THE

MIXING

MINDSET

THE STEP-BY-STEP FORMULA FOR CREATING PROFESSIONAL ROCK MIXES FROM YOUR HOME STUDIO

MIKE INDOVINA

Copyright © 2021 Mike Indovina

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Permissions Request,” to info@masteryourmix.com

ISBN: 1727857275

ISBN-13: 978-1727857276

As my way of saying thank you for buying my book, I would like to give you the audiobook version of The Mixing Mindset 100% FREE!

TO DOWNLOAD THE AUDIOBOOK, GO TO:

themixingmindset.com/audiobook

WELCOME!

Congratulations on purchasing this book and taking a huge step forward to improve your mixing skills.

I’m so happy to have you as part of the community of passionate, dedicated engineers who strive to create professional sounding records.

As a first step along your journey, make sure to visit:

www.masteryourmix.com

There you will find video tutorials, blog articles, podcasts, free downloads, and more, to help you create better mixes.

____________________

Also, make sure to join the MasterYourMix Academy – a monthly coaching program designed to help you create professional recordings from your home studio, without the need for expensive gear or acoustic treatment.

Inside, you’ll get exclusive tutorials, mix reviews, group coaching calls, members-only community, and so much more. It is focused on giving you customized support and feedback to help you create music that people will actually want to listen to so that you can quickly grow your fanbase.

Normally, registration for this membership is only open 1 or 2 times a year, but as my way of saying thanks for checking out The Mixing Mindset, I’d like to give you special backdoor access to join me in the group with this exclusive offer.

Please visit the site below for more details and to claim your special offer:

themixingmindset.com/specialoffer

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to Jocelyn. Thank you for continually supporting and encouraging me to live out my goals. Even when they seem daunting or near-impossible, you are always by my side giving me the strength and courage I need. Words can’t even begin to explain my gratitude. I love you so much!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I must give a special thanks to all of the musicians I’ve had the pleasure of performing and touring the world with. Had it not been for you, I wouldn’t have discovered just how gratifying the process of making music actually is. You’ve all taught me many important skills and lessons that I apply every day; both in music and life. I am truly lucky to have such wonderful inspirations and friends.

CONTENTS

Preface

Section 1: The Mixing Mindset

Chapter 1: What Is The Mixing Mindset?

Chapter 2: What Makes A Great Mix?

Chapter 3: Mixing Tools

Chapter 4: Mixing Workflow

Section 2: Processing Instruments

Chapter 5: Reference Tracks

Chapter 6: Drums

Chapter 7: Bass

Chapter 8: Guitars

Chapter 9: Vocals

Chapter 10: Conclusion

Chapter 11: Next Steps

Glossary

About The Author

PREFACE

Throughout my career in music, I’ve always been interested in the process of recording music. Right from the first time I entered a studio, I realized that it was my true calling. I was fascinated by all of the knobs of the mixing board, lights of the VU meters, and the racks of outboard gear. I’ve always considered myself a bit of a tech nerd so the idea of getting to play with all of this technology and combine it with my love of music, made it seem like a no-brainer career choice.

Initially, my goal was to be able to learn enough about recording so that I could eventually record my own band’s albums. I wanted to have the ability to create and release new music whenever inspiration struck. I didn’t want to rely on availability at other studios and I didn’t want to have to fork out tons of money to pay someone else to do the work. I had also experienced many disappointments by working with other engineers who failed to get the right sounds I was after. I figured if I truly wanted to get the sounds I was hearing in my head, I needed to master the art of recording and mixing.

After spending thousands of hours of research, trial and error, shadowing other engineers, schooling, and more, I finally developed my skills to a point where I was making great sounding records. As a result, others started to notice and I gained the opportunities to work with many great artists and labels making records that I’m truly proud of.

Along the way, I’ve met tons of other artists who are in a similar position to the one I was in. They too want to record their own music and learn all about the process. I find it very common these days to be working with bands that have at least one member who is watching over my shoulder, trying to learn new recording and mixing techniques. It reminds me very much of myself when I got started.

I love talking about music, gear, and technology. It gets me really excited to help others and watch them pursue their passions. As a result, I started MasterYourMix.com as a way to inspire other engineers and share many of the lessons and experiences I’ve learned from over 10 years in the industry. This book is yet another way for me to do that.

My goal with this book is to help other aspiring engineers fast-track their success and develop their skills through providing real-world examples and lessons that can be implemented immediately.

The upcoming content is intended to provide you with a strong grasp of the tools, workflow, and techniques that go into creating professional, radio-ready, rock mixes. Although I can’t possibly cover every single scenario you might encounter in this book, I can guarantee that if you follow along closely and put what you’re about to learn into practice, you will see huge developments in your mixing skills and you will be well on your way to achieving your goals.

- Mike Indovina

SECTION 1

THE MIXING MINDSET

CHAPTER 1

WHAT IS THE MIXING MINDSET?

When it comes to mixing, many engineers do not have a process to follow from start-to-finish. Instead, they’ll often open up their sessions, listen to the song and randomly start making adjustments to the individual instruments but without having a clear goal in mind for what they’re trying to achieve. To make matters worse, without having a solid understanding of the tools that are needed, many people find themselves tinkering with controls and plugin presets hoping that they’ll stumble on a magic setting that will instantly make their mix sound better. Unfortunately, this never works out.

This scatter-brained approach to mixing can be very harmful. It causes a lack of focus, confusion and forces many engineers to constantly second-guess themselves throughout every step of the process. They'll listen to their mixes repeatedly, trying to make small improvements; but in actuality, losing more and more perspective with each listen.

Ultimately, with an approach like this, the end result is a mix that takes forever to complete and never fully reaches its true sonic potential.

Without having a clear plan of attack, how can you possibly know things like:

Where to start

What you need to do next

Whether you actually need to add any processing to the tracks

Which frequencies you should boost or cut

How much progress you’ve made along the way

When you’re done

Wouldn’t you rather feel confident every stage of the way knowing that you’re taking the right steps and doing what’s best for your particular song?

The Mixing Mindset deals with the approach and way of thinking that mixing engineers must use when working on a project. It is a series of mental checklists and procedures that need to be considered in order to analyze tracks and properly process them to achieve great sounding records.

The concepts listed in this book are designed to provide you with a solid workflow to follow in order to achieve great results with ease. By knowing exactly which questions to ask yourself throughout the process, and having an understanding of the tools and sonic characteristics to be listening for, you will be confident in your work, knowing that you are making the right decisions; while at the same time, maintaining focus and purpose.

CHAPTER 2

WHAT MAKES A GREAT MIX?

Before we get into the technical process of mixing, it's very important that we first discuss our role as mixing engineers. Why are we mixing in the first place? What are we trying to achieve? What are the important qualities that make a good mix?

The obvious answer is that we want to make mixes that sound good. But everyone's definition of what "sounds good" can differ. For example, some would argue that the mixes from the 1960s sound amazing; while others might say they sound horrendous compared to the sounds of modern production.

The important thing to realize is that it's not so much about the sound quality that makes a listener enjoy a song, it has way more to do with the emotional connection that they have to the song.

Do they relate to the lyrics?

Does it make them want to dance?

Does it put them in a certain mood?

These are the biggest factors that audiences react to when they listen to music. Our job as mixing engineers is to work with all of the individual tracks of a song and put them together in a way that allows this emotional connection to happen.

We need to create clarity in the tracks for the listeners to hear the important elements that provide these emotional triggers (whether they be vocals, drums, bass, or even a cowbell). As long as you create a mix that achieves this, you have done your job.

Now don't get me wrong...sound quality is important. Audiences do expect a certain sonic quality that comes with modern productions; however, their enjoyment of a song will be much more influenced by whether they can understand the lyrics, rather than if the vocals were tracked through a Neve preamp or a Focusrite Scarlett. There's no need to get hung up on the gear you're using. At the end of the day, no one but you will know what equipment was used.

Sometimes as engineers we get so focused on the finer details of a mix and we get super critical of the tools we’re using. We agonize over whether we should use a certain plugin or piece of outboard. Often the differences between various pieces of gear are marginal.

You want to make sure that you don't lose your objectivity by spending hours and hours experimenting with things that are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. If you find yourself in this sort of rabbit hole, you need to be careful because often it can cause you to undo all of your hard work. Instead, you want to make mix moves with confidence and speed so that you can keep focused on creating that emotional connection between the song and audience.

CHAPTER 3

MIXING TOOLS

The process of mixing involves many tools that are designed to help you turn the sound you hear in your head into the finished product that you can release to the world. Understanding these various tools will help you work smarter and faster, as well as help you create clarity and space within your mixes. Before we dive into the specific needs for each instrument, it’s important to discuss these tools and their uses.

Volume

Volume, by far, is the simplest tool to understand. We just control it by using faders. Simply put, up is louder, down is quieter.

Ultimately, what matters is the balance of the levels. That’s what has the most impact in our mixes. We want to avoid having instruments that are disproportionately loud and distracting; but at the same time, we can’t have our key instruments too low in the mix. For example, if your vocals are too quiet, then people won’t be able to understand the lyrics and create an emotional attachment to the song.

With the use of automation, we can take things one step further by bringing things in and out of the forefront of our mixes in order to create some more excitement and energy in our tracks.

Panning

Panning is used to position instruments within the stereo field. This usually refers to having instruments in either the left speaker, the right speaker, or in the center. It is used to simulate the spatial perspective of the listener. Imagine that you’re in the audience at a show, watching the song be played live. Where in the room are those instruments positioned? Is the guitarist on the left side of the room or right? You want the sound in your mix to reflect that positioning.

Panning also helps us create separation between instruments so that we can gain width in our mixes. Having different layers of guitars panned hard left and hard right is how you create big, wide walls of guitars.

It can also help with frequency masking. For example, if you had multiple guitars parts being played in the same position in the stereo field, you might not be able to hear them as clearly as you’d like. But rather than using an EQ to try to make things a little bit more audible, panning can actually do the trick a lot easier. All you need to do is put one guitar on the right, one guitar on the left, and instantly you have the separation that you need.

It’s also important to note that when you’re dealing with panning, typically the core elements of your mix, along with the low frequency instruments, are panned up the center. One big reason for this is because if you listen to the mix in mono, you won’t end up losing any of those key elements. Another reason for it is that when you’re dealing with pressing on vinyl, if you have too much low frequency content on the far left and far right channels, it can actually create problems with the grooves that might cause your needle to skip as you play the song.

EQ

Equalization (or EQ for short) allows us to boost or reduce frequencies using various filters. We use it to enhance or exaggerate the pleasing qualities of a sound and also to remove any unnecessary or harsh frequencies that we have. This helps us create a lot more clarity and space within our mixes.

The most common filter types that you’re going to see with EQ are high-pass, low-pass, shelving, and bell filters. Let’s talk about those a little bit more in detail:

High-Pass Filters (HPF)

High-pass filters are interchangeably called “low-cut filters”. Whether you call them low-cut or high-pass, it really doesn’t matter. The key is understanding that these filters eliminate frequencies that are below a certain set point. They’re great for getting rid of any low-end rumble that’s captured in your mic, caused by factors such as musical vibrations, electrical hum, or even traffic that’s coming from outside your studio. By cutting the unnecessary low-end on tracks that are more mid or high-frequency-heavy (such as guitars and vocals), we can help create a lot more room in the mix for low-end instruments such as our kick and bass tracks.

