudness into your mix but there are also some common mistakes and issues that could be holding your mix's back that we need to touch on first a common misconception is that you can just throw a limiter onto your mix bus and push it until you achieve your desired loudness level the issue you run into here especially if you haven't used any of my upcoming mixing tricks is that you'll significantly reduce the punch of your mix by over limiting along with adding in a ton of unpleasant Distortion to your track the reason why is because you need to mix validness in mind if that is your desired end goal once the mix and mastering process has been completed you can't add in loudness as an after for if you haven't built it in throughout your mix so always make sure you know the kind of sound you or your client want first before you even start to mix with that said let's jump into my mixing session and I'll walk you through my four tips for getting louder mixes every time tip one is all about controlling the low end of your mix in case you didn't already know low frequency have the most energy which means they'll quickly set off and overwork your mix bus chain if they go untreated that's why it's crucial to be aware of this point and apply the right processing to your tracks depending on what instruments make up your given arrangement for the low end some common instruments that you will need to deal with in this frequency range will be kick drums and bass guitars a lot of simps and effects like impacts and Rises can also have a huge amount of low-end information so make a note to check these tracks too if your mix contains a lot of post-production elements so now you know what to look out for how can you control these low frequencies in the mix one way is to make make good use of high pass filters on an EQ you don't need to remove the low end on every single track in your mix but it's a good idea to use high pass filters strategically throughout the mixing process for instance take this tambourine sound I have it actually has a ton of low-end information that just isn't needed in the full mix if you imagine similar tracks to that scatter through 100 plus track count you can see how quickly buildups of low-end frequencies can occur and how that in turn will affect your mix bus processing so theide aidea behind high pass filter in the majority of your tracks is to stop this buildup from ever happening to begin with it's a good idea to at least check most of your tracks first as like with my tambourine example even instruments that you imagine would mostly contain high frequency information can be quite deceptive the other way to control low end is with compression often multiband compression is a great tool to use here as you can Target specific problem areas and only compress the offending frequencies I've used this idea for the processing on the base guitar in my mix using this plugin I'm able to compress both the low end and the above frequency of the base individually and then blend those two to taste it provides your mix with a really solid consistent low end as you can hear in this [Music] example tip two is all about clipping but similar to my point about using High Pass filters on an EQ strategically you can do a similar thing with clipping you want to tame any transients in your mix to make the compression and limiting stages on your mix bus processing much easier drums in particular will have a lot of transient information that is best to handle before the mix bus stage so adding a Clipper to your drum bus like I've done here can help to shave off the very peaks of those transients which will in turn stop your master bus compression and limiting from overworking you can even do this in series as I like to do sometimes the first Clipper in my chain I use to get the drum sound as I really like the sound certain Clippers have when push too far [Music] and then the second Clipper in my chain is much more transparent as it's only there to further shape the transience of the drums and make it easier to push the mix harder once it comes to the limiting [Music] stage [Music] tip three is the use of saturation throughout your mix this is something you want to spread out across multiple tracks which will collectively add a pleasing harmonic depth to your mix with the added benefit of ring out harsher more transient heavy sounds too just take a lesson to how my mix sounds with and without any saturation added [Music] first [Music] saturation is really a cumulative effect that it's more noticeable once you spread it across multiple tracks within a mix though you may not want to add a saturation plugin on every channel of your mix it's a good idea to use a subtle amount spread across a wide selection of tracks which will give your mix a greater sense of harmonic color and density and lastly tip four is about mid-range and how most of the energy and punch in your mix will come from this frequency range just take a quick listen to my mix with the mid-range scooped out slightly and you can instantly hear how much weaker it sounds in comparison to the original it can be difficult to get the right balance of mid-range enamix as this area can become easily cluttered due to a lot of instruments like guitars bass vocals and more all have overlapping frequencies in the mid-range so a common Pitfall I see a lot of beginner mix and engineers make is to scoop out too much mid-range in all of their tracks it's easily done as reducing the mid-range can often have a deceptively pleasing sound to start with but too much of this effect will leave you with a thin lifeless [Music] mix the way I like to avoid this problem is to First Look at what tracks make up the mid-range in my mix and then decide which ones really need to dominate this frequency area it's also important to note that a lot of natural loudness comes from the mid-range frequencies so if your mix is mostly made up of high and low-end information you're going to find that your mixers always sound quieter and weaker than commercial releases even if they're technically registering at the same less level this is due to the effect of perceived liess as I mentioned earlier if you want to get your mixer to sound pro songs I highly recommend checking out stage audios mixing the mastering membership as a member I have to say the experience is incredible just for signing up you receive 10 free mastered songs per month with your own dedicated mastering engineer unlimited mixing feedback and access to their Flagship mixing and mastering education program called The Sage audio engineer which includes start to finish session walkthroughs and 35 multi-track sessions for mixing practice so you can learn how to create your own Pro mixers and Masters additionally the membership offers you unlimited mixing feedback from Sage audio engineers and community members before having your mixers mastered This is highly valuable giving you access to a thriving community of producers and Engineers who can provide you with feedback about what could be improved first before your mix is professionally mastered also being able to hear how a professional master your mix first is a great way of improving your own skills so getting 10 fre mastered songs per month is really going to pay for itself so if this sounds like something you benefit from and I'm sure you would use the link in the description to get a 70% discount on the membership which brings a total cost down to just $15 per month

Channel: Sugar Sound

Views: 3,997

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Id: 2Oq7G7BKi-4

Length: 8min 9sec (489 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 13 2024