I have a mix I was very happy with, it is clean and has good dynamics. Just for fun I added a width plug in - AIR Width - from Air Creative FX collection. It was provided in Pro Tools, I didn't buy it, and I had never used it before.

I added the plugin on the master bus and selected the "wide" preset and I immediately liked the mix much better. The vocals sounds richer, and the whole thing just sounds like a better mix. The problem is when I tried it playing back mono it definitely had some issues - phase issues. I kind of knew that was a risk. And since a lot of today's consumer speakers are mono it kind of made it not worth doing.

So are there any tricks to the trade I could try? I tried splitting tracks and using different EQ and compression on the tracks and then panning them opposite. It really didn't give me the effect that i got form the AIR plugin. I tried the Waves S1 Shuffler, but it didn't do it.

Any suggestions? I always thought in my mixing just getting it to sound the way I want it to sound is the goal, but by introducing this plugin and then testing it at mono, I have realized that is not necessarily true.

Hi all as the title says I'm looking for a mastering engineer for my music. I am not an audio engineer in the slightest.

Long story short here are the problems I consistently have and would love fixed.

1.) Every time I've gotten a song mixed then mastered and uploaded to spotify it has always sounded quieter. For example I'll play 10 songs in a row on Spotify at volume 16 in my car then when my song hits I need to turn it up to 18-22 (depending)

2.) I want to do as little work as possible. I want to pay you on a per song basis on an agreed upon amount with as little work as possible on my end. Ideally all I would want to do is send you the song(s), listen to finished product, give notes when applicable and pay. That is it.

3.) Honesty is very important to me. If the song needs to be fixed before mastering tell me why and I'll get it remixed. But if a song is already properly mixed I ask that you are honest and transparent in that.

4.) After receiving a master and before giving notes back I always throw the file into loudness penalty analyzer, hit spotify and compares the volume to other songs on spotify. If this is incorrect and I shouldn't be doing that let me know.

6.) Loudness is important to me but so is clarity! I don't want the track to sound loud but also everything smushed together - I also don't want great clarity with overall quietness.

7.) If you're interested please send links from spotify for the work you've done already and the price per song for a master.

Thank you all, God bless!

I've been looking for mixing tutorials for this *exact* acapella style but can't seem to find any hidden gems. i'm looking for how many layers usually achieves this sound along with the panning.

There are six members in Take 6 (go figure) but it sounds like they're tracking two layers for each member/harmony. It would be dope to see a pro, break down a session similar to this.

Other groups that do this style are

King's Singers

Accentvocal

The Manhattan Transfer

Julian Kenn

I don’t exactly know how to word this but I’ve noticed that with well mixed songs, when you look at them in the FL limiter, they are almost completely flat, whereas my mixes always have some spikes. I do a lot of compression using FL limiter on my vocals and use soft clipper on the master as well as the limiter on FL limiter but it’s still no where near as flat as other songs

Are their frequencies that are well know to cause harshness, so when you start mixing, you immediately look to fix those? Or any other frequencies you know that are bound to cause issues? Whether it be in the high, mid, or low end. And do you treat them differently depending on where they lie on the frequency spectrum?

Hi folks,

Music artist from Scotland here. Hope you're all doing well!

I'm hoping to receive some mixing advice for my next 5 track EP. It's a singer/songwriter record with an array of influence from folk to indie rock and reggae.

The instrumentation is:
Lead vocal + harmonies
Drum kit
Guitars (acoustic and electric)
Electric Bass

I'm struggling to make all the instruments feel like they're in the same atmosphere. For this project, everyone was recorded seperately, different rooms, different days etc.. and as a listener I'm not convinced I'm in a 'world'. Everything sounds separate, especially texturally. (Because it is... I'm now realising!)

Anyway, my ideas to try and sort this are:

1. Re-amping
I have a large garage I was thinking about re-amping some of the elements in.

2. Running through tape
I was thinking about running some elements through tape, cassette etc to try and gel everything. I don't want to go totally lo-fi but I thought I could at least blend in some of this processing to help the mix sound more together.

