Today, I’d like to share some tips that can help you get closer to achieving professional-sounding mixes.
To mix a song professionally, you need to have a clear understanding of the technical and artistic aspects of mixing. This includes knowledge of how to balance the different tracks in the mix, how to apply EQ and compression, how to use effects such as reverb and delay, and how to achieve a cohesive sound that suits the genre and style of the song. Additionally, it is important to have a critical ear and the ability to make objective decisions in order to create a polished and dynamic mix.
Mixing a song professionally is an art form that takes time and practice to master. There are several key elements that go into creating a professional mix, including the songs you are working with, the mix itself, and the process of mixing and mastering. With the right tools and techniques, you can create a mix that is well-balanced, clear, and engaging for the listener.
Steps to prepare your songs for professional mixing
In the beginning, when planning your track, it’s important to keep in mind how the song will sound right from the start. This initial impression can set the tone for the entire piece and greatly impact its success with listeners.
Incorporating a special element in the music that catches the listener’s ear and generates interest is crucial to make your song more popular. If you want your music to have a professional and intriguing sound, it is crucial to prioritize originality and creativity. By learning how to mix your own music, not only will you gain more creative freedom with your tracks, but you will also develop a deeper understanding of the mixing process. The more you learn and the experiment with music production and mix techniques, the better your mixes will become.
By investing time and effort in refining your skills, you can achieve higher quality sound and overall better production results. This, in turn, will enable you to speak more knowledgeably about mixing music and effectively communicate with another mixing engineer if you ever decide to hand off mix your tracks to someone else in the future. Developing competence your song and you will become more accessible in the ear of professionals, which will already testify to your professionalism. It is no secret that the professional mix engineer do not work with amateur producers. This is because some productions have significant problems in the production itself or the quality of the tracks is not up to the job. Professional engineers who could help in some cases do not take the job due to the fact that they are unwilling to sign off on it.
I personally remember well 15 years ago when I wanted to realize my song professionally. Unfortunately, it was explained to me that I still needed to improve on the song. I did not necessarily understand this, because the piece seemed good to me. After more years of my development in music production and sound realization, I realized that they were right. The sound would depend a lot on production and skill.
Because of the way the songs are structured, in what genre they are, the basic elements of the activities are usually the same, so the following tips may be useful.
Irritated that the music you are producing in your home studio is not sounding satisfactory?
It is worth spending time on the songs you are working on. Your song sounds professional if your tracks are properly prepared and fused. When you focus on the arrangement and sound during production then there are fewer problems with mix and mastering at a later stage. In the context of song arrangement, both the creation of new instrumental parts and the refinement of existing ones are integral to the process. Additionally, defining the genre or style of the song is also an important consideration.
During the mixing stage, it’s important to prioritize achieving good sound quality early on and avoid endless tweaking later on. By committing to getting the right sound from the beginning, you can minimize the need for excessive adjustments during mixing phase, which can save you time and effort and lead to better overall production results. Though entering the realm of mixing may seem intimidating, the sense of satisfaction from producing a mix that you are proud of is immeasurable. One of the first things to consider when mixing a song is the quality of the individual tracks that make up the song. The better the quality of each individual track, the easier it will be to create a professional mix. You should spend time cleaning up each track, removing any unwanted noise or distortion, and making sure that each instrument or vocal is recorded at the appropriate level.
Teaser – EDM mix & mastering
What are the stages of the mix?
To keep things organized, consider grouping the drums together and the bass and synth pads separately. This way, you can better manage each element during the mixing process and achieve greater efficiency. Once you have all the individual tracks ready to go, you can start to create within the mix itself. One of the most important things to keep in mind when mixing is that the song should be the focus, not the individual tracks. The mix should serve the song and enhance its impact, rather than being a showcase for any one instrument or vocal. To create a well-balanced mix, you need to consider the frequency range of each instrument or vocal. Equalization is the process of manipulating different frequencies in a mix to achieve the sound you want in your music production. By adjusting, amplifying, or reducing specific frequencies, you can create the desired tonal balance and overall sound quality. This technique is essential for achieving the exact sound you’re aiming for in your music production. For example, if you have a bass guitar and a kick drum in the mix, you need to make sure that they are not overlapping in frequency and creating a muddy sound. You can use EQ and panning to create space for each instrument in the mix and make sure that they are not competing with each other. To avoid potential masking between the two instruments and facilitate ease of differentiation, one of the instruments can be panned to the left and the other tracks to the right. The level of complexity involved in panning is entirely up to you and how you want it to be.
Whether you prefer a straightforward approach or a more intricate process, it’s important to experiment and find what works best for your music production. Often there are frequencies in the mix that you are unable to perceive audibly, but they still occupy a significant portion of the headroom. Now that you can be sure that cutting out these frequencies will serve to make the song sound better.
