What is the industry standard way to Produce and Mix?

Suprarick

New member
Hey guys,

I find myself going back and forth a lot with ideas about how to efficiently get through a track from start to finish. I waste ALOT of time trying to get it right.

I usually start off with getting a good intro done at -6db
-this includes panning drums to where they sit well and getting a good solid drum loop
-includes getting strings, pianos, or synths (panned and eq'd)

I feel like I waste a lot of time. I'm sure there is a standard or proven way of efficiently getting a track done in the "industry" with how professionals do it.

Should I produce the whole track first without any mixdown elements? Not worrying about imaging or compression, etc. on any tracks? Should I mixdown the intro first before going to the breakdown and next parts of song?

What I have been doing lately is sending my drum tracks to a bus (aux), where I mixdown the drums on that bus (aux) using various effects and plugins. I send the synths to another bus where I mix those down. Etc.

Lately my session crashed because I had too many instances of plugins because I was mixing and producing in the same session.

I do not master

Thanks SO much
 
I don't think there's a right or wrong way to go about producing a track, except for a few obvious things that you really need to have had something done before you mix/master.

To me personally, the line between the creative idea and the mixing is diffuse, since I can't really tell if that EQing is a mixing decision or a sound design decision. However I need it to be rock solid as I go, otherwise it's not what I had intended to do, hence why I'm having such a hard time to separate the two.

Industry standard.. Well, we all produce in our own way and what works for you may not work for another and vice versa. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you what you should do because I believe it's not doing you any favors. But I usually like to start at the busiest end to make sure that sounds good, rather than to mix at the beginning only to find out later that the new sounds introduced have no place anymore.

And always mix in context with everything else! Mixing a sound in solo is rather fruitless.
 
Cool,

I just watched a video saying to perhaps use a Mixing Template and send the produced tracks to the mixing template where all the mixing and mix plugins take place. Not a bad idea honestly. My gut feeling is telling me not to mix while I produce but darn it sure is hard when sometimes mixing something or putting a compressor on it helps the sound tremendously.
 
Sure, no reason why that couldn't work. But then again, I have yet to come up with a template that would suit my needs, since all my sounds are different and have different effect chains, so having a template means I need to remove/add stuff anyway, not making my life any easier.

I think the mixing later part stems more from a day where the software we have available today wasn't, or it has more to do with the lack of discipline in us "bedroom" producers and the fact that the available resources and options are virtually endless. Like, you don't have to commit to what you're doing, and I think that causes these issues. If you record your stuff it's very important to get that right at first, and not "fix" it at a later stage. For the same reason I suppose you synthesize and arrange your instruments before you mix, problem here is that when working with plugins you can always go back and change everything in real time. As stated before this is where I think there's a line I can't really see.. So perhaps I'm not the best person to take that concept further!

What I do believe though is that you are coming down with a potentially severe case of the sposdas.
If it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't. It should take you about the same time to mix a little as you go as it does producing the entire track and then mix it. Note that you might want to leave the mixing to a minimum as you go not to hinder your creative workflow. So do what you feel is best for you.
 
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There's no right or wrong or standard or "proven way" - there might be a bunch of semi-standard approaches to a mix, but for every "standard" there's probably a big-name pro who does the exact opposite.

For my own stuff, I definitely mix as a go. For mixing others, I go the other way around - record everything first & only fix'n'mix if there's something that prevents the best performance to be captured, then process afterwards.

And as far as templates go, they're absolutely useful - but I definitely think it should be your template that simply exists because it speeds up your workflow instead of trying to adapt into someone else's mindset.
 
Cool,

I just watched a video saying to perhaps use a Mixing Template and send the produced tracks to the mixing template where all the mixing and mix plugins take place. Not a bad idea honestly. My gut feeling is telling me not to mix while I produce but darn it sure is hard when sometimes mixing something or putting a compressor on it helps the sound tremendously.

Trust me, no matter which strategy you choose, there is no A to B way to do it.

BUT there is a strategy that saves you a tremendous amount of time!

It's this:

Decide which 3-4 instruments (tracks) will be your most important throughout the song.

Balance those first and get them sounding pristine! Don't move on until you do that and check it on multiple listening devices.

After that, just mix everything else in around/behind those. The human ear can only process about 3-4 sounds at a time so nail down what you want everyone to be primarily hearing first.

Mixing will never be a linear process as much as you and I hope, though.

Panning & stereo imaging will effect the output in mono (consumer listening) by up to -3dBFS so I would suggest doing that first but it's not like your whole mix goes to shit if you hold off on it. You'll probably be adjusting panning well into your mixing stage if you aren't a seasoned vet w/ 20+ years exp.

There's so much that goes into mixing - you should expect to be adjusting just about everything until the very last decision. It's so subjective, yet there is definitely an objective quality involved.

Just keep adjusting faders and knobs until it sounds good. Your time will be well spent & you will take less time on the next song as you learn shortcuts.

Hope that helps!

Best of luck!
 
The human ear can process multiple lines of sound (at least 7 and probably more like 10 in my experience); the limitations for beginners is exposure and application - if you don't work at hearing multiple lines then you will not get better at doing it

as for the rest: you should make sure that everything is pristine - letting something be less than it could be is a simply a sign of laziness not of technique or strategy

mixing is as much a craft as it is an art; i.e. there are technical aspects to mixing which do not change from mix to mix. Teaching/Learning these skills and techniques is the basis of all engineering schools
  • how eq works and how it should be applied
  • how compressors work and how they should be applied
  • how reverbs and delays work and how they should be applied
 
As said before, there is no right or wrong way to produce and/or mix, but if you find yourself wasting too much time and want to finish more tracks you can follow the advice of DJ Vespers (if you are talking about instrumentals). He says to do the following:

Select your sounds
Record the most complex/busiest 8-bar section of the beat
Sequence the entire beat
Mix
Master

I loosely follow this method. Again, sound design and mixing are closely related. So more times than not I am filtering and EQ'ing sounds during the sound design stage to make each sound, sound dope while keeping in mind that additional EQ may be needed to help sounds sit better in the mixing stage. Hope this helps.

 
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First ill make a basic 4 on the floor drum rhythm to act as a metronome. Then ill get a bassline hook. Then ill make some percussion and high hats develop a groove around the bassline. Then maybe try chopping some vocals up to get an interesting intro then work left to right from there. I like to get the entire song arranged first WITHOUT using effects or any makeup. This ensures my transitions are all smooth and the chords are working without relying on effects to smooth out transitions. Once I have a rough arrangement ill just listen to it over and over building from there and adding 'ear candy' and effects.

Lots of people try making a hero intro before the songs even arranged and they get stuck on it. Just get a rough arrangement down and build everything from the ground up once you have that dry foundation there. It'll stop you from getting stuck on building one section to perfection.
 
The only iron rule is using a good calibrated monitoring (K18 to K14 depending of the genre). Your production and mixing will be easier, and most of your plug-ins processing will become useless.

To save a lot of CPU you can freeze/Bounce your VSTi tracks. It's also a good way to avoid bieng drown in an ocean of possible changes.

As side note, just think most of the beatles production was made on a four tracks recorder. Hendrix used a 8 tracks recorder and 24 tracks machines only became a professional standard in the late 70's. Any laptop computer can do the trick in 2015...
 
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