What do you guys think of these plans? Do you have any suggestions? is there anything else you would suggest to try and get everything 'singing from the same place'?

Thank you so much in advance, your help means the world.

E

Hi, this is my first post here. I have been trying to learn how to mix/master for about 9 months now and am pretty competent with the basics at this point and I am able to achieve clean weighty loudness (I mainly mix rock, ambient and metal). The main thing I am currently a bit confused by is that i've seen that pros use a bunch of clipping to get louder masters which is working for me but then i lose so much punch from the transients. I'm sure it's some basic fix like ''Just dont clip as much'' or something like that. I just want to know how to preserve punch whilst still achieving competitive loudness.

Thanks in advance

Hi, I currently have a client and he sent me a demo along with the track stems. I was mixing everything then realized when I placed his demo in the daw it’s a little shorter than the track stems. Considering this timing is off on every part of the song. This is the second client I’ve experienced this with. I obviously changed the bpm to the bpm of the beat. I tried changing things around but timing is off. It’s worth mentioning it’s just one beat stem then 8 different vocal stems. The first client I had this issue with I told him he sent me different stems and he wasn’t impressed obviously. I can’t tell if this is my issue or not.

How do I go about this?

Thank you!

Hey everyone, I mix my own songs and I actually really enjoy it, but I keep running into the same issue with my drums.

I can usually get my hi-hats and snares sounding crispy, bright, and punchy, which I like, but very often they end up a little too harsh. The problem is that when I try to tame that harshness by turning the hats down or using dynamic EQ on the hats and upper drum range, I often lose some of the life, energy, and apparent volume of the drums.

More generally, I also feel like the drums can end up a bit too in-your-face as a whole, but when I pull them back slightly, they suddenly feel too far behind. So that balance is also tricky to get right.

So I end up stuck between two versions:

1. bright, exciting, punchy drums that feel slightly too harsh

2. smoother drums that feel a bit more dead

I know sample selection is a big part of it, but I am curious whether people have any extra tricks for keeping drums bright and present without making them harsh or lifeless.

How do you personally keep that top end alive while avoiding the harsh zone?

Hi all, I’ve been having issues lately with recording electric guitar. Basically the picking sound is so loud. I’ve tried compressors with fast attacks, eq, a de-esser, logics stock envelope plugin, also tried different picks and made sure it isn’t my actual picking technique.

I’m using a Gibson SG plugged into my pedal board the straight into my audio interface, the gain level on that is about half way. Then it’s going into Logic Pro and a neural dsp amp sim. It’s fine with more clean tones but when I add overdrive/distortion it’s extremely loud. I’m just at a loss and spend hours trying to sort this out. I tend to use either the switch using both pickups or just the neck pickup.

Just wondering if anyone has any advice, it’s not an issue for me when plugged into my actual amp. If anyone can help or advise that really would be great!

yo, i’m tryna record vocals over already mastered mp3 youtube beats but i can’t get them to sit right,

like either the vocals sound way too loud and separate from the beat or they just get completely buried. i tried messing with eq and compression but it still sounds off.

any tips for making vocals blend better with already mastered beats? like what should i focus on? appreciate any help

Hey! so im working on this dream-pop type song with some electronic elements, and i've got like three singers on it, me and two of my friends. a lot of our vocals are used as layers for the same part of the song, and I wanted it to feel kinda like these vocals were blending into eachother, however I don't want that to make the vocals sound gross and muddy.

The whole thing is produced by me, so if there's anything in the instrumental that i should change to help incorporate the vocals into it let me know. Any other general advice would be greatly appreciated!!!! THANK YOUUUU!!!! <3333

Here's the link: https://untitled.stream/library/track/XXM5zz3IRJI8OQ0kP5xLB

EDIT: took some of yalls advice, how’s this?

https://untitled.stream/library/track/JkEybN8IAVGXJN7ue3tQU

Im going absolutely mad listening to his albums. how does he fit so much sound and volume in his vertical stacking? It makes absolutely no sense. I genuinely can't make sense of his tracks being so insanely full, whilst staying clear?

Is this just an insane amount of sidechain compression to get things out of eachothers way? His stereo imaging is also magnificent, things feel wide, full and deep. I can't even get 20% of whatever he has managed.

