Ten mixing tips

Hi Hello everyone, today I want to share the tips of the mix. As time goes by, the overall mix trend and preferences will be different. It's hard to say how the mix must be correct or incorrect. The concept of mixing is the same. The same tools will have different experiences and ideas after use. Hope these tips can help everyone!
1. Common Mixing Sequence - The most commonly seen mixing sequence for the foundation, followed by the drum kit (first from Bass rum, Snare, TomTom, Hihat) bass, melody instruments (eg Piano, Acoustic Guitar, Synthesiser) The last is the human voice. According to them, this approach has the feeling of "building a house."
2. The order of mix of personal preferences - time order Because music is a time behavior, I think it's good to listen to it before, but it can be good later. Therefore, when individuals are doing mixing, they start from the beginning, and whoever comes first will deal with whoever.
3. Don't memorize the spectrum meter, because the same vocabulary feels different for everyone.
In the sense of hearing, "turbidity" and "lip-tooth" have different positions on the spectrogram for different people.
For example: the same is turbid, some people think that there is a problem at 30Hz, and some people may think that there is a problem at 50Hz.
Even in the 200Hz area, there is too much resonance, so the problem is where you hear the sound is wrong.
Building your own mixing experience will be better than looking at the spectrum meter to tune EQ.
4. Delete the uncontributed section.
For example, most of the EQ processing that vocals do often cut off frequencies below 100 Hz.
This range usually does not contribute much to listening.
If too many "no contributions" are not dealt with, the impact they will have when they pile up will not be known.
5. Regardless of the part of the mix, you must be able to tell the difference.
The most common thing I do is to use the AB check method to see if I can distinguish the difference between "change before and after change".
First move the mouse cursor to the switch position of the effect, open the line of sight to avoid seeing the switch state of the effect, and then click the mouse button to trigger the switch of the effect. Press it several times to make it impossible to remember whether the effect is off or on now. .
Then use the mouse to trigger the effect switch. Now it's time to judge which of the current sounds is there to increase the effect of which one is not.
6. For a single instrument, don't adjust it in the Solo situation.
In addition to the fact that the instrument is originally Solo in the paragraph, as long as there are two instruments in the same paragraph at the same time, the mix should not be processed only in the case of a single Solo.
Although it is not meaningful to do a sound mixing process in the case of Solo.
Because the instrument appears in the paragraph at the same time as other instruments, we focus on the overall results.
7. Sometimes the problem is not in the mix. For example, in an extreme situation, if the mouth is directly attached to the microphone when recording, then the spray or excessive low frequency is definitely not unexpected.
At this time, it should be to improve the recording method, rather than relying on the late mix to repair these problematic places.
8. Don't mix sounds for mixing. Adjust the sound to the desired state. If the sound is already "good", you don't need to add unnecessary processing.
Just deal with the problematic place, or the place you want to strengthen. This is not a book, there is no standard process.
9. Some dynamic imbalances, the key to solving is not the Compreesor but the Volume.
For example: Lead Vocal is usually a composite of clips from various Takes.
If the sound is too big or small because the distance of the microphone is too close, then the volume should be adjusted first.
10. It would be better to take a break.
Long-term mixing will have problems with hearing and paralysis. If you continue to work in this state, the results may not be better.
Let the ear rest, then listen to see if the modified result is close to what we originally expected.
Above, the 5th and 6th points are more difficult.
In a piece of music, each instrument has a different importance and plays a different role, and different positioning determines whether they are "significant" or "recessive", "front" or "back".
Trying to distinguish between these subtle changes and differences will help us to make more subtle moves to these sounds.