High-Pass Filters remove all sound below a user-defined frequency

Low-Pass Filter (LPF)

The opposite of the high-pass filter is the low-pass filter. An LPF simply eliminates all frequencies above a set point. Just like the high-pass filter, a lot of people interchange the name of this one. Some people will call it the low-pass filter while others will call it the high-cut filter. Again, it doesn’t matter what you call it, as long as you understand which frequencies are being cut. These filters are great for reducing any hiss or other excessive high frequencies. By cutting any unnecessary top-end on instruments that don’t rely on it (such as a bass guitar), you can create a lot more room in your mix for instruments that do have a lot of high frequency content (such as vocals or cymbals).

Low-Pass Filters remove all sound above a user-defined frequency

Shelving Filters

Shelving filters allow you to boost or cut all frequencies above or below a user-defined frequency point. They’re great for when you want to do a broad boost or cut across all of the low-end or all of the high-end. For example, if you want to make your mixes brighter, all you would need to do is make a boost using a high-shelf filter. On the other hand, if you want to add more low-end feel across your mix, then you would use a low-shelf filter.

Shelving Filters cut or boost all signal below/above a user defined frequency

Bell Filters

Bell filters allow you to boost or cut a specific frequency range. They’re really useful because they give you a lot of control over the center frequency, amplitude, and variable bandwidth (or “Q” as it’s often referred to). When I talk about bandwidth, I’m referring to the frequency range affected by the filter. If you have a high Q setting, then you have a narrow bandwidth (which means that less frequencies are affected). Conversely, if you have a low Q setting, then you have a broader bandwidth (which affects a wider range of frequencies). In general, low Q settings sound more natural for boosting. High Q settings are better for narrow, surgical EQ cuts (where you want to remove specific frequencies, while preserving the original tone of an instrument).

Bell Filters allow you to boost or cut a specific frequency range

EQ Tips

With EQ, there’s a couple general tips that I want to share with you.

Don’t use EQ unless you absolutely need to. Avoid making moves just because you’ve watched another mixer make them before. Instead, use your ears to make sure that they’re necessary first. Are your tracks too dull, bright, boomy, honky, etc.? If so, then you have a good reason to use EQ. But if everything sounds good to your ears, leave the tracks untouched.

Cut first and then boost if necessary. The reason for this is because boosting raises the volume and eats up headroom. If you have too much of a boost, it can actually cause clipping/distortion in your mixes. On the other hand, when you cut, it allows you to create space for other instruments to be heard easier.

Don’t EQ in isolation (aka solo). You want to make sure that the moves you’re making with EQ on a particular track actually complement the other tracks within your mix. An instrument that sounds awful in solo might actually sound great in the final mix.

EQ in mono first. By EQ-ing in mono, it allows you to hear how certain frequencies cover each other. This forces you to make EQ moves that ultimately give each instrument its own place within the frequency spectrum. Once you have that separation within the frequency spectrum, you can use panning to get even more separation and more width in your mix.

More smaller changes, usually yields better results than using fewer big changes. Use higher Q settings in order to create pockets within your mix. If you’re using broad, big cuts, you’re going to notice those changes a lot more.

Dynamic Processors

Dynamic processors are used to control the dynamic range of audio based on the input signal. Rather than having to ride a signal using a fader (in order to even out the loud and soft parts of the track), dynamic processors can actually do this step automatically for us. They can also help prevent clipping/distortion and aid in shaping the envelope of a sound in order to make it smoother, punchier, shorter or longer. Some examples of frequently used dynamic processors that you’ll find are compressors, limiters and gates.

Compressors/Limiters

Compression acts like an automatic volume control. It reduces the dynamic range of a signal in order to bring the loud peaks down in volume and bring up the low parts. This creates a much more even performance. You can also use compression and limiting in order to shape sounds so you can make them have more punch and warmth.

In terms of the standard controls that you’ll typically find on a compressor/limiter, there are the threshold, ratio, attack, release and makeup gain controls. Let’s go into some more detail on those...

Threshold

The threshold is the level at which the compressor is going to start to engage. As more signal passes the threshold, the compressor will work harder. On its own, the threshold really doesn’t do anything to alter the dynamic range until you combine it with the ratio function.

Ratio

The ratio control tells the compressor how much it’s going to reduce the signals that pass the threshold. Typically we see ratios listed such as 4:1, 6:1, 10:1, etc. What this means is that, for example, with a 4:1 ratio, for every four decibels that crosses the threshold, only one will actually remain.

In terms of the main difference between compressors and limiters, it really comes down to the ratio. With compressors, you usually have a lower ratio (eg. 2:1, 4:1, 6:1), whereas limiters have a higher ratio (typically 10:1 and up). Limiters are best used when you’re trying to prevent a signal from exceeding a certain volume.

The ratio control determines how much a compressor will reduce the signal that passes the threshold

Attack

The attack control is the amount of time that it takes for the compressor to start working after the signal has passed the threshold. If you have a slower attack, you let more transient information through (such as the impact of a drumstick or guitar pick hitting the string). If you use a faster attack, it reacts quickly to those transients and reduces them.

Release

The release setting is the amount of time that it takes for the compressor to return back to the point of no compression (once the signal crosses back below the threshold). Generally, you want to adjust this depending on the length of the note in order to avoid pumping (unnatural swells up and down in volume).

Makeup Gain

After making changes with the threshold, ratio, attack and release controls, use makeup gain to adjust the output of the compressor to compensate for any loss of volume due to compression.

Gates

Gates are extremely useful for cleaning up tracks. At their core, their main purpose is to reduce the level of signal that is below a threshold; allowing the main instrument to only be heard once it's signal passes above it. This allows mixing engineers to apply processing and make volume changes only to the isolated signal (rather than also affecting any bleed that is contained in the recorded track). A perfect application to use them on is close mic'd drum tracks (kick, snare, toms). For example, a gate on a kick drum track can let the sound of the kick come through when it is being played, but then mute hits from other parts of the drum kit when it is not.

Many of the controls you'll find on a gate seem similar to what you'll see on compressors, although their functions differ:

Threshold

This determines the level at which the gate will open and allow signal to pass through. Any signal below it will be attenuated/reduced by the “range” amount.

Attack

The attack time determines the amount of time it takes for the gate to fully open once the signal passes above the threshold. This is the fade-in time of the audio.

Hold

The hold setting indicates the amount of time the gate will stay open once the signal passes below the threshold (and before the release time starts).

Release

The release setting controls the amount of time it takes for the gate to fully close once the signal passes below the threshold. This is the fade-out time. For a more natural setting, use a slower release setting. A quick setting will sound more abrupt.

Range

The amount of attenuation that occurs once the signal falls below the threshold. This can be used to create complete isolation or to allow a slight bit of bleed to pass (if desired).

The above image demonstrates how an incoming signal is affected by the various controls of a gate

Saturation

Saturation is a form of distortion that can add warmth, energy, aggression, and thickness to an instrument’s tone. It can be used either subtly or drastically (depending on the effect that you’re going for). Most often people will associate distortion with the sound of heavy rock guitars; however, there are many great alternative uses for it. When used on drums and vocals it can add quite a bit of intensity and attitude to a dull performance.

Effects

Typically in mixing, engineers will use a variety of effects such as reverb, delay and chorus in order to add character to a track and/or to create size and depth. Using tools such as reverb, you can simulate a listening environment to create the illusion of where the instruments were played (eg. an auditorium, bathroom, studio, etc.).

In general, I find that a lot of mixers tend to slap effects on tracks because they think that they need to have something, or because it can hide issues with the recording. You have to ask yourself before you add an effect to your mix:

“How will this enhance the listener’s experience?”

“Does this add to the vibe or the impact of the song?”

Really give these questions some thought before defaulting to adding effects to your mix.

There’s no harm in having a dry (unaffected) mix if it helps to convey the emotion of the song. In fact, if you listen to a lot of Top 40 music, you’ll hear many dry-sounding mixes. This is because having an effect-free mix can sometimes help emphasize the emotion behind the vocals and instrumentation.

That being said, if you do choose to add reverb or delay to your mix, make sure you don’t overdo them. If you have too much, it can easily cloud up your mixes and make everything sound really muddy.

CHAPTER 4

MIXING WORKFLOW

When mixing, it’s extremely important to have a consistent workflow to follow. By having a workflow that you use in every single mix, you will experience many benefits. It will help you:

Keep organized

Work faster

Stay focused

Know what moves you need to make next

Keep track of your progress

Always know when you’re done with your mix.

There are many engineers out there who don’t have a workflow to follow; and as a result, they often struggle to finish their mixes because they have no clear path of what they need to do in order to complete it. They’ll feel scattered and get trapped in an endless cycle of doing random tasks, hoping that eventually they’ll stumble upon the right sound. With a lack of focus, it will take you a lot longer to complete your mixes. Instead, by following a consistent workflow, you can cut your mix time down significantly and have a lot more clarity as you work.

Here’s my personal workflow that I like to use in every single mix. I find that this really helps to keep me on track and allows me to work significantly faster. Feel free to implement this in your own mixes. I’m sure it’ll help to make everything a lot easier for you.

The steps that I like to follow are to:

Organization

Routing

Get a rough balance

Process tracks using EQ, compression or anything else that’s necessary.

Add any special effects (such as reverb, delays, etc.)

Automation

Let’s go into more detail about each of these steps.

Step 1: Organization

The organization stage is all about eliminating a lot of boring mechanical tasks that you’ll need to do. The worst thing that can happen while you’re being creative is to stop what you’re doing to try to find a certain track in your mix or set up busses and route signals. Instead, you want to be in full creative mode - pushing faders, adding EQ, compression and effects. In order to do that, you need to get rid of all of the organizational distractions first.

It’s in this stage that you’ll want to take care of:

Track naming

Condensing regions and tracks

Positioning tracks within your mix session

Color coding

Creating groups

Adding markers

On the surface, these steps may seem very trivial or like they have nothing to do with mixing; but I assure you that taking the time to make these little steps will help improve your efficiency and speed drastically. They’ll allow you to navigate through your screens faster and easily identify the tracks you need and eliminate all of the tedious technical and non-musical tasks.

Let’s discuss each of these organizational steps a little deeper...

Track Naming:

There is nothing more annoying than trying to mix a session where every track and audio file is named something like “Audio 1”, “Audio 2”, “Frank1”, “John 2”, etc. Names like this simply don’t help you identify the instruments that are on that track. Plus, if you don’t know who Frank or John are (and what instrument they play) you’ll have a hard time keeping track and it’ll cause you to work a lot slower.

Instead, name your tracks to clearly reflect the instrument on them. Using names such as “Kick In”, “Kick Out”, “Snare Top”, “Snare Bottom”, “Rhythm Guitar 1”, “Rhythm Guitar 2”, etc., will definitely help you keep much more organized.

Condensing Regions and Tracks:

In this step, you want to eliminate any tracks or audio regions that you don’t plan on using in your session. You can either delete them or simply hide them from your view. The fewer tracks you have to work with, the faster you will work.