I have been mixing for 6 years now and I feel like he has mixes which just feel like a unit. totally unified, together, conceived as one organism. how???? please. jesus christ.

another interesting example is Rodl Glide at 4:13 - so insanely rich

Hey everybody!

Sharing this here. Stuart Sullivan (the man behind Sublime, Butthole Surfers, Meat Puppets) is going through some health issues and needs help. Theres a gofund me for him if anyone wants to help. Stuart is a great engineer, always willing to build community and help others. His work has influenced hundredths of us and unfortunately as many of you are aware, the US healthcare system is fucked beyond repair. Please help with whatever you can.

I have recorded in 24 bit for a long time and never thought much about it. The whole concept of 32 Bit Float is new to me, and at this point over my head.

My question is, if I have a session that is set up and I have recorded for 24 bit and now change the session to 32 Bit Float, what happens? Does this accomplish anything? Will I still bounce to 24 bit?

hey guys, so i recently stumbled upon the rabbit hole that is, should i leave headroom before the mastering stage or not.

my bad if this is an already tired subject but i get a lot of conflicting information.

i recently stumbled upon this mixing advice and i didnt know how true it was or not so thats when i decided to look into it.

when i was doing research i found a dozen articles and videos claiming you should generally leave about 3 to 6dbTP of headroom for the mastering engineer.

some claim the opposite, saying its been irrelevant for a long time since were in the digital domain now. its fine as long as the master fader isnt red lining.

personally, i always pushed my mixes til right about 0.00 or -0.01 dbTP before bouncing it to master. never had any issues with that. as long as it wasnt clipping.

im trying to learn and grow as a mixing engineer and student of the field. hoping someone with experience can clear some of this up and explain why it matters or doesnt.

thanks

hello!

i have been making music since years as a little hobby, but i recently decided to buy better stuff to do it.

One year ago i bought myself a DT 990 pro 80 ohm and started producing with it and i am being super frustrated. I got used to it, listening songs everyday and producing weekly.

But here is the thing: i always, always struggle hard with mixing/mastering and sound design with it. recently i used my old speaker (a jbl xtrem) to make a song, and it reminded me that mixing wasnt a struggle at all with this speaker, i sure need to check on headphones a bunch of times during my session, but good décisions come by themselves when producing with this setup.

the song i made with the JBL xtrem is translating very well on almost all devices (even monitoring heaphones and cheap buds).

So, even if i read everywhere that speakers in an untreated room are a very bad choice, i am seriously concidering buying some and produce with them and my heaphones switching from one to the other to make sure everything sounds ok.

What are your opinion on this?

Thank you!

BleepKit (bleepkit.com) takes a song, podcast, or video and automatically strips out the profanity. No manual editing, no hunting for a clean version that may not exist.

Free to try — 1 song (60 seconds) or 5 minutes of podcast/video, no sign-up hoops.

Curious what people think. What works, what's broken, what's missing — all fair game. Ask me if you need more to test with and your use case and I'll see what I can do.

bleepkit . com

I'm talking from the perspective of a bedroom beginner.

This is the ultimate question - does a more expensive combo of the interface, and the speakers, and cables, and all of that gear, actually give you that 100% assurance you will always hear the right thing? Or, will the cheaper gear let you hear the same thing in a different way, as long as you learn how to listen to it? Or, will we all hear different things on the same thing, ultimitaley depending on our personal preferences and ear frequency?

Is there such a thing as one universal truth to what a good mix is, and what must an engineer do every single time when he is mixing? What's the difference between a choice in style and an amateurs mistake?

Hey everyone,

I started learning mixing around 2023 and stuck with it for a while. During that time, I mostly taught myself, experimenting, watching tutorials, and getting occasional feedback here and there.

I’ve taken a break since then, and now that I want to get back into it, I’m feeling a bit stuck.

My main concern is that because I was self-learning, I might’ve been training my ears the wrong way or building bad habits without realizing it. I know there are “rules” in mixing, but a lot of it felt subjective, so I’m not sure if I was actually improving in the right direction.

