Why your mixes fall FLAT

hey this is joe from home studio corner big question why do your mixes fall flat you listen to your mix then you listen to a mix from your favorite album and that one has all this energy and punch and hugeness and yours is just kind of meh what's the difference well i'm going to talk about one huge difference and one change you can make that will start to address this problem right away in this video okay so let's assume a lot of you are going to say oh he's going to say get it right at the source i just know it actually i'm not um let's assume that you did get it right at the source that you recorded let's say it's a regular kind of full band production rock thing drums recorded and mixed well bass solid guitars recorded and mixed well vocal recorded and mixed well but there's still something missing what is it what's the difference between your mix and their mix what do they have that you don't well it could be obviously there could be many answers to this question but one big one i think you know what let me demonstrate it first and see if you can hear the difference and then we'll talk about what that difference is so i've put together two versions of the same song option one and option two and i'm zoomed way in so that you can't see what's happening and the difference between them but we'll start with option one play it all the way through this is the uh coming out of the bridge into the final chorus of one of my songs and then i'll play you option two same section same song but what's different and go ahead and leave your comment as you're listening as to what you think is different and then we'll talk about the differences uh moving forward one big disappointment then maybe i'm doing this thing right but if this all voices something bigger then i'll get back up and fight i'll get back up and fight and get back [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] i'm [Music] [Music] this is one of those times where i wish you were sitting here with me and we could just talk about it but we don't get the back and forth like i wish we did but let's talk about it anyway um so these are both the same song same performance everything you heard in option one you also heard in option two but obviously there were differences before i talk about what those differences are let me play it one more time but i'll flip back and forth between the two so you'll see whichever one is highlighted is the one that we're listening to and you'll hear as i flip back and forth you should hear some more significant differences here we go then maybe i'm doing this thing right but if this all voices something [Music] [Music] [Music] first let's talk about what's happening in the first option in option one what do we hear well let's analyze it let's listen and say what we hear [Applause] [Music] we hear drums and bass we hear a pair of electric guitars and we hear vocal and that's all we hear there's some reverb and it's been mixed but nothing changed in the mix between option one and option two what changed is the instruments that were playing so option one was what a lot of people consider their final version of the song they've got drums bass left guitar right guitar uh there's an acoustic guitar in the middle you can't really hear it very well um and lead vocal and then it's mixed really well guitars might be a little bit bright but otherwise that's that's it and so that's the kind of the raw starting point for the mix and they'll be confused system why doesn't it why can't i get it sound any bigger and they look for different plugins and different mixing techniques in parallel processing and side chaining and all these other things to make it more interesting when the problem isn't a mixing problem and the problem isn't a recording problem do you know what the problem is it's a production problem meaning this version option one has not been produced yet it's just the starting point it's got drum space two guitars and a vocal that's great and some styles of music maybe that's it but for me and for a lot of the music that i listen to that's that's kind of the starting point that's the skeleton of the production then we start to add the parts that make it interesting and engaging let me show you what i added to that foundation to make it interesting and engaging so the way i'll show that to you is i'm gonna play you all the parts that are missing all the parts that you didn't get to hear uh in option one and that is this one this one this one so all of these things are what was missing from option two or from option one these are the things that were added in option two [Music] so the problem with option one let's actually save this as option one minus two minus one i don't know what to call that uh the problem with option one was we have this we have just cool drums and bass but then the guitars are just strumming cores it's just jenga and jenga and jenga and dangan nothing wrong with that but by itself it's kind of boring it's fine but it's just not that interesting and it's going to keep repeating for the next you know whatever 1632 bars and we're going to get bored with it um but by adding these other things that we added in i was able to make this a lot more interesting at least to me so what did we add in well the first thing we added in there's a loop so on top of the drums there's this loop that's just kind of a combination of beat box and the drummer hitting his sticks on the side of the kit that we recorded with the room mic that is isn't as prominent in this section of the song but in the verses it gives it kind of an extra depth to it another big part is the two electric guitar parts so the we had the original two that are just going but we had two more and these are a little bit cleaner and a little bit simpler the one on