You can also combine multiple mono tracks that can be used together in stereo (eg. “Overhead L” and “Overhead R” can be turned into one stereo “Overheads” track).

Position Tracks Within Your Mix Session:

Navigating around your mix session is something you will find yourself doing a lot. One minute you’ll need to adjust something on your drums, and the next minute, you’ll be looking for your vocals. It is crucial to keep your tracks organized within your sessions so that you always know where to find them quickly.

The easiest way to do this is to first organize similar instruments so that their tracks are next to each other (eg. put all of your individual drum tracks side by side, vocals next to vocals, etc.).

It is also very beneficial to consistently place tracks in the same position in every one of your sessions. Personally, I always arrange my tracks in the order of my typical workflow (drums --> bass --> guitar --> keyboards --> vocals --> effects).

Color Coding:

After placing all of your tracks together, another great way to help you quickly maneuver through your sessions is to assign a color to the various groups of instruments. This provides you with a quick visual reference for where your tracks are. For example, drums = blue, bass = purple, guitars = orange, busses= yellow, etc.

Creating Groups:

Often there are times while mixing that you’ll want to make global changes across a certain set of instruments. Rather than have to make the same change multiple times, it is much easier to assign mix groups. When creating a mix group, you can link the solo, mute, automation and fader functions for all of the instruments within the group.

Markers:

Rather than randomly placing your mouse on the timeline to try to find the verse or chorus of a song, you can use markers to quickly identify song sections. This will prevent a headache when the artist asks you to “go back to the second half of verse 2”.

Step 2: Routing

In this step, I like to create an aux buss for each instrument group. Meaning, all drums will be sent to a drum buss, guitars will go to a guitar buss, vocals to vocal buss, etc. The reason I like to send all of the instruments to their own busses is that I can add processing to the group as a whole (if needed).

From there, these aux tracks will be sent to a master buss where I can apply master buss processing (compression, EQ, etc.).

During this stage I’ll also create effects tracks which I plan on using during the mix. Once I’ve got those created, I’ll assign sends to each of the effects on my individual tracks. This way, whenever I’m ready to add a reverb or delay, all I need to do is adjust the send level and then I’m done.

Step 3: Rough Balance

At this stage, it’s all about quickly throwing the faders up to find a balance of levels between the individual tracks. You don’t need to get super technical/precise here. Instead, all you’re aiming to do is put the tracks together so that they feel good and sound like a cohesive unit.

The goal here is to create a starting point for the rest of the mix. By doing this, it makes the process of adding EQs, compressors, effects, etc. way easier since you will be able to hear how those processors affect the relationship of the instrument you’re applying them to with the other instruments in the mix.

Once you have brought up all of the tracks and have found a rough balance, you can also use it to help create a game-plan for the rest of the mix. You’ll want to assess the needs of each instrument. Ask yourself:

Which tracks sound too dull/too bright?

Are there any tracks that sound too dynamic/not dynamic enough?

Are there certain tracks that need to be featured during particular parts of the song (eg. guitar solos)?

What role does every instrument play in the song?

Do certain instruments need to be made more percussive or have their percussiveness tamed?

What is the vibe of the song? Based on that, do you need to add more attitude/character to the instruments?

Should the instruments have effects such as reverb/delay? Or should they be left dry?

These are just some examples of questions you’ll want to ask yourself before you proceed with the mix. By establishing a game-plan, it will allow you to keep focused on the tasks ahead so that you can ultimately get the sound you hear in your head to translate into the mix.

Step 4: Processing

This stage is where the bulk of the work happens. Since you’ve established the needs of your tracks (in stage 3), it’s now time to start applying those changes using EQ, compression, and whatever other additional processing is necessary. We’ll cover specific details for how to clean up/enhance individual instruments in the next section of this book.

Usually, I’ll start processing tracks in the order I’ve laid them out (drums first, bass next, then guitars, vocals, etc.). Although I typically work in this order, it is important to always be concentrating on the big picture - asking how the changes you’re making on one instrument will affect the others. For this reason, it is very important to apply processing in the context of the mix, rather than in solo mode.

Solo mode can be helpful for isolating a specific problem on a track, but you always need to be listening to how the changes you’re making will affect the other instruments. For example, if you boost the high frequencies on your cymbals, pay close attention to how those high frequencies affect the clarity of the vocals. In this example, you may need to use less gain in order to allow the vocals to stick out more.

You will find that often you need to bounce back and forth between instruments until you find the perfect balance of EQ, compression etc. This is the real art of mixing. The goal here is to give each instrument the clarity it needs in order to best serve the song.

Step 5: Special Effects

After you’ve processed your tracks to give them separation and balance, you can start to add effects such as reverb, delay, chorus, etc. The mindset behind adding these effects needs to be based on the following questions:

Will the effect enhance the feel, vibe, or message of the song?

Will it make the listener feel like they’re listening to the song in a certain listening environment?

Is it necessary?

Is it distracting?

Does it affect the clarity of other instruments?

All too often, I hear amateur mixes where there are loads of effects simply because the mixer thought the effect “sounded cool”, but they added it with a complete disregard for how it contributed to the overall listening experience. Instead, a pro engineer will assess the track before adding any effects to gauge whether or not they’re necessary.

If you find yourself feeling that there is no need for effects while assessing your songs, you can simply move on with the rest of the mix. Don’t get stuck in the trap of adding effects by default or simply because you think you need to.

Step 6: Automation

The automation stage is when you program various changes to volume, plugins, effects, auxiliary sends, etc., throughout your mix. The goal here is to make sure that everything is clearly heard throughout the track and that you give each instrument their moment to shine when appropriate. For example, during a guitar solo section, you might want to automate the lead guitar to become louder; while at the same time, making the rhythm guitars slightly quieter. By doing this, you can bring more attention to the solo while it’s happening. Then when the solo is over, you might need to bring down the volume of the lead guitar so that it blends better with the rest of the music and makes more room for the vocals.

Another classic example is to automate the volume of the vocals to make sure that every word is clearly heard on top of the music. Although tools such as compression can even out a performance, automation allows you to take it one step further to guarantee that nothing gets lost in the mix.

In addition to evening out performances, one of the most powerful reasons to use automation is to infuse some life and movement into your mix. If your mix stays static the whole time (eg. nothing changes in volume or there are very few shifts in dynamics), the experience can become boring for a listener. Instead, the idea is to create energy within your mix so that the listener becomes engaged and experiences the emotions and intensities that the song’s content is supposed to convey.

Some examples of ways you can do this with automation are:

Bring up the volume of choruses when they first begin

Boost the volume of kick drum hits on certain notes to emphasize changes

Automate cymbal hits to make them more explosive

Ride the faders of effects (eg. bring reverbs down in volume during busier sections to create more clarity for everything else)

Emphasize certain lyrics by automating delays so words are repeated

Automate fades so that instruments that are ringing out, don’t interfere with newly introduced instruments

Automation allows you to program various fader moves in order to make sure performances sound even throughout your mix.

SECTION 2

PROCESSING INSTRUMENTS

CHAPTER 5

REFERENCE TRACKS

Before we dive into the upcoming chapters and discuss how to analyze your tracks (and subsequently know what to do with them), it is first important to have an idea of what you’re aiming to make your mix sound like. Without having an end-result in mind, how can you possibly decide whether you need to use things like EQ, compression, or effects? How will you know when you've added enough processing or if you've gone too far? How can you be certain that you're creating a mix that will translate across various playback systems? The easiest way to identify these answers is to compare your mix to reference tracks.

Reference tracks are songs that:

You admire the sonic quality of

You've listened to countless times and are deeply familiar with

You know translate well across various stereo systems

Match the genre you're working on

Have been commercially released and are widely accepted by fans

By establishing a benchmark for the quality you are trying to achieve and then comparing your mix to the reference material, this will guide your decisions to help you feel confident along the way.

To get started with reference tracks, simply create a list of 3-5 songs that you think would make for great reference material using the points listed above. Then, import those songs into your mix session. As you’re working and analyzing your tracks, occasionally solo the reference material and compare how your mix sounds in relation to it. Make sure to match the volume of your reference tracks to the level of your mix. This way, when you switch between them, your brain won’t be tricked into thinking you need to make everything louder.

Reference tracks can be used to help you in many ways:

First, since they have already been commercially released, it is safe to assume that they have been mastered to translate accurately across multiple playback systems. This means you can use them to know what a translatable mix should sound like coming out of your own studio monitors. If your mix doesn’t have the same sonic balance as the reference, chances are good that when you play your mix back on another stereo, it won’t sound the same as you hear it in your room. For example, if your mix has more low-end than the reference track, it may sound good in your studio; however, it is very likely that when you play the mix on another system, it will sound very boomy. By establishing the same overall frequency balance as the reference, it will help ensure that your mix will translate better outside of your studio.

Another great purpose they serve is to help you with establishing the balance of individual track levels. Listen carefully to how loud each instrument is on your reference track and compare how those instruments sound in your mix. This can be very helpful for deciding things like whether your vocals need to be made louder, if your lead guitar is too quiet compared to the rhythms, if the kick drum needs to be made more present, etc.

Also, use reference tracks to establish where elements should be placed in the stereo field. Should the lead guitar be hard panned or in the center? Are the effects mono or are they spread out? Should the drums be panned using the audience's perspective or the drummer’s?

Lastly, make note of which effects are used and how present they are in the mix. Pay attention to things like whether the drums sound dry or if there’s lots of reverb used to make them sound huge. Do the vocals sit in front of the mix or are they pushed back because of delays?

The big idea is that whenever you’re feeling unsure of what to do with your mix or you find yourself second-guessing your work, use reference tracks to help guide you in the right direction.

CHAPTER 6

DRUMS

When it comes to mixing, the first instruments that I like to start with are the drums. The reason for this is because they have a lot of quick transient information that can very easily eat into your headroom. As a result, it is crucial that you set proper levels with your drums in order to ensure that when you add everything else to your mix, you'll have plenty of room to avoid clipping. This will also guarantee that you have enough headroom for the mastering stage so that you can add post-processing effects without trouble. I usually shoot for my drum peaks to hit around -6 on my meters. I find that this acts as a really good starting point so that I can add other instruments into the mix without needing to rely on pulling the master volume fader down in order to create headroom.

In modern rock music, drums provide the rhythm, feel, and pulse of the song - because of that, they need to hit hard in your mix. They need to be processed in a way that makes them sound punchy, powerful, and detailed. Because most modern rock songs have lots of layers in them (guitars, bass, keyboards, vocals), the drums need to have weight and clarity in order to be heard amongst all of the different instruments. You can't have them buried in the mix, otherwise you'll start to lose all of the feel and energy of the song. On the other hand, you also can't have them too loud in the mix where they sit on top of the vocals and prevent those from being heard clearly.

In today's rock productions, there's a wide range of drum sounds that you'll hear. Some people like to mix their drums to sound very natural and dry; while others will use samples to enhance their drums to make them sound larger-than-life. There's no right or wrong way to either of these techniques; it all comes down to serving the song and making sure that everything works together to create an emotional connection with the listener. Sometimes you want your drums to sound very dry in order to create a feeling of emptiness; whereas, other times, you might want your drums to sound huge and roomy in order to add way more power and intensity to them.