Are you using compression?
Another important aspect of creating a professional mix is the use of compression and other dynamics processing. This can help to smooth out the levels of individual tracks and create a more consistent sound across the mix. As for compression, it is also worth watching out for it. Too much compression will cause the song to lose dynamics (lose the kick in the song) and become flat. Hence, it is worth putting the compressor one on the mix bus. It is also worth mentioning how compression can sometimes be difficult to understand. There are a lot of articles and fims being produced about compression. Compression parameters, how to set it up, for some partria to choose parameters, etc. can make us misunderstand the movement all the more so because checking by ear will not necessarily make us hear and understand what has occurred. If, at the very beginning of your adventure with music, you do not yet fully understand the operation, then using compression is not a necessity. There are many good productions and many producers who, when creating their music, do not use compression. This is also some way to develop a certain style of work. Nevertheless, at some point you will have to become familiar with it and the need to use compression will probably come.
Incorporating space in your production and utilizing spatial effects are techniques that the songs can benefit from.
You should also consider the use of reverb and delay to create a sense of space and depth in the mix. With spatial effects, however, you have to be careful. Too much space in the song will make the song lose its power and there will be things in the background that disrupt the structure. It’s also a good idea not to add effects for parts that graph in low frequencies. Low frequencies are best left in mono. A good practice to make a song clear is to use (at least for beginners) a single reverb ekfet. You create a new track with a reverb and send selected parts to that track by adjusting the proportions you send to the reverb. Remember that the reverb must have the MIX parameter set to 100%. It is good practice to set the ratio to set the space for our song. My proportions are usually from about 10% to 50% maximum depending on the nature of the song, the number of tracks and the density of the sounds.
Teaser – soul music with some chillout as well as interesting vocals
Compare yourself with others.
Make sure to switch back and forth between your track and the sound reference track, ensuring get the levels of your track match those of the reference track that you will serve you as a map of what your song sounds like. Focusing on the low frequency range of your mix and comparing it to a reference track, as well as examining other components such as the mids, snare volume, and vocal reverb, can substantially boost the quality of your mixes. This thorough analysis has the potential to improve your mixes by ten times.
Check out this teaser!
Once you have created the mix, it’s time to move on to the mastering process. This involves using a combination of EQ, compression, and limiting to create a final mix that is loud, clear, and competitive with other commercially released songs. Limiting can be employed to boost the overall loudness of the track and make the track appear to be more voluminous than its original state. It’s important to be careful not to overdo it with the mastering, as this can lead to a loss of dynamics and a harsh sound.
For more information on the mix.
For more on mastering, click here.
Is it recommended that you mix your own music?
When you are mixing a song, it’s important to stay focused and not get too frustrated with the process. To begin with, it is imperative that you have the most favorable listening area in order to proceed. Mixing can be a time-consuming and detail-oriented task, but the more you practice, the easier it will become. You can also learn a lot by listening to other professional mixes and studying the techniques that were used. To help you stay organized during the mixing process, you can use a mix template that includes all the basic tracks and effects that you typically use. This can save you time and ensure that you are using a consistent approach to mixing. You should also make sure to take breaks and listen to the mix with fresh ears, as this can help you to identify any issues that you may have missed.
Check out how the work sounds before and after my implementation. 🙂
What if my mix is overwhelming me and it doesn’t work?
In the event that working on your own makes you nervous that the songs you are realizing do not sound the way you would like them to, then I recommend outsourcing the job. Making the song with the help of the engineer sound can bring good results to the work. Hiring a professional mix engineer can be a smart move to help you make your music production sound better in various ways and give a significant boost to your career. With their skills and experience, they can help you refine your tracks and make them sound more polished and professional, which can lead to greater success in the music industry. By investing in the services of a mix engineer, you can elevate the quality of your music and improve your chances of achieving your desired career outcomes. Commencing from the beginning, you have been involved in the creation of your song sound throughout the entire process, so that when you’ve arrived at the mastering stage, you have already spent a significant amount of time with it. I know very well what it is like to work alone on a whole song and then mix it. The more you make changes to the sound the worse it can get. This is because Mixing your own music become more accustomed to the material, which may already be boring and settled. You become less sensitive and objective to all the tracks in the mix. In such a situation, usually your mix is not balanced, and sometimes overwhelmed, by any of the parts. The problem with your mix may also be related to the poor quality of some of the individual parts, so there is also a chance, for example, to oversample the drum parts. When you are creating a mix, it’s important to keep the end listener in mind. You want to create a mix that is engaging, clear, and enjoyable to listen to. You want the appropriate synchronization, precise intonation, and genuine sentiment and passion to be conveyed. This means paying attention to the overall balance of the mix, the way the instruments and vocals work together, and the overall energy of the song.
Listen to the new trailer!
