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Mixing in a world of "tips and tricks".

Writer's picture: jackfar3jackfar3

Updated: 3 days ago

If like me, you're a musician or producer who uses social media to get themselves or their stuff around be that on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, wherever... You'll most likely be hit with constant "tips and tricks" when it comes mixing your track.

These can all seem great, especially when they're from some guy with a fancy studio with all the expensive gear that can make anything sound good, but it's something you should be wary of, especially if you're someone who's just starting out as it can be tempting to try a lot of them out for the reason "ah, well if this big name producer uses it, it must be right".

The thing is though, the main thing to bear in mind when mixing anything, and I mean any genre, and that's: context. Not even in terms of genre but in terms of the mix itself and the tracks you're working with mesh with each other.

I often approach each mix as it's own singular thing, unless I'm mixing for an album, I guess when you need some similarity between your mixes, but in general I'm making singles or one-offs, so like I say, I'm mixing a track as if it is it's own singular new thing.

That said I tend to hop on around genres so I can't mix a blues track in the same way I can mix an industrial track can I?

Compare this:


To this:



So, instead of thinking of "oh this track is this genre, or I want it to sound exactly like this track here, so I'm going to apply these setting", I'm mixing from a point of view of how the different elements interact with one another. Which, you might think "yeah Jack you should do that anyway", but a lot of people can take a lot of these mix tips, verbatim.

To be honest, a lot of the reason my mixes for a time sounded rough was because I was trying use another producers mix tips and tricks to make every guitar-type track I made sound like Queens of the Stone Age's Songs for The Deaf. For example:




That's not to talk crap on people that make these kind of videos or posts, it's just that it can be very tempting to be taken in by the video of "here's how to make your kick POP every time". And, you need to bear in mind that the settings they use with work in their mix, but may not work if you bang them into your mix, with no additions.

And honestly, you'd be surpised how much you can vary up what you use and where you use it, at the end of the day, we're making art. Stick an optical compressor on a snare drum, add top end reverb to a bass, use FET compression on a guitar or lead synth. If it sounds good, it works.

In the studio I often had a lot of fun with the more "stupid" techniques. I phantom a Shure SM57 by accident and I ended up keeping it that way as it added a nice boost to the snare's attack in the mix I was doing. It's not something I'd recommend you do, as I wasn't paying for the mic's personally, they were the university's.


Side note, I do wish I'd taken more pictures of my university studio projects but for my early ones I didn't have a good enough phone camera and I was too caught up with time constraints to have the opportunity to take photos. There's a big hole in my music production archive from my time at university in terms of sessions I can look back on.

But yeah, this is a bit of a roundabout ramble, I guess, but the best advice or "tip and trick" I'd give to new producer is mix in the context of what you're working with, and if you're going to take a "quick mixing tips", use them as a guide, and be mindful that they may not work in your mix.

Happy mixing!

Peace, love,

The Jafro
xx



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