These days, it’s impossible to talk about drum production without mentioning samples. Depending on the sound of your live drums, you may or may not choose to use samples in order to enhance your sound. If your drums were recorded poorly, you may need to use samples in order to give the original drums more clarity or definition. They can also be used to shape the envelope of your drums by adding more attack or sustain. Also, if the acoustics of your tracking room aren’t ideal, you can use some room samples to compensate and make your drums sound a lot bigger and livelier.

Personally, my view of using samples is that I will never use them to completely replace a drummer’s performance. Instead, I like to keep the original live drums in the mix in order to preserve the dynamics, energy, and feel that the drummer put into their performance. I will then use samples in order to make up any poor mic techniques, room acoustics, or tuning which may have affected the quality of the recording.

Now, let's talk about how to process the individual drums in order to give them the clarity that you need in your mixes.

Phase

Before we start adding EQs and compressors to our individual drum tracks, the first thing you always need to check is phase. Most of the time, phase issues should be handled in the tracking stage; however, it’s always good practice to double-check when mixing.

Without getting too technical, phasing issues simply occur when a signal reaches two mics at different times. As a result, the polarity of the waveforms can be inverted from each other - causing the signal to sound thinner. This frequently occurs with drums or multi-mic guitar setups. On the other hand, when the polarity of two signals is the same, their waveforms will reinforce each other and make the signal sound stronger.

When the polarity of two waveforms is the same, they reinforce each other. When they’re opposite, they cancel each other out, causing the sound to be thinner.

To check for phase issues with your drums, start by putting all of the tracks at unity gain (the 0dB position on a fader) and panning them center. Next, choose a plugin that has a phase flip button and put it across all of your channels (often EQ or channel strip plugins will have one of these). Then solo your overhead tracks. Press the phase button on either the left or right overhead track. Listen to see if everything now sounds thinner or fuller. Check for extended low-end. If you hear more bottom end, keep the phase button flipped - now they are in phase with each other. If the drums sound thinner, the tracks are out of phase and you should undo the phase flip.

After you have your overheads in phase with each other, you will want to repeat the process by checking all of the other drums to the overheads. Solo your overheads and then add your kick drum track. Try flipping the phase button on the kick to see if it sounds bigger/better with the button pressed or not. Then do this same process with your snare vs overheads, toms vs overheads, etc.

Once all of your drums are sounding their fullest, they are in phase and you can move onto processing the individual tracks.

Kick

First, let's start with the kick drum. Depending on how your drums were recorded, the first problem that you might encounter is bleed. You may occasionally hear other drums on your kick track such as snare, toms, or even cymbal sounds. You want to make sure that you eliminate these from your kick drum track in order for you to be able to push your kick drum louder in your mix without having all of those other drums become louder as well.

In addition, by eliminating all of the bleed of the other drums from your kick track, it will ensure that you are focused on processing the kick drum sounds only. By doing this, when you add any EQ or dynamic processing to your kick sound, it won't have any adverse effect on the other drum sounds.

The easiest way to get this isolation of the kick is to add a gate to your track. With your gate settings, you want to make sure that you're using a fast attack and a medium/slow release. You also want your threshold set so that only your kick hits are going above it. This will ensure that you can hear only the kick, and then silence between kick hits.

After you’ve isolated the kick, then it's time to start adding EQ. In terms of EQ, we want to achieve a kick that has lots of clarity and definition in both the low-end as well as the top-end. The objective here is to make it so that the kick can cut through all of the dense layers of guitars, vocals, and everything else.

To start, you'll want to pay attention to the low-end. This is where you're going to get the energy and feel of the kick drum. I recommend using a bell-shaped EQ and sweeping between 50 to 80Hz to find the ideal sweet spot. You'll know it when you hear it. You’re going to be listening for the kick to have clarity and definition, but without everything else sounding muddy around it. In terms of how much gain to add, don't be afraid to use whatever is necessary in order to get the results you’re after. I find myself often adding anywhere between 3 to 5 dB of gain in this range. The only thing you want to avoid is pushing the low-end so hard that it becomes overpowering and makes you lose the clarity of your other instruments.

Another frequency range that you want to pay attention to is the range between 150 to 300Hz. This is the range where you're going to get a lot of muddiness in your kick drum tracks. Often, I will use a medium to wide shaped Q size and apply a large cut in this range. This will make the kick sound a lot tighter and eliminate all of the frequencies which get in the way of clearly hearing the low-end in your bass guitar tracks.

You will also want to consider making an EQ cut between 700 and 900Hz. In this range, kick drums will sound very boxy. If you find that you hear a plastic sounding tone to your drums, it will definitely be in this range. By making a medium shaped cut, it will help to tighten up the sound of your kick drum even further. It will also create a pocket in your mix for the sound of the pick attack of your bass guitar to cut through.

Speaking of attack, it's really important that you can hear the sound of the kick drum beater hitting the skin. For this reason, you will want to add a boost between 2 and 4kHz. This is the range where you will hear the sound of the beater and it will ensure that you hear the kick drum through all of the different guitar and vocal layers.

Furthermore, if you want to bring out even more of the click and top-end attack, you'll want to add a big boost around 8kHz. In a lot of heavy rock tracks, this 8kHz range is super important. I'll find that I sometimes add up to 10 dB of gain in this range in order to make sure that the kick drum is clearly heard and punches hard.

After you're done with EQ, you'll want to add a compressor to your signal. The reason why I add a compressor after the EQ is so that the compressor reacts to the processed signal. I like to use compressors in order to shape sounds. If you were to add an EQ after the compressor, it could undo a lot of your work. In terms of what kind of compressor to use - I like to use either an FET compressor or a VCA compressor since they both react to sounds very quickly. Typically, with rock music, you'll want to have a slow attack and fast release setting. This will ensure that you get the punchiest sound out of your kick drum.

A typical kick drum channel strip

Snare

The snare, along with the kick, are two of the most important elements of your mix. Not only are they the most frequently played drums, but they're also responsible for providing the majority of the feel and rhythm within your song. For this reason, you need to make sure that your snares are clearly heard throughout your mix. For songs that have lots of instrumentation, in order to get your snares to be heard properly, you need to find a perfect balance of low-end impact mixed with stick attack.

With mixing snares, we take a similar approach to what we did with the kick. First, we want to use a gate so that we can isolate just the snare hits. With the gate, you’ll want to use a fast attack and a medium to slow release in order to allow the body of the snare to ring out. Some people might think that, in solo, this ring sounds annoying; however, it is crucial to let the snare ring out in order to give it some more sustain and size in the context of the mix. If you set your gate's release time to be too quick, you will shorten the sound of the snare and make it sound more like a tick rather than a full, fat sounding drum.

After adding the gate, it's time to add EQ. When EQing the snare, you want to pay attention to the low-end. In particular, around the 150 to 200Hz range is where you will be able to create the most low-end impact. If the snare is sounding thin, give it a boost in this range (using a medium Q size) to make it sound fatter.

Next pay attention to the amount of stick impact you hear. If it seems too soft, boosting in the 2.5 to 3kHz range should take care of that. If you want to emphasize even more of the stick smack, you will want to add a healthy amount of gain around 8kHz. Don't be shy with your boosts in this range…you might find that you need 15 dB of gain in order to get the clarity you’re after.

In the event that your snare sounds muddy after adding these boosts, you might want to consider making an EQ cut between 500 and 700Hz. This is where you will frequently find a boxy quality to your snare sound. By reducing this range slightly with a medium-sized Q, you will get more clarity in the low and top-end impact of the snare.

Lastly with EQ, if you find that your snare ring is still too apparent in your mix, you will want to use a narrow Q setting and sweep between 300 and 500Hz to find the exact frequencies where the ring exists. Once you’ve found that, simply use a cut to reduce the ring to taste.

After processing your snare with EQ, you will want to add compression. The first thing that you want to pay attention to is the amount of attack you have in your existing snare track. Do you have too much attack or not enough? Depending on the source material, that will change how you use your attack settings on your compressor. If you need more attack, you will want to have a slower attack time. If you want less attack, you will use a faster attack time.

In terms of release settings, you'll want to set it to be rhythmic with the song. To do this, pay attention to your gain reduction meters and set the release controls so that compressor goes back to the point of no compression in time for the next snare hit. This will ensure that all of your snare hits are compressed evenly.

Set your release time so that between hits, your gain reduction meter returns to 0

One last technique that I like to use with snares is to add distortion. If you find that you're having trouble getting your snare to sound loud in your mix, or that it is missing some fullness, it can be a very useful technique to clip the transients of your snare by adding a slight bit of distortion. Personally, I love using the Soundtoys “Decapitator” or the stock Pro Tools “Lo-Fi” plugins to achieve this. When you slightly clip your snares, it allows you to bring up the body and fullness while making the transient sound more energetic and intense. The key thing to remember when you're adding distortion to your snare tracks is that you don't want to oversaturate it. If you oversaturate, you will end up removing all of the initial attack and energy out of the snare sound; thus leaving it sounding very dull and flat.

Toms

When it comes to processing toms, we handle it very similar to how we did with the kick and snares. First, we'll start off with gating. If you're working with a song that has very few tom hits, it is easiest to manually gate the toms. To do this, simply remove all of the space in between the different tom hits in your DAW. Doing this guarantees the most accuracy with isolating each hit.

A manually gated tom track

With songs that have lots of tom hits, it's easiest to use an actual gate. With tom gates, you will want to make sure that you have a fast attack, and a release time slow enough to let the body of the drum ring out.

When you're gating, you might find that cymbal bleed is an issue and it may cause your gate to mistrigger. One way around this is to use a side-chain filter with your gate. A side-chain alters the signal being fed into the processor. In the case of gating toms, since toms have a lot of low-frequency information, we want the gate to only react to this low frequency content. We can set our side-chain filter to eliminate all of the high-frequency content in order to make sure that the gate reacts much more accurately. I like to set my side-chain to around 1kHz in order to prevent any cymbal bleed from mistriggering the gate.

The Pro Tools stock gate with side-chain enabled

After isolating all of the hits, you'll want to use EQ. When it comes to toms, there's two main areas that you want to focus on - the body and the stick attack.

To bring out the body, for rack toms, you'll usually have to use a boost at around 150 to 200Hz. For floor toms, it's a little bit lower; around 80 to 100Hz. When adding EQ to the low-end of toms, you'll want to use a narrow to medium-sized Q. This guarantees that the low-end of the drum remains focused, rather than muddy sounding.

Most toms tend to sound muddy/boxy between 300 and 700Hz. By cutting in this range, you will get even more definition out of the drum.

Last but not least, you'll want to focus on bringing out the attack of the stick. To do that, you'll want to use a high shelf filter at around 5 to 8kHz. The amount of gain to add in this range will depend on how present/clicky you want the drums to be in the mix. To bring out even more attack, you'll want use a compressor with a slow attack time and a medium to fast release setting.

