The Christian Metal Realm - Mixing Tips for those of you who record at home.

Age : 39 Joined : 28 Feb 2008 Posts : 103

The best mixing tip i have is simple...
make sure you lay down solid tracks... the less you need to mess with it in the mix the better. Of course you will always need to do more, and you dont want to record with effects on, but a good tone going into the mix will stay a good tone, but a bad tone, well you just cant fix it in the mix.

btw thanks for all the fun tips, I have done most of them without even thinking about it, like i always put the speakers at ear level.

I always listen to mixes on multiple stereos.. .what i add to this is, make sure that you listen to mixes on a stereo you are quite familiar with, that is not your reference monitors. listen on multiple stereos, but make sure you have your favorite, your car, or wherever you spend the most of your time listening to music. I notice some of the minor things on this stereo the most...

I also will walk away from mixing after 2 hours no matter what... As I think after that your ears are too fatigued to do any good.
but maybe taking the breaks would do me much better... i shall see, i am currently mixing our latest disc.

I generally mix my guitars 100% left and right, but thats because of Slayer, and how i love the way Reign in Blood sounds... with guitars all the way panned.

I also put up some sound foam around the room to deaden it, that way i only hear the speakers during mix. no Psychoacoustics happening.

btw, I HATE the way mastered music sounds thru my monitors. It sounds horrible.. how do you listen to your favorite music that way? seriously some of it sounds like its pumping... I am sure its the compression, its so whack the way that it sounds to me... i actually had to compare the discs on other stereos, sounded great on normal speakers, but tuned reference ones.. ugh just horrible.

hmmm.

Age : 37 Joined : 02 Jan 2007 Posts : 418

Ya, studio monitors do take some getting used too. I find newer music over compressed as well. I like my music to breath some. When panning my guitars I like doing 80%. I find in headphones the music doesn't sound so dislocated. Especially when one guitar stops playing.