Mixing & Mastering tips

Xavi Beatz

New member
Hey guys,
Ive made a few beats beats and so far they sound decent. The only issue is some of them need to be mixed better because when i share them they are not loud enough. Does anybody have any tips on how to mix or know of any videos that are helpful thx
 
I would recommend a class online that costs $12. Its a class on udemy about mixing and mastering and its about 9 hours of videos that shows the basics of compression,mixing vocals, eq, low end, etc. I felt like that greatly helped but I am not gunna lie I watched those videos on youtube by other people that were just as good. The class just has them organized very neat. So you can honestly just find many videos that'll help with mixing on youtube. You mainly need to learn EQ and compression in the most early steps of mixing imo. Also as for the loudness, there is so much you can do. You can duplicate the tracks and pan one to left one to right, layer the instrument, turn up gain then compensate with a limiter or compressor, or you can EQ to bring out the good sounds of that track and etc. You can do so much but first you just need to grasp how mixing works and helps glue a track together while giving each track their own space in the sound. Idk if that helped but just watch vidoes on youtube if you dont wanna pay. Also what I like to do (I dont do it often cuz im not rich) is mix it myself. Then once I feel good with my mix I send that unmixed song to an engineer and compare and see what version I like better. Make sure its a good engineer that wont charge too much. You can find plenty on youtube.
 
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I have Bill Gibson's Mixing & Mastering, it's a good read with a slight bias to professional environments and pop/rock music but the techniques translate well to home studios and other genres too in my opinion.
 
Be careful of all the stuff that's online. A lot of people just talk about what they read online and then sell you a dream. You need to check out the mixes they produce before trusting them. Are they even willing to show you a behind the scenes of them mixing a song from start to finish? Or are they just sharing tips and tricks that will never work on your projects?

The way I learned how to mix was by watching other professionals work on songs that were commercially released.

The fastest way to learn mixing is to get a mentor, see if you can find people around your area who can allow you to sit in the studio while they're working. Watching youtube videos is not going to cut it. For example, Dave Darlington is a Grammy Award winning engineer who've mentored me and there's some stuff he'll never share on the videos he does for Waves Audio but shares the stuff with his circle. Same with Chris Lord-Alge, I've got some mixing strategies from him that he doesn't share on the videos you'll find on youtube.

Another good way is to find internship on these big studios, but that's hard to find these days since music no longer makes that much money. However, try searching you might be lucky.

But just be careful about who you listen to.
 
Hello Xavi Beatz.


The best way to learn mixing and mastering is through communication with other artists.
So im going to share with you some things i learned.

First it's important to know the different characteristics of mixing and mastering.
In electronic music, mixing seems to be integrated in the production process (Arrangement, Sounddesign,..)
While mixing acoustic recordings is its own process.
But in both ways it’s about balancing frequencies and both share the same tools.
The most important part of mixing is to focus on what you hear and not what you see.
Metering for example can be a great reference tool to visualize the relationship of different signals to each other but there is no universal recipe for these relations. it means that mixing is intuitive.
For me, mixing is some sort of psychoacoustic discipline.
It should sound and feel as good as the best music you know.
To achieve that you need to now the tools for shaping and manipulating sound. (basic audio-effect theory)
If if you not there yet then don’t worry.
Never stop making music and the sound will get clearer and clearer.
Use reference tracks of your favorite artist while mixing.
Don’t forget, there are only individual problems when it comes to mixing music in the studio.

I understand that there are some standards when it comes to music distribution.
Which brings us to the mastering process.
If your mix sounds well, you don’t need mastering.
Mastering is a normalization process to fulfill industrial standards. (CD, Streaming, Live-performance, …)
The mastering process is much more technical than mixing.
Whats really important is that there should be no hope that mastering can rescue your track.
If something is not how you want it to be (excluding the individual sound of your studio) you should fix it in the mixing process.

When i master my music, i try to make the mix sound as perfect as possible.
Then i aim for loudness.
First a little bit of processing (EQ, compressor, saturation, …)
but only minimalist changes.
Next i use a dynamic eq at the loudest part of my track to control individual peaking frequencies at high volume (special focus on 1kh to 5kh to increase transparency).
Then, also at the loudest part of my track, i drive the signal into a limiter with -0.3 dbfs ceiling (to prevent inter sample peaks) and approximately 6 db RMS (+/- 3db) until its as loud as possible without distorting the signal.


This is just an example of my present mastering technique.
But i try to stay flexible and to be open to different ways.
I learned the most of youtube videos and books.

If you have a specific problem with your mix and master or any other question feel free to contact me.
I will try to answer them.


I hope i could help somehow.
Checkout my music if you like. Its free to download

Music | Xenophilia


All the best!!!



——
New Strange Antiquark album coming soon!!
Liveset:

Strange Antiquark | Free Listening on SoundCloud
 
And don't waste money on any online courses. I speak out of own experience. Its not worth it.
Education should be free anyway.

All the best!
 
I have watched many mastering tutorials on Youtube and I have improved a lot at doing it. But I'm still unsure about some things and at times I feel like I'm making things worse instead. Luckily the software I use, Ozone, has a mastering assistant feature where it will master your track for you automatically. Although this isn't always good, because only you know how you would like your track to sound, it does help in getting the main part of it done because afterwards you can always tweak and edit the mastering to your liking.
 
I would recommend a class online that costs $12. Its a class on udemy about mixing and mastering and its about 9 hours of videos that shows the basics of compression,mixing vocals, eq, low end, etc. I felt like that greatly helped but I am not gunna lie I watched those videos on youtube by other people that were just as good. The class just has them organized very neat. So you can honestly just find many videos that'll help with mixing on youtube. You mainly need to learn EQ and compression in the most early steps of mixing imo. Also as for the loudness, there is so much you can do. You can duplicate the tracks and pan one to left one to right, layer the instrument, turn up gain then compensate with a limiter or compressor, or you can EQ to bring out the good sounds of that track and etc. You can do so much but first you just need to grasp how mixing works and helps glue a track together while giving each track their own space in the sound. Idk if that helped but just watch vidoes on youtube if you dont wanna pay. Also what I like to do (I dont do it often cuz im not rich) is mix it myself. Then once I feel good with my mix I send that unmixed song to an engineer and compare and see what version I like better. Make sure its a good engineer that wont charge too much. You can find plenty on youtube.
very good recommendation thank you
 
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