Hi Hat

When it comes to processing, I typically don't do too much with the hi hats. Because of the fact that they have a lot of high frequency content, hi hats have a tendency to bleed into all of the surrounding microphones. Usually, you'll hear plenty of them in your overheads and room tracks. For this reason, I keep the dedicated hi hat track fairly low in the mix and blend them in to taste. My personal preference is to use the hi hat track to focus on stick definition and top-end.

In terms of EQ, I recommend using a HPF set to around 300Hz. This will clean up any low-end bleed coming from the kick drum and will keep the focus on the brightness of the hats themselves.

If the hats don’t have enough top-end, adding a slight shelf filter at around 8KHz will bring up more of the stick attack and shimmer. You don't want to go too extreme with your shelf filter boost or else you will introduce too much top-end sizzle which can sound fatiguing over time.

Certain hi hat models also tend to have a resonant frequency somewhere in either the low or high-mids. Usually you'll hear this upon the impact of the stick hitting the cymbal. If you hear a ring/pingy sound, you'll want to tame it. By using a high Q setting and sweeping through the frequency spectrum you should be able to identify this frequency. Once you've found it, cut it until it is no longer distracting in the mix.

Lastly, if you have a weak-hitting drummer, you can add some more energy to their performance by adding some slight distortion to the track. Adding this, will create the illusion of the player digging into the cymbals a bit more. For this effect, I'll usually use the Sound Toys "Decapitator" or the stock Pro Tools "Lo-Fi" plugin.

Overheads

When it comes to overheads, there are two schools of thought for how to process them. Some engineers choose to use them to focus on an overall picture of the drum set, while others use them to highlight the cymbals. I definitely fall into the latter category. Since the majority of the body and sustain of the drums comes from the room tracks, I prefer to use those for handling the kit sound.

In order to highlight the cymbals, you first need to get rid of all of the low-end mud that may exist in your overhead tracks. To do this, I recommend using a HPF set around 200Hz. This will clean up any low-end bleed coming from your kick, snare or toms. Furthermore, you may need to need to make a cut with a medium sized Q between 400-700Hz. This is where overheads tend to sound boxy. To bring out more of the shimmer of the cymbals, you will want to use a high shelf filter set around 8-12KHz.

After EQing, I like to add a little bit of compression. Typically I'll use a tube or opto compressor using a medium attack and medium release speed. As for the threshold, I like to set it so that I'm reducing a maximum of 3dB - only on the peaks. Usually these peaks will occur on snare hits. Ideally, your compressor should return back to 0 gain reduction between hits. By compressing like this, it will ensure that you have a smooth, even overhead track and won't experience a pumping effect throughout the performance.

Rooms

Now that we’ve processed all of the close mics and overheads, it’s time to work on the room tracks. The sound quality you get with room tracks will vary from one location to another. If your tracks were recorded in a bedroom, they might sound very tight and short. Whereas if your drums were recorded in a large studio, they might have a lot of decay and size. One thing that’s for sure, is that your room tracks can add a lot of body and glue to your close mics.

In terms of EQ with room tracks, I typically don’t do a lot (although, it varies if there are resonant frequencies that are sticking out). Usually, if I add EQ, it is to bring up some extra body or attack of the kick and snare.

I like to use a HPF to get rid of any really low frequencies that compromise the clarity of my kick drum (often around 40Hz). Then I might add a slight boost around 100Hz in order to bring out the low-end punch of the drums. If your close mics don’t have a lot of sustain, you will find that you can lengthen the sound of the drums by pushing the low-end of your rooms.

Adding a slight boost around 8kHz will also bring up the attack of your snare drum and give it some more bite. Just make sure your bandwidth isn’t set too wide or else you’ll introduce too much sizzle from your cymbals.

In the event that you hear any frequencies ringing out in your room tracks that are distracting, you will want to use a tight Q setting on your EQ and sweep the frequency spectrum until you find them. Once you’ve identified the culprit, cut them out.

Room tracks also benefit from using compression. For smaller rooms, my favorite trick is to use an 1176 in “all-buttons-in mode” to squash the drums. Using this mode adds some distortion and really brings up the low-level ambience in the room. This will make your drums sound more energetic and give them added bite. On the other hand, if your drums were recorded in a larger room, you may choose to hit the compressor a little lighter. I’m also a big fan of the UAD Fairchild plugin for lightly hitting rooms. My go-to settings with it are a fast attack and fast release with just a few dB of compression on the loudest peaks.

Pushing in all of the ratio buttons on an 1176 compressor will activate “All-Buttons-In Mode”. This is a great setting for adding some extra character to your room tracks.

Drum Buss

As mentioned previously, I always send the output of all of my individual drum tracks to a drum buss. The reason for this is because it allows you make global changes to all of the drums using one track or fader. For example, if you need to make all of your drums a little brighter, you can add an EQ on the buss. Or if you need to make all of your drums louder in the mix, you can simply use the buss fader.

Generally, in terms of processing, you shouldn’t find yourself making extremely large changes on your drum buss. If you find this happening, usually, you’re better off fixing these issues on the individual drum channels.

That being said, it is very common to use some light compression on your drum buss in order to smooth out the large peaks of the performance and glue everything together a bit more. Typically, a VCA compressor will work great for this.

In terms of compression settings, you’ll want to use a low ratio (something like 2:1 or 4:1) with a slow attack and fast release time. Remember, you aren’t trying to make extreme changes here; so it’s a good idea to only hit the compressor with a few dB of gain reduction. This will help to control the dynamics and ensure that the results are transparent.

Parallel Compression

After processing the individual drum tracks, you might find that you want a little more punch out of them. The secret to achieving this is parallel compression. Parallel compression is the process of creating a duplicate track that is extremely compressed, and then blending it back in with the original. Using this technique you can add a lot of character, smack and impact to your drums.

To do this, first create a new auxiliary track. This will be the track you heavily compress.

Next, use an auxiliary send on the individual drums to feed them to this parallel track. Usually I’ll only send the close mics (kick, snare, and toms) because I find cymbals can sound too pumpy and distracting when heavily compressed.

Then, on your parallel compression track, add a compressor. I personally love using the Waves SSL Buss Compressor for this. In terms of compression settings, you want to go extreme. Use a high ratio with a slow attack and fast release. Set your threshold so that you’re getting a lot of gain reduction. I typically aim for about 10dB of reduction. On its own, this heavily compressed track will sound quite aggressive and unnatural. You’ll hear a lot of attack on the drums.

After you’ve dialed in the compression settings, the next step is to turn the volume completely down on this parallel track. Then, while listening to your normal drum bus, start to slowly raise the volume of the parallel track until you start to get a good balance of the two. Your goal here is to find a point where your drums sound natural, yet they benefit from the extra energy caused by the parallel track.

On your parallel compression track, don’t be shy to compress hard. When you blend this track in with your normal drum buss, it will add lots of energy and punch to your drums.

Panning

When panning drums, there are two different approaches: audience perspective or drummer's perspective. These simply refer to where each drum is positioned in the stereo field. There's no right or wrong choice; it's all personal taste (although there's a reason why I personally prefer to pan using the drummer's perspective - I'll get to that in a second...).

If choosing audience perspective, you will pan the drums as if you were looking at them from in front of the kit:

Kick = Center

Snare = Center

Toms = Panned from smallest to largest (right to left)

Overhead (hi hat side) = Hard right

Overhead (ride cymbal side) = Hard left

Hi Hat = Panned slightly right

Audience Perspective

If panning from the drummer's perspective, panning will be as follows:

Kick = Center

Snare = Center

Toms = Panned from smallest to largest (left to right)

Overhead (hi hat side) = Hard left

Overhead (ride cymbal side) = Hard right

Hi Hat = Panned slightly left

Drummer’s Perspective

My personal preference is to pan from the drummer’s perspective. There are a couple reasons why I prefer this method.

I am a drummer

The average listener won’t even take note of the positioning of the drums in the mix. The only people who seem to listen for this kind of thing are the musicians. As a drummer, when I listen to songs, I like to hear the drums as if I were playing them. I find makes it easier to learn how to play the song, since I can hear the different pieces of the kit in a familiar position.

Again, it all comes down to personal preference. There’s no need to overthink it.

Effects

The most common effects that you’ll use with drums are reverbs. These can be used to either simulate a recording environment or to add some extra size to your drums.

These days, it’s becoming more common to have drums that were recorded in smaller, less-than-ideal rooms. Because of this, you may not be supplied with a room mic track for your mix (or if you were, it may not sound very good). As a result, you may want to make up for this by using a short plate or hall reverb to simulate a different recording space. To do this, simply use an auxiliary send on the individual channels to feed the reverb track.

As for how large of a room you are trying to simulate, that can be altered using the reverb time function. One thing to keep in mind when setting your reverb time is that you don’t want it to be too long or else it will start to make your mix sound cluttered. Try to adjust the decay settings so that the reverb tail is over in time for the next snare hit. Generally, my go-to setting is a plate reverb with a decay time of about 2 seconds.

When setting a room reverb, you may also want to add an EQ to follow it. You’ll need to listen to how the reverb is affecting everything else in your mix in order to determine what moves you’ll need to make. If the reverb has a lot of high frequencies that are making it hard to hear the vocals, you might want to roll off some of the top-end with your EQ. Conversely, if the reverb is making the mix sound muddy and dark, you might want to add a high pass filter to clean up the low frequencies.

Another type of reverb I love to use is a gated reverb. This is the sound of the 80’s. They sound like a big loud burst, followed by a quick cutoff (think of “In The Air Tonight” by Phil Collins). These are very useful for adding some extra weight to snares. Because of their quick and unnatural decay, I tend to blend in my gated reverbs lightly so that they aren’t very obvious throughout the song.

Other than that, there aren’t too many effects that I typically use on drums. I may occasionally add some distortion/saturation; but that decision would be based on the vibe of the song and whether it complemented the mix.

CHAPTER 7

BASS

When it comes to mixing bass, the goal is to create a well-balanced low-end that is powerful, moves you, adds life to the mix, and gives you something to groove to.

One of the biggest challenges you'll face is getting the bass to complement the kick drum. Since the dominant frequencies of each instrument are in the same range, it can be difficult to give them each clarity without making the low-end sound muddy.

The first step to remedy this is to identify which frequencies give each instrument the most clarity in the low-end. By boosting and sweeping around the 40-100Hz range (using a narrow Q), you'll discover that certain frequencies will stand out and have the most definition. Once you've discovered those frequencies, slightly boost them with EQ. Once you've made those boosts, you will want to cut those same frequencies on the other instrument. For example, if you boost 60Hz on the kick drum, make a slight cut at 60Hz on the bass. By using this method, it allows you to carve out specific spots in the low-end for the kick and bass to have clarity but without sitting on top of each other.

Fig. A: Kick drum track with 50Hz boosted (to bring up low-end feel) and 120Hz cut (to make room for bass)

Fig. B: Bass track with 50Hz cut (to make room for kick) and 120Hz boosted (low-end clarity for bass). Notice how it’s the opposite of the kick track?

If you've tried the above method and you still need further separation, another useful tool is side-chain compression. By using side-chain compression on your bass track, you can automatically pull its volume down whenever the kick drum is played.

To set this up, do the following steps:

Create an auxiliary send on your kick drum track, set it to send at unity gain.

Place a compressor on your bass guitar track.