the left is just playing out some chords just strumming them out like a like diamond style just playing whole notes at a time and the right one is sort of a melodic sort of a lead part very simple but it adds kind of some warmth some mid-range and something a little bit different from just those driving guitars that's a little cooler what else happens here one of the big ones is these background vocals that come in this is a loop that i recorded of me singing that main little melodic part with some harmonies on top um and it just it adds another element to this that fills out the mid-range a little bit and also just makes it a little more interesting and engaging and the final piece was probably the most obvious was this echo part which is echoing the lyric that i was singing in the bridge but it's now echoed as like a background part in the chorus so these are what the final combination of everything that i added was [Music] okay so let's listen again here's the first option and here's option two with everything in here's the takeaway when you're thinking about adding things into your mix there's really kind of two or three things you can think about first of all do i have stuff in the left middle and right buckets are there things interesting things happening left left mix middle mix and right mix next thing is are are there different instruments taking up different frequency ranges is there anything kind of giving us a mid-range or do we need to add something warm in there to do some balance there it's not an eq thing it's there's no real parts that warm up that middle kind of like those electric guitars and those background vocals did and third can we add something melodic our ears are trained just like as humans we love a good story there's something about it's just baked into us we love a good story it's also baked into us that we our ears are trained to listen for melody so anytime you can add something melodic into your tunes it's gonna make it a little more listenable and a little more what i call hummable where i could walk away humming that guitar part now that happens to be almost the same thing that the lead vocal is singing but it's done in a different way with a different timbre it makes it interesting and it really fills out the mix now i'm not telling you to go just add a bunch of tracks to your songs and because joe gilder said i need to add more it's not so much a matter of more as it is a matter of adding enough if you just have drums bass and two guitars for a punk song for you know a nirvana cover band that might be perfect but for a lot of songs the difference between what you're hearing on your mix and what you're hearing on the radio or on your favorite albums is they've been produced a little bit more they've added some extra things to make it more interesting they've maybe doubled that lead vocal they've added two more guitars instead of just the two that you had they've added some extra percussion that you don't have in yours there's all sorts of things it could be it's i'm not telling you to carbon copy what i did in this song but take the idea behind it and find holes in your mix that you can fill with interesting parts it can be really simple stuff that added up adds up to something really beautiful and even complicated sounding but beautiful it doesn't have to be virtuoso parts to be interesting and engaging and melodic and cool so think about places in your mix where maybe you're saying i'm done recording but the answer is no no you've you've got the foundation now let's have another session where we record extra stuff those are my favorite sessions to do where i'll put in a little piano pad on one section then a little simple guitar part that's like but it fits in with the song and then maybe i get out my shaker and my tambourine and do just a really simple shaker or tambourine part that adds a lot or i do a single tambourine hit and i add a bunch of reverb to it so it goes or i do put in a simple swell that's that makes that transition sound so much better it's sometimes really small little things like that that make all the difference in the world what production tips do you have leave them in the comment let us know i'd love to hear some more ways that you add interest and make take your songs from being just maybe some musicians all playing the same chords and rhythms to something that is more than that final thing i forgot to mention just as much as we love rhythm we also love i'm sorry just as much as we love melody we also love differences in rhythm so if every guitar player all the guitar players and the bass player are all playing the same rhythm maybe think about introducing something different for example that left guitar instead of going there it goes [Music] instead of playing eighth notes it's playing whole notes and then the one on the right instead of playing eighth notes is going so it's a different rhythm than the other guitars it's also a different tone tonality it's more melodic than the other guitars are and all of that combined together makes something kind of cool and magical you just have to play around with it but have these ideas in mind when you're doing it and it'll give you some at least kind of prompt you in the right direction of where you should go as always if you liked this be sure to like subscribe do all of those things if you want my recording cheat sheet which talks about a lot of this and a lot more you can get that for free at recordingcheatsheet.com thanks for watching see you next week

Channel: Joe Gilder • Home Studio Corner

Views: 45,106

Keywords: mixing, gear, home recording, equipment, joe gilder, presonus, studio one, home studio, production, producer, produce

Id: _8-0dxr2G6o

Length: 13min 33sec (813 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 08 2021