Fennec Fox? Simple Mixing/Mastering Guide
Hey, make sure you EQ EVERYTHING you put in, I usually take out all frequencies that a sound doesnt need to keep space clear, example a high hat only needs to have frequencies above 10k hz, so cut out everything below 10k its not needed, if a sound is hard on the ears, try a sharp cut in the high end 20khz and cut away slowly starting from 20k down to 19, then 18, etc till the sound loses sharpness but not volume, play with the slope of the cut until you take away sharpness, do this on all sounds that dont need any high frequencies such as bass can be cut 200hz or lower, most sub bass cut the EQ range so the bass sits between 25hz and 100hz, then have your kicks in 100hz up range so that each operates alone and no frequencies collide, the bass should complement your kick, not overpower it so keep their frequencies out of each others way, doing this also clears of space, by removing unnecessary frequencies you clear room for other sounds and frequencies, and if your track doesnt have any midrange then try add midrange, look at your frequencies and whats being filled and where the gaps are and try and fill them, this will make your tracks more ful, then try a good compression like izotope ozone dynamic VST if you can get it but any compression really, but dont over compress, individually compress each sound,
use your ears to hear when the sound your compressing starts to flatten too much then back off and use a ratio of 2 or 4 with 1-5ms attack decay of 20-50ms (usually set lower frequency sounds such as bass notes with longer decay 50ms and higher faster pitched frequency notes like high hats can have quicker delay of 20-30ms) also try getting a pan plugin to automate panning left and right on various speeds (not too wide or fast, but fast and wide worst better on higher range sounds, leave bass and kicks in the middle of your track, you want you track like an upside down triangle, solid in the bottom, and then panning out wider in mids and widest in the highs), with this on each sound with different degrees of pan and pan speed so the sounds split up can create more movement in your tracks and also keep sounds out of the way of each other which leads to more db room and space aswell as also giving the illusion of space, then add a small amount of reverb, btw always use EQ first in your plugin chain, then Compression, Then Reverb, then pan, then whatever other plugins you want, then lastly get all your levels right so your main sounds are louder than the rest, make sure your bass range isnt too loud that will squash the rest of the track i had this issue for so long my tracks were low and dull and i couldnt get them loud but then tried my beats on a sound system and the bass was just ridiculous, so turn your bass sound levels down and might help the mids and highs shine a bit brighter/louder, then lastly you want to render your best mix to .WAV in 24bit, at 512point sync, then start a new project, now we are going to self master * NOTE * If you experience sound issues in the next step, its usually a sound is too high, too sharp, too loud, overpowering or cracking/popping/peaking etc, its best to go back and fix the sound/levels in the mix, and re-render, dont try and fix it in the master stage it just gets messy, (The reason I do this is with all those compression an eq and every plugin possible on your original project, doing another compression straight onto the mast channel adds alot of damage to CPU power and can lead to overstrained rendering and cracks and pop, so i render the mix out and start in a new project so the CPU power can be directed onto the final master) and just add your rendered .WAV to the project, then have that in your playlist so it can play, and go to your master channel and add a final compression over the whole song with a ratio of 2 and attack of 1-5ms, decay of about 30-50ms, and you want to compress the whole track down about 3-4db and especially cutting down the high peaks of your track, you should be able to audibly hear distortions and cracking if your compressing too much or the song gets too flat so find the sweet spot, then finally put on a limiter, bring the track right up to -3db just below peaking, with all the compression of your peaks and the strengthening of your lows and mids you should be able to use a limiter to raise the volume of your track close to peaking with only a little bit of gain reduction resulting (the gain reduction mainly on spikes and peaks that are too loud) and you should be able to achieve a fuller stronger and louder track, let me know if this helps
Fennec Fox.