Using the side-chain key input on your compressor, assign it to be the same aux track created in step 1.

Set your compressors settings to have a fast attack, 4:1 ratio, quick release, and low enough threshold so that when the kick is played, you see about 3-6dB of gain reduction. You may want more or less gain reduction depending on how tucked away you want the bass to be. Play around with the threshold until it sounds natural to your ears. Conversely, if you're looking to create a lot of movement in your track and you want to hear a pumping effect (which is common in dance music), you will want to have quite a bit of gain reduction, with a release setting that releases in time with the music.

A compressor on bass with the side-chain engaged (top right). In this example, there is an auxiliary send on the kick track (Bus 1) which is being used to trigger the compressor on the bass track. As the kick drum is played, the compressor on the bass guitar will engage. This will cause the bass to turn down in volume to make room for the kick to be heard.

In addition to focusing on the low-end balance between the kick and bass, you will also want to pay attention to the 300-700Hz range. In this range, the bass can cause your mix to sound muddy and it can also fight with the low-end clarity of your guitars. If your mix sounds cluttered, chances are you will need to apply an EQ cut in this range to get more clarity.

Another frequent problem I see with amateur mixes is that people tend to ignore the top-end of the bass. Although it is primarily thought of as a low-frequency instrument, the upper frequency range plays a very important role in defining its tone and character. There are a lot of upper harmonics that allow the bass to stand out in a mix. By boosting between 700Hz-1KHz, you will be able to bring out more attitude and distinguish its top-end from that of the guitars. To make it stand out even more, you can highlight the pick attack by boosting between 1.5-2.5KHz.

Distortion can also help you bring out some more of the bass’ top-end character. One of my favorite plugins for bass distortion is the stock SansAmp PSA-1 plugin that comes with Pro Tools. By boosting the “drive” and “crunch” controls, it starts to saturate the bass in a really pleasing way that adds attitude and helps to bring more clarity to the bass part in the context of the mix. The harmonics that are generated by the distortion also help to make the bass heard on speakers that don’t have very accurate low-end.

The SansAmp PSA-1 plugin is one of my go-to plugins for adding character to bass tracks.

Another handy technique that I personally love to use to get even more control of the top-end vs low-end is to duplicate the bass track and then use filters to separate the high frequencies from the lows. On one track, apply a low-pass filter to focus only on the low frequencies (200Hz and below). On the other track, use a high pass filter so that the track contains only 200Hz and up. When you separate your tracks in this way it allows you to boost more of the low-end using a single fader; but without increasing the top-end noise (and vice versa). It also allows you to compress each range separately in order to gain even more control. Just be mindful that if you are using this technique, you can sometimes run into phasing issues. You may need to flip the phase of one of the channels if the signal sounds thinner when both tracks are played together.

In terms of compression with bass, the goal is to make the performance sound even. The last thing you want is to have random volume swells in your low-end because they'll completely take over your mix and make everything sound buried. A good starting point with compression is to use a medium attack and release setting. From there, you'll want to either adjust the attack time to be faster if you want less pick attack; or slow it down to get more. By allowing more attack to pass through, you can bring out more attitude in the performance (which often works great for songs that have lots of dense instrumental layers).

As for the release time, you need to be careful not to use too short of a release setting with songs that have long, held notes. If the release is too quick, you will often hear the bass swell back up in volume before the notes are done. If the release is too long, the compressor will miss the beginning of the future notes. You want to adjust it so that the compressor returns back to the point of no compression in time with the song.

CHAPTER 8

GUITARS

When it comes to rock music, one of the most defining aspects of it is the sound of big, loud guitars that add intensity and energy. Because of that, it is extremely important to understand how to shape guitar sounds so that they can achieve this without interfering with the clarity of the other instruments in the mix.

As is the case with all instruments, the key is to find your optimal tone while tracking. Trying to fix it in the mix, will usually yield mediocre results. I find that when it comes to guitars, if you have to make big boosts and cuts with EQ, then you’ve got the source tone all wrong. Excessive post-processing can often make guitars sound thinner and less impressive. I can’t stress it enough… If you have the ability, spend some extra time on dialing in tones before recording. Trying to get a different tone by shaping your sound after-the-fact with EQ will not work.

That being said, regardless of whether you have the luxury of being the person to track the songs you’re mixing, or you’re simply mixing someone else’s pre-recorded tracks, you need to come up with a game-plan for how you want everything to sit in the context of the mix before you start recording and/or adding processing, panning, etc. in the mixing stage.

Ask yourself the following questions before you start:

Which guitars are going to be the rhythm guitars? What about the leads? Is there a guitar solo?

When do the lead guitars come in? Will they be played as a vocal is being sung or do they occur during instrumental sections?

Do the lead guitar parts provide harmony for the vocals and/or another guitar?

Are there guitar parts that are meant to provide space and depth with effects?

The answers to the above questions will help influence the actions you need to take in the mixing stage.

One of the first steps to take based on these answers is to pan the guitars in a way that will add size and separation within your mix. In rock music, it is very common to record two takes of the rhythm guitar part and pan each of these hard left and hard right. Doing this will help your mix sound wide and full. It will also create a pocket in the middle of the stereo spectrum for the vocals and lead guitar to sit so that they can be clearly heard.

Typically, lead guitars are panned in the center; however, if you have multiple lead lines or vocals that are performed at the same time, you may want to pan the lead guitars further right or left to create separation. Be aware of the various guitar parts that may come and go throughout the song and pan them strategically so that you have an even balance rather than having all the guitars heavily panned to one side of the mix only.

Next, move onto EQ. Although many people use words such as "heavy" or "thick" in an attempt to describe the low-end feel of a guitar; contrary to what one might think, that doesn't mean that electric guitars need to have giant boosts of EQ in the low-end. It's actually quite the opposite. Most of what makes an electric guitar sound really full, is how the guitars interact with the low-end of the bass. In fact, most electric guitars have a lot of unnecessary low-end rumble that needs to be removed in order to prevent the mix from sounding muddy and interfering with the clarity of the bass guitar. The best way to remove this mud is to add a high-pass filter to the guitar tracks and sweep the frequency spectrum until the guitar starts to sound thin (usually around 120-150Hz). Once you reach the point of the guitar sounding thin, pull back on the HPF just until the guitar starts to sound thicker again.

Applying a high-pass filter can easily eliminate a lot of unnecessary low-end rumble from guitar tracks.

Furthermore, to add more clarity to your mix, you’ll want to pay attention to the 200-350Hz range. In this range, you may need to perform a slight EQ cut in order to clean up the low-end so you can highlight the bass guitar and prevent the mix from sounding too muddy.

Occasionally, you may find that your guitars produce a whistling/nasally sound that can get in the way of the vocals. In this case, perform a narrow EQ cut around the 4KHz region to clean things up. To take it one step further, by applying a low pass filter above 12KHz on the guitar, it will make room for the breathiness of the singer’s voice to be heard much clearer.

On the other hand, if your guitars sound a little dull in your mix, giving them a boost around 1.5-2.5KHz can often help them cut through and have more presence. For additional brightness, a boost around 5-8KHz will emphasize the attack of the pick.

In terms of compression, most distorted guitars don’t need any additional processing since guitar amps tend to naturally compress the signal as it passes through them. That being said, if you notice that your source guitar tracks are very dynamic, it may help to apply a compressor with medium attack and release speeds in order to help tame the peaks and make a performance sound more consistent. I find that optical compressors such as the LA-3A tend to sound best on guitars since their variable attack and release speeds tend to make the performance smoother; while at the same time, adding some extra harmonic character to help them sound fuller. The key to using optical compressors is to not over-compress. Instead, 3-5dB of gain reduction should do the trick without making the guitar feel like it’s pumping.

An LA3A style compressor (such as the CLA-3A from Waves) can work great for smoothing out guitar performances; while at the same time, thickening up the tone.

Lead Guitar:

With lead guitars, many of the same principles apply for EQ, panning and compression. The biggest difference is that you want to be able to distinguish the lead guitar from the rhythms so that the lead parts can stand out. The easiest way to do this is by simply using a different guitar, pickup, or amp to record with. By having different tones, you don’t need to worry as much about frequency masking.

Furthermore, since the lead guitar isn’t providing the foundation of the mix, it can often be EQ’d to sound a little thinner than the rhythm guitars. There’s no point in having an abundance of low-end on the leads since the rhythm guitars will be providing the chunkiness of the song. Because of that, you can high pass filter a little more extreme than on the rhythm tracks - usually cutting everything below 200Hz is fine.

To make the leads stick out in the mix, boosting around 2.5KHz will bring out more of the bite and help it sit on top of the rhythm tracks.

Acoustic Guitar

How you process an acoustic guitar depends on what role it is serving within a song.

If it is the main guitar track and provides the rhythm, then you will aim to have a guitar that sounds full, warm and natural. In this case, you won’t need to be too extreme with your processing. Usually just using a high pass filter set around 100Hz (to eliminate any unnecessary low-end rumble/make more room for your kick and bass tracks) will do the trick. Not much else should be needed unless you find that your tracks sound boxy or have room resonances. In those cases, by using a narrow EQ boost and sweeping the frequency spectrum for unpleasant sounds, you can identify the resonances and then cut them. Usually a 3-5dB cut will do the job, but cut more if needed.

As for compression, if the acoustic is your main guitar, you will probably want to keep the track as natural as possible and refrain from using compression. Acoustics are known for their natural sound; so you want to make sure not to squash their dynamics with compression. That being said, if you have a performance that is very dynamic and you need to tame it more, adding a little compression with a slower attack time, fast release, ratio of 4:1, and with 1-3dB of gain reduction should help do the job without sounding unnatural.

On the other hand, if the acoustic is playing more of a supportive role to other electric guitars in the song, you can be a little more extreme with processing. For starters, it won’t need as much low-end. It is very common to roll off anything below 150-200Hz in order to prevent those frequencies from getting in the way of the low-end energy in the electric guitars. You may also want to cut some low-mids around the 250-350Hz range to thin out the guitar further and make more room for the electrics and bass. If you’re hoping to have the acoustic play more of a percussive role, adding a slight shelf EQ boost around 6-10KHz will bring out more of the air of the string as well as the picking sound. To further emphasize the sound of the picking, you can use the same compression settings as listed above. The key to getting more of the pick sound with compression, comes from the slower attack time. This allows the attack of the pick to be heard without getting squashed. Faster attack times will reduce the pick impact.

Effects

Generally, most rock rhythm guitars will be left fairly dry sounding; however, if you find that your mix is lacking depth and space, adding a slight bit of reverb to them can help them feel fuller. A key point to note when applying a reverb to a guitar track is to find a reverb time that matches the tempo of the song and decays in time for the next notes. If you choose a reverb time that is too long, it can often create a muddy sounding mix since it will overlap with the rest of the performance. It also helps to apply an EQ to the reverb and roll off some of the top-end and lower-mid-range frequencies in order to ensure that the sound of the reverb doesn't interfere with the original track. By removing some of the top end, it will create a sense of the instrument being further back in the mix as well.

To take it one step further, using delay can be a useful tool to add a three dimensional element to the guitar, as well as provide a rhythmic element to the performance. It works great to make lead guitars sound like they're soaring above the other tracks. If you use timed delays such as 1/4 or 1/8 notes, they can really help make a lead guitar feel much more lush. They can also be used to help fill in silence between notes.