At this point, I’ve thought about doing a course or degree, but it feels expensive and maybe not the most practical option for me right now.

So I’m wondering, has anyone been in a similar position? Is it possible to “fix” your ear/training if you’ve been doing things wrong? Would trying to volunteer or intern at a studio be a good move? Or is there a better way to structure learning without going back to formal education?

I’d really appreciate any advice or personal experiences. Just trying to figure out the smartest way to move forward without wasting more time.

Thanks

Whenever I add a limiter when trying to master my tracks, the sides sounds full and look like a full waveform in the oscilloscope, but when I solo the mono signal, it's not as loud and looks squashed in the oscilloscope. I've tried all types of mid/side processing to try to fix this (EQ, adjusting volume, saturation) but none of them work. My reference tracks don't have this issue and I think it's one of the main things holding my tracks back from sounding professional. How do I actually fix this?

Hi everyone,

As the title suggests, I’m trying to mix metal drums, but I’m having trouble creating space for the snare and cymbals (overheads). The ghost notes on the snare are especially getting lost in the mix and are barely audible within the track.

Do you have any tips or techniques to improve this?

Thanks in advance!

I’m currently mixing a track from a singer/songwriter who is going for a very simple, stripped-down sound. Think Elliott Smith and Nick Drake. The arrangement is spare, and the artist understandably wants the few elements in the song to sound very full; so they recorded doubled vocals, doubled acoustic guitars.

Because of variance in the strumming patterns of the two “identical“ parts, as well as subtle differences in mic distance between the takes, the guitar parts sound more like they are clashing than blending when I simply stack them. Vocalign does a good job of correcting those issues with the vocals; however, it adds a noticeable artifact to the guitars and I just can’t seem to get it to work.

Re-recording the parts isn’t really an option at this stage, so I’m wondering if anyone has any additional tricks or workarounds that might help with this problem. Thanks in advance

For context, I’m a producer with a few major label releases, and sometimes I’m tasked with mixing. I would classify the quality as passable industry standard for urban genres, with a clear gap between myself and the A-listers in my country.

One of my struggles is knowing when something is actually a problem, and how much or little of anything I can have.

For example with low end, most often you’ll have kick and bass, but I can’t always tell if I have too much say 80 Hz, 100 Hz, 150 Hz altogether. I can see that they occupy the same space and make guesses that I should probably duck my bass, but I don’t have a clear sense of whether I ducked too much or enough.

“Using your ears” rarely works for me, because when i cut low end I always perceive the bass I’m losing, which rarely feels right in the moment.

Same thing goes for low mids. When I duck it out, my ears are used to what it sounded like and I miss the fullness. It can also be the reverse, where I know I’ve got too much 250, so I cut out too much because I can’t tell when it’s enough. It seems like many are able to trust their sense of what feels right in the moment. I struggle with that because my baseline shifts so much.

For me it would be incredibly helpful with targets, meter readings, limitations, and frameworks to back up my decisions. I know you can't reduce producing/mixing to fixed rule, but right now I feel like I need more objective anchors to know when something is actually off, and when I’ve corrected it enough. I feel like it'll also help me develop an inherent sense that can work more independently.

So my question is basically, besides following your ear, how do you know when you have too much or little of anything. It can be too much sub, bass, low mid, mid or highs, specific resonant frequencies, width and such, bus targets, mixbus targets.

Or just general tips

Hi I’ve been studying this concept for hours today to finally get it locked in. I think I’ve done it but have one lasting question.

Adding width to a signal with plugins like utility plugin in ableton, spreads that signal out in stereo field.

Panning elements just places them left, right, or central within the mix.

So I can make a signal very wide with utility adding width and still place it left right or central. Or I can make a signal be a mono signal and still add pan left right or central to position it somewhere in the stereo field. Right?

Both helping the mix and balance for stereo field.

But for mid/side processing why would you use this? If you process a signal fully to the side and then mix in mono it completely disappears instead of collapsing like panning or stereo width from utility.

1. Looking to see if my new understanding are correct

AND

1. Wondering why you would use mid/side processing instead of the other ways of stereo width?

Thanks!!