When you are new to crafting the mix, why spend 10 years first doing everything wrong and hating the sound of it. To me doing that does not make any sense.
Music should be fun, sound great and make you feel emotionally attracted by your results.
So I have compiled a set of guidelines for you that will help you - save a number of years.
I am not listing these tips in any particular order, I'm just laying it down for you.
It's about hardware. You must make hardware your friend. It might be uncomfortable. It might be expensive. It might take up a lot of space. It might get broken... But ultimately it is about hardware.
Since it is about hardware, it is also about this: Get the hardware that you need.
It is not so much about software.
The monitoring solution must be awesome.
The hardware must have great headroom and low noise levels.
Gain staging is key. With experience you learn where and how to add and remove signal with the console/the effects.
Integrated LUFS, RMS and Peak level awareness across the frequency spectrum is key. It gives you a healthy pro frame of reference you can relate to when you are working with audio.
If you are competing on the charts, all of your sound elements must be real well tuned hardware, including drums and percussion.
Great mixing and mastering requires rich dimensional awareness. You must constantly keep track on what's going on in the various audio dimensions.
High quality de-essing is highly critical to a high quality sound. You must ensure you have really killer de-essers.
Reverbs are highly input sensitive. You must ensure the input to reverbs are tape saturated and/or harmonically enhanced.
Great mixing and mastering requires great arrangement and recording. Low density is everything, it's all about getting a low weight factor. Getting the right dynamics requires end-to-end dynamics design.
Dull mixes never work. Dull mixes are usually a result of poor monitoring, lack of side chaining, poor gain staging, poor EQing and so on.
EQing is highly important and you must use really high quality EQ hardware/console for the task.
A/B or referencing/analyzing is a powerful learning tool. You must be precise about the type of sound you go for. Again it's about hardware rather than taking shortcuts.
Do not allow cheap guitar and keyboard stuff into productions. These days people are using tons of digital stuff, it messes with the tuning of the entire recording and adds artifacts and noise. Stop doing it.
The system and the digital clock must be extremely stable. Do not record using a DAW system that does not have smooth performance. Use one DAW as a recorder and playback machine. Use a second independent DAW for the final print. Exactly what you hear in the room must end up on the final product. Do not dither.
Use true peak meters. Samples that are cutting through the ceiling add a lot of ugly distortion to the mix.
Ensure the sound of the recording room is really sweet. Keep track on the phase relationships. Record the audio at as high sample rate as possible.
Develop an end-to-end model for how to create sound archetypes and be very aware of what type of sound archetype you are going for with each production. Depending on the song + genre combination you will be more successful working towards a specific sound archetype with every production. Being good at that is very important and it is a lot about not taking shortcuts.
Get perspectives if you can. Try making music in various studio solutions to get a wider perspective on what you can do under various limitation levels and with various concepts. Try studios in various parts of the world if you can.
Have fun. And most important of all: Ensure it is cool, sounds cool, feels right and gives you awesome adrenaline kicks.
Last but not least important: Make it beautiful.
Music should be fun, sound great and make you feel emotionally attracted by your results.
So I have compiled a set of guidelines for you that will help you - save a number of years.
I am not listing these tips in any particular order, I'm just laying it down for you.
It's about hardware. You must make hardware your friend. It might be uncomfortable. It might be expensive. It might take up a lot of space. It might get broken... But ultimately it is about hardware.
Since it is about hardware, it is also about this: Get the hardware that you need.
It is not so much about software.
The monitoring solution must be awesome.
The hardware must have great headroom and low noise levels.
Gain staging is key. With experience you learn where and how to add and remove signal with the console/the effects.
Integrated LUFS, RMS and Peak level awareness across the frequency spectrum is key. It gives you a healthy pro frame of reference you can relate to when you are working with audio.
If you are competing on the charts, all of your sound elements must be real well tuned hardware, including drums and percussion.
Great mixing and mastering requires rich dimensional awareness. You must constantly keep track on what's going on in the various audio dimensions.
High quality de-essing is highly critical to a high quality sound. You must ensure you have really killer de-essers.
Reverbs are highly input sensitive. You must ensure the input to reverbs are tape saturated and/or harmonically enhanced.
Great mixing and mastering requires great arrangement and recording. Low density is everything, it's all about getting a low weight factor. Getting the right dynamics requires end-to-end dynamics design.
Dull mixes never work. Dull mixes are usually a result of poor monitoring, lack of side chaining, poor gain staging, poor EQing and so on.
EQing is highly important and you must use really high quality EQ hardware/console for the task.
A/B or referencing/analyzing is a powerful learning tool. You must be precise about the type of sound you go for. Again it's about hardware rather than taking shortcuts.
Do not allow cheap guitar and keyboard stuff into productions. These days people are using tons of digital stuff, it messes with the tuning of the entire recording and adds artifacts and noise. Stop doing it.
The system and the digital clock must be extremely stable. Do not record using a DAW system that does not have smooth performance. Use one DAW as a recorder and playback machine. Use a second independent DAW for the final print. Exactly what you hear in the room must end up on the final product. Do not dither.
Use true peak meters. Samples that are cutting through the ceiling add a lot of ugly distortion to the mix.
Ensure the sound of the recording room is really sweet. Keep track on the phase relationships. Record the audio at as high sample rate as possible.
Develop an end-to-end model for how to create sound archetypes and be very aware of what type of sound archetype you are going for with each production. Depending on the song + genre combination you will be more successful working towards a specific sound archetype with every production. Being good at that is very important and it is a lot about not taking shortcuts.
Get perspectives if you can. Try making music in various studio solutions to get a wider perspective on what you can do under various limitation levels and with various concepts. Try studios in various parts of the world if you can.
Have fun. And most important of all: Ensure it is cool, sounds cool, feels right and gives you awesome adrenaline kicks.
Last but not least important: Make it beautiful.
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