Modulation effects such as flanger and chorus can also be used to help make a guitar feel wider in a mix. If you only have a single track for a lead, sometimes adding a chorus can help spread it out a little more in the mix to make it feel fuller. The important thing with modulation effects is that they are very easy to overdo. But when added subtly, they can really add a nice energy to your tracks.

The Soundtoys Microshift is one of my favorite modulation effects for adding some width to guitars.

CHAPTER 9

VOCALS

Remember how at the beginning of this book, I mentioned that the goal of a mix is to help create an emotional connection to the song for the listener? By far, the easiest way to do this is to mix the vocals so that they are clear, sit on top of the mix, and convey the energy of the singer’s voice. After all, it’s the story that the lyrics tell that will be the thing people relate to. Perhaps they’ve gone through a similar experience - a bad breakup, a rough childhood, a night of partying, etc. Whatever story the lyrics tell, if they are buried in the mix, the listener will struggle to find a connection. But if you manage to get the lyrics to be heard loud and clear, they will be the part of the song that people will memorize and sing along to.

The first place to start with when it comes to processing vocals is to address any issues with sibilance - excessively pronounced "s", "z", or "sh" sounds that cause loud hissing noises to stand out in the mix. These sounds frequently occur in the range of 4-7KHz. To tame these, you'll want to use a de-esser.

De-essers work like compressors, except that they're frequency dependent. To use them, you simply need to define the frequency range where the sibilant sounds exist and when those frequencies pass the threshold, the de-esser will start to compress that range briefly in order to suppress the harsh sounds.

The biggest reason to use de-essers (rather than EQ) is because with equalizers, they cause a static change to the entire track; however with de-essers, they only reduce those frequencies when the problem occurs.

By removing these sibilant sounds before adding any other processing, it prevents them from affecting how the other processors in the chain will react to the incoming audio. For example, this means that later on, you can boost the top-end of the voice with EQ, but without over-exaggerating the “s” sounds. It will also ensure that any compressors that follow in the chain, won’t overreact due to extremely sibilant sounds.

One word of warning when dealing with de-essers... don't be too extreme with gain reduction or you will make your singer sound like they have a lisp. Only reduce what is necessary to control the vocal performance.

De-essers are extremely helpful for controlling frequency-specific problems.

Up next, you'll want to use an EQ to help clean up the low-end of the vocal. Vocal mics can be very sensitive and often they pick up all sorts of unnecessary low-end rumble that can interfere with the clarity of the mix. Whether that's caused by the sound of traffic or an air-conditioning unit nearby, you'll want to get rid of it to prevent your low-end from sounding muddy. Just like with many other instruments, you'll want to apply a HPF and sweep the frequency range until the voice starts to sound thinner. One you've hit that point, roll back on the HPF until the voice sounds thicker again.

Another low frequency issue you may need to deal with is the proximity effect of a microphone. With directional mics, the closer a singer is to the microphone, the more likely there is to be an increased bass boost in their voice. For some singers, this can help make their voice seem fuller; however, more often than not, it can compromise the intelligibility of the lyrics and make a voice sound uneven. This low-end also can get in the way of the bass and kick drum tracks. As a result, you may need to do a slight cut with EQ in the 150Hz range to reduce the boominess.

Now that you've taken care of the low-end, it's time to pay attention to the mid-range. Depending on the singer’s voice (and sometimes the quality of microphone used), you may find that some vocals have a nasal sound to them. If you hear lo-fi, radio-like tones in your singer's voice, you can reduce them by using a slight cut with a narrow Q around the 1-2.5KHz range. Usually, a cut of 1-3dB should do the trick to clean it up.

Once you’ve removed all the unwanted frequencies in the vocal, you’ll need to reassess how the vocal is sitting in the context of all of the other instruments.

Does it sound thin in comparison to everything else or does it sound full?

Does it have enough top-end presence or does it sound like there’s a blanket over it?

If the vocal is sounding nice and full in the low-end, you can move on to the next step; otherwise, if it sounds thin, you’ll want to give it a boost in the 250-350Hz range with some EQ. By bringing out some of the low-end presence in the voice, it will make the voice seem like it is much more up-front.

To further add to this presence, you’ll want to make sure that it has a clear top-end. Boosting around 5-8KHz will help bring the vocal more forward in the mix. If you want to add more intimacy to the performance, using a shelf boost above 12KHz will highlight the breathiness and airy quality of the voice. This works great for softer ballads.

After applying EQ, the next step is to add compression. This is where the real magic of vocal processing happens. It is the key to getting a vocal to sit on top of the mix. Not only are compressors useful for smoothing out the dynamics in a singer’s performance, but they can also be used to infuse extra character and attitude to a voice in order to highlight it better in the mix.

Rather than using only one compressor, I recommend using serial compression for best results. Serial compression is when you use multiple compressors on the same source. The idea is to set the first compressor so that it sets the tone for the next one. When it comes to a dynamic instrument like vocals, this is a very useful technique.

A classic vocal compression setup is to first use a quick compressor to smooth out the biggest peaks in the performance. For this, my go to compressor is an 1176 style compressor. FET compressors are known for responding very quickly to incoming audio; so they work perfect for this application. In terms of settings, using a high ratio (20:1) with a quick attack and release will do the trick. The threshold should be set so that it only reacts to the loudest notes. Usually, a reduction of 2-5dB of gain should do the trick. Remember, we’re only looking to compress the loudest peaks, so you’re not going for constant gain reduction. By doing this, it will help to ensure that when we add our next compressor to the chain, it will have a much more even signal to react based on.

The next compressor in the chain is the secret sauce. This is where you can not only control the overall dynamics, but also add some extra character to the voice (if desired). The choice of compressor can really influence the results. For the most transparent results, using a VCA style compressor will work best. However, if you're looking to add some extra attitude and energy to the vocal, using other compressor types can really take it to the next level. I usually like to choose from one of two compressors: Teletronix LA2A or an 1176.

The classic 1176 and LA2A compressors are fantastic for controlling the dynamics in a singers voice.

The LA2A (and most other optical compressors) are known for adding warmth to voices in a way that can make them sound very pleasing and natural. If you have a singer whose voice is very thin or mid-range heavy, I find that it will help to make their tone seem fuller. This is usually my go-to compressor for songs that aren’t extremely heavy and have lyrics that are being sung rather than screamed.

In terms of settings, since it’s an optical compressor, you simply need to adjust the peak reduction knob to the point where the compressor is engaged and you are getting around 3-5dB of gain reduction. If you’re getting frequent gain reduction, that is fine; it will simply help to smooth out the performance. As mentioned before, optical compressors can sometimes be slow to release, so you need to ensure that the settings aren’t causing the compressor to create pumping artifacts by having too much gain reduction.

For heavier songs, I recommend using an FET-style compressor such as the 1176. With FET compressors, you can introduce a lot of intensity into a voice by slamming them pretty hard. It’s not uncommon to see up to 15dB of gain reduction. When you do that, you’ll start to hear more of the breaths and gasps that the singer makes. It can make a singer sound like they’re singing their absolute hardest. If you don’t need that extra attitude/character, simply shoot for less gain reduction.

Just as an aside… I’ve heard many “gurus” in the industry make false rules that "you should never compress more than 3dB when it comes to vocals"... That is complete BS! Compress as hard as you need to in order to get the consistency and character you need. Sometimes this means you need to hit 15dB of compression. Sometimes it will be 2dB. Trust your ears, not your eyes. The values I’ve mentioned above are simply suggestions to get you in the right ballpark.

In terms of other settings, using a ratio of 4:1 with a medium attack and quick release is a great starting point. The slower the attack speed, the more pronounced the consonants will be. This can be very useful for adding aggression and rhythmic feel to the singer since the words will have more impact as they’re sung. A quicker attack speed, will smooth out the performance.

The biggest issues you have to watch out for with compression is that the vocals don’t sound like they’re pumping. If a singer is holding on a word and then all of a sudden, their voice gets louder for the last half of the word, you’ll need to adjust either the threshold or set the release time to be quicker so you aren’t getting as much gain reduction.

By this point, your vocals should be slamming pretty hard and sitting nicely in the mix. However, if they're still not quite sitting right, you might need to make some small, final tweaks to get them perfect. Occasionally after adding lots of compression, you may find that a byproduct of it is that the low-end of the vocal can become a little more pronounced. In this case, add an EQ to shape the low-end a little more. Another byproduct is that sometimes a compressor can reintroduce some extra sibilance. To fix this, simply use a second de-esser to tame it.

Effects

With modern rock music, there is a trend to have vocals sitting on top of the mix so that they are heard above everything else. For this reason, the genre tends to favor dry sounding vocals (rather than having them drenched in effects) since this helps to preserve that "in-your-face" sound.

Effects such as reverb, tend to not get used as much as they used to in previous decades of music. The main reason for this is because reverb has a tendency to make vocals feel like they are pushed back further in the mix. It can also interfere with the intelligibility of the vocals if the reverb tail is still ringing while new lines are being sung. Sure, for creative effect, reverb can be great... it can make vocals sound like they're being sung in a cave, hall, bathroom, etc. but it tends to come at a cost of losing clarity and making the vocals feel more buried.

Instead, there is a better choice for adding size and depth to vocals, but without all of the negative effects of reverb.... delay.

By using shorter delay times with very little feedback setting (aka repetitions), it allows you to thicken up a vocal performance, but without feeling like the effect is too prolonged. Short feedback settings will help to create just enough of the effect so that it can be heard and disappear quickly. These quick delays work perfectly for filling in the gap between vocal phrases but without having to hear the words repeated over and over again.

That being said, in the event that you wanted to highlight a specific word or phrase as an effect, then I'd suggest using a timed delay with a higher feedback setting so it can repeat multiple times. I usually only do this if the lyrics I’m trying to highlight occur at the end of the lyrical phrase and are followed by an instrumental gap; otherwise, it can very quickly start to sound muddy.

In terms of general delay times to use, it depends on how obvious you want the effect to appear. For subtle vocal thickening, I like to send my vocals to a stereo delay that has a a delay time of 110ms on the left side and 220ms on the right. I also set the feedback setting to 0 so that the words only repeat once before the effect is over. Tucked low in the mix, this setting works great to make a vocal feel bigger and wider (but without the effect seeming too repetitive and bouncy).

For a more obvious effect, I'll find a delay time that is in sync with the tempo of the song. Usually this will be set to be either a 1/4, 1/8, or 1/16 note.

Using a stereo delay with a delay time of 110ms on the left side and 220ms on the right is my go-to setting for adding extra width to a vocal.

When using effects like delays and reverbs, it is a good idea to roll off a little bit of the high-end of them (using a low pass filter) in order to make them feel like they’re further back in the mix. If you were to keep all the top-end on the delay/reverb, it would be very easy for the effect to interfere with the clarity of the lead vocal.

Aside from reverbs and delays, other effects you may want to consider trying on your vocals might include distortion or chorus.

Distortion is one of my favorite textures to add to a vocal in order to give it some added aggression. Typically, I’ll use the wet/dry control to find a healthy balance of clean vocal vs. distorted. Using a subtle amount of distortion can make a vocal feel a little grittier; whereas adding a lot of saturation can really bring out some intensity (especially on screams). One of my favorite plugins for this is the Soundtoys Decapitator. It can do anything from adding the slightest bit of distortion to full-on insanity mode.

Chorus is another effect that I love to use in order to add some slight modulation to a vocal. It can help to add some thickness and width, as well as make the vocal feel as if it were double tracked. It works great for singers who have very thin voices. My favorite plugins for chorus include the Soundtoys Microshift and the Roland Dimension D.

Background Vocals

With background vocals, most of the same principals listed above still apply. Though there are a couple of small differences.

Generally, they require less low and top-end than the lead vocals. This will help them feel like they’re playing more of a supportive role, rather than interfering with the lead lines. Remember, these are called background vocals for a reason... They’re supposed to feel a little further back in the mix.

To take it one step further, it can be very beneficial to shoot for a little more gain reduction with your de-esser. This prevents the sibilant sounds from being over exaggerated when all of the vocals are singing the same “s”, “ch”, or “z” words.

As for panning, background vocals often sound best when the multiple layers of harmonies and doubles have been panned hard left and right. This creates a pocket in the center for the lead vocal, while making the mix feel wider when the background vocals come in for reinforcement.

In terms of effects, I don’t usually like to drown my background vocals in reverb unless I’m going for a specific effect (like the idea of the voices being in a cave). If there is too much reverb on them, it can make the rest of the mix sound muddy; making it harder to hear the lead vocals. Instead, I often use a short delay to add a little extra depth and width.

To create separation between the leads and backgrounds, I’ll even sometimes use side chain compression on the background vocals and use the lead vocal as the key input. By doing this, it will compress the backup vocals only when the lead vocal is being sung. This can work great for ensuring that the backgrounds don’t interfere with the leads when they’re happening at the same time.

Lastly, another great tool for backup vocals is to add some chorus effect to them. This will help them feel wider in the mix to add some extra support for the lead vocal.

Automation

Even though compression does a great job of smoothing out the dynamic range of a performance, often vocals needs a little extra help in order to make sure that every single word is clearly heard. This is where automation comes in handy. By riding the fader as you listen back to the performance, you can bring up the volume of any words or lines that get lost in the mix. This will guarantee that the vocal sits on top of the mix and that the listener never struggles to make out the lyrics.

CHAPTER 10

CONCLUSION

By now, if you’ve followed along with all of the previous chapters, then you’ve learned how to properly analyze the tracks in your sessions and polish them to create pro mixes that have clarity, width and punch. My hope is that you can take these ideas and have a solid workflow to follow when you start your next mix. If you ever feel stuck, use this book as a quick reference to get the guidance you need.

The skill of being able to create great mixes consistently is a lifelong process; the more you mix, the better you will get. The more you analyze the relationships of different instruments and their frequency balances, the more you will train your ears so that you can instinctively respond to what you’re hearing and know exactly what to do.

My goal with this book is to have helped you understand the mindset of approaching your mixes: knowing what to do, in which order, what questions to ask, and with what tools. By implementing the principles and techniques discussed, you will be able to get results fast and begin to train your ears to identify problems and solutions in your tracks.

No two mixes are alike. You can’t just expect to use the same settings on various mixes and end up with perfect results. Instead, you have to always be using your ears to tell you what to do. That is the challenge that we as mixers face in our jobs. The settings I’ve listed in this book are simply suggestions for where to start; however, they aim to give you a mental checklist of problems and solutions to look out for.

As you continue on your mixing journey, I encourage you to constantly push yourself to grow and develop your skills. There will always be new technologies and trends to follow in our industry that can have a a massive impact on how you can do your job better. There will also always be other mixing engineers who appear to be ahead of you, creating top-level work that will motivate you. Learn from these people and take inspiration from them in order to help create your own unique sound. Never settle and become stagnant. Instead, invest in yourself so that you too can grow with the industry and keep at the top of your game.

CHAPTER 11

NEXT STEPS

Mailing List

To ensure that you keep up to date with improving your skills, make sure to sign up for the MasterYourMix mailing list. As part of it, you will receive regular content including video tutorials, articles, podcasts, freebies, and more. This is where I share my most valuable information in regards to creating pro level mixes. To sign up, simply visit: www.masteryourmix.com

Ultimate Mixing Blueprint

For a free reference guide on using EQ and compression, check out The Ultimate Mixing Blueprint. Inside, you’ll learn about the various frequency ranges you need to pay attention to as you apply EQ to various instruments. You will also learn how to apply compression in order to get the results you’re after. You can download it by visiting www.masteryourmix.com/blueprint/

Courses/Memberships

Join one of the MasterYourMix courses or memberships to get the most in-depth training on what goes into creating professional, radio-ready mixes. These programs are designed to take all of the skills you’ve learned in this book and put them on steroids. It’s one thing to read about what characteristics you’ll hear in certain frequency ranges, but it’s another to train your ears to identify what they sound like so that you can instinctively analyze your tracks and know exactly how to do what’s best for your particular mix. These programs take you inside real-world mixes and spare no details about the work that goes into creating them.

There’s even a course that’s specific to this book. It’s called the Mixing Mindset Course. It streamlines everything you’ve learned so far and gives you a clearly laid-out checklist of every question you need to ask yourself throughout the mixing process. Based on the answers, it provides you with the solution for how to process your tracks to make them sound polished and professional. The goal is to give you a complete framework to follow so that you can mix with confidence. Sign up here: www.masteryourmix.com/online-mixing-courses/

Podcast

To learn from many of the world’s top engineers and to have your mixing related questions answered, subscribe and listen to the MasterYourMix Podcast: www.masteryourmix.com/mympodcast/

Leave A Review

Amazon.com uses reviews to rank books and many readers evaluate the quality of a title based solely on this feedback from others. To put it simply… Reviews are very important to an author like me. So if you’ve enjoyed The Mixing Mindset, please take a minute or two to leave a review. Even one or two sentences about what you like really helps! Thank you very much. I look forward to reading your feedback.

SPECIAL OFFER

WANT To CREATE RADIO-READY RECORDINGS FROM HOME WITHOUT NEEDING EXPENSIVE GEAR OR ACOUSTIC TREATMENT?

Get customized support and feedback to help you create music that people will actually want to listen to so that you can quickly grow your fanbase online.

Each month, inside of MasterYourMix Academy you get:

Exclusive Trainings

Group Coaching Calls

Mix Reviews

Portfolio-Enhancing Multitrack Sessions

Members-Only Community

And so much more

In other words, everything you need in order to create amazing sounding mixes that you’ll never need to make excuses for.

Normally, registration for this membership is only open 1 or 2 times a year, but as my way of saying thanks for checking out The Mixing Mindset, I’d like to give you special backdoor access to join me in the group with this exclusive offer.

Please visit the site below for more details and to claim your special offer:

themixingmindset.com/specialoffer

FREE BONUS RESOURCES

To help you with creating pro-quality mixes from your home studio, I’ve put together a bunch of great resources to boost your results.

These include:

Cheat sheets

Tutorials

Resource guides

Audiobook

And so much more!

FOR YOUR FREE ACCESS, GO TO:

themixingmindset.com/bonuses

LOOKING FOR 1-ON-1 HELP?

If you're looking for one-on-one help to assist you with completing your projects and creating pro-quality mixes, then I'd love to help you.

Inside my Diamond Coaching program, I'll work with you one-on-one to help you get the clarity you need to master your workflow, mixing tools, and mindset so that you can feel completely independent with your production skills.

We'll work together to optimize your mixing speed so that you don't get burnt out from projects that take you forever to finish.

And you'll get feedback at every stage of the process so that you never hit a wall and feel stuck again.

This coaching program is personally tailored to your specific needs so that you make progress fast.

With regular coaching calls, mix reviews, and ongoing support and feedback, this is the quickest way to ensure that you are on the right track when it comes to making radio-ready productions from your home studio.

Space is limited for this.

So, if you're interested in joining or learning more...

Fill out our application and we'll set up a discovery call so that we can get you sorted with some personalized help.

TO APPLY, GO TO:

themixingmindset.com/coaching

GLOSSARY

Bell Filter - A filter type that allows a user to boost or cut a specific range of frequencies.

Boost - To increase volume.

Clipping - Occurs when an audio signal overloads the maximum capabilities of an amplifier. In digital audio this happens when the signal passes 0db. This results in distorted audio.

Compressor - A tool used to control the dynamics of an incoming audio signal by reducing the level of loud signals and amplifying quiet sounds.

Cut - To reduce volume.

Decibel (dB) - A unit used to measure the intensity of a sound.

Delay – An effect used to create a repetition of an audio signal.

Equalization (EQ)- The process of altering the frequency response of an audio signal using various filter types.

Gain-staging - The process of setting the input and output levels of every device in a signal chain at an adequate level in order to prevent clipping.

Gate - A tool that is used to reduce the level of signal below a set threshold.

Harmonic Content - Whole number multiples of a sound's fundamental frequency (aka the lowest frequency). For example, if the lowest frequency of a instrument is 50Hz (the first harmonic), then the second harmonic would be 100Hz (50Hz x2), third harmonic would be 150Hz (50Hz x 3), and so on.

Headroom - The space between the loudest peak of an audio signal and 0dB (the point of clipping).

High-Pass Filter (HPF) - A filter type that eliminates frequencies above a set point.

Low-Pass Filter (LPF) - A filter type that eliminates all frequencies below a set point.

Q - The variable bandwidth (frequency range) affected by an equalizer. A high Q setting, indicates a narrow frequency range affected. A low Q setting indicates a wider range.

Reverb - An effect that is used to simulate a specific acoustical space.

Shelf Filter (Shelving) - A filter type that allows a user to boost or cut all frequencies above or below a set point.

Transient - A high-amplitude, short-duration sound at the beginning of a waveform (eg. the impact of a drumstick or guitar pick hitting the string).

Wet/Dry - The balance of how much of a specific effect (eg. reverb, delay) you hear in relation to the original input signal. A signal that is "100% wet" means that you are hearing none of the original input signal. Instead, you would be hearing the full effect (eg. only the reverb sound). “100% dry” refers to the original unaffected audio.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Indovina is a recording, mixing, and mastering engineer based out of Toronto, Canada who has worked with hundreds of artists in multiple genres ranging from punk, rock, pop, hip hop and more. With over 20 years of studio experience, he has gained a reputation as an engineer with a sharp attention to detail.

He has been fortunate to work alongside artists such as KISS, Collective Soul, Ed Robertson (Barenaked Ladies), David Usher, and countless others. He has also worked with labels such as Universal, Sony, Republic, Roadrunner, and more.

He runs MasterYourMix which is an online platform designed to help engineers, artists and producers learn to create professional, radio-mixes (even from home). Through video tutorials, blog entries, podcast episodes, and more, he strives to share his knowledge of the field with others to help them push past their own struggles with mixing and start to see results. Visit www.masteryourmix.com to sign up to his mailing list and start receiving valuable weekly content.

To find out more information and/or work with Mike, visit www.mikeindovina.com

Back to TOP