What's the trick to getting that professional sounding mix?

My stuff sounds okay but it's not up to snuff with most modern commercial tracks. I run all my current sessions at 96khz if that means anything. I know it's good but it's still a lot less frequency response than 192khz
 
Your obsessing over something that doesn't really matter for mixing. Most engineers mix at lower rates (its a preference thing), a nice polished mix comes from years of experience, a trained ear, good monitors and a good room.
 
As we talked about in the other thread, it's not even close to about the sample rate.

Ways to improve your mixing
1) Practice <---- Super Important
2) Acoustic Treatment and Good Monitors <---------- Critical
3) Learning how to make things as balanced as possible in the production of the track itself <-------- The god damn money maker
4) Learning how to get everything as balanced as possible with just levels and panning when mixing <--------The elimination of many problems you will run into in the future.

And a great read to help you even further

https://www.futureproducers.com/for...xing-mastering/clean-trick-4-your-mix-479976/

Shake your head at everything I say in that post, read everything dvyce, salem and bandcoach say and think about them very hard.
 
Great point-outs here.
I'd like to add the importance of mixing at a moderate volume on your speakers, and referencing your mix to other mixes to keep your feet on the ground.
Also proper gainstaging and leaving enough headroom in the mixertracks and other elements (this won't dramatically change the quality of your mixes and take it to the next level, but it will hopefully make the job a lot easier since you get "more space to play with" and can do the moves you couldn't do if you had horrible gainstaging).
Get to know your tools and techniques so you can have it in the back of your head, so you don't have to struggle with a new technical issue each time, and can focus on the balancing.

As Nutek stated, work at the samplerate you want to work at. Some people want as much samples as possible, while some thinks less is more (Dave Pensado for example prefer mixing at either 48 kHz or 44.1 kHz).
 
Great point-outs here.
I'd like to add the importance of mixing at a moderate volume on your speakers, and referencing your mix to other mixes to keep your feet on the ground.
Also proper gainstaging and leaving enough headroom in the mixertracks and other elements (this won't dramatically change the quality of your mixes and take it to the next level, but it will hopefully make the job a lot easier since you get "more space to play with" and can do the moves you couldn't do if you had horrible gainstaging).
Get to know your tools and techniques so you can have it in the back of your head, so you don't have to struggle with a new technical issue each time, and can focus on the balancing.

As Nutek stated, work at the samplerate you want to work at. Some people want as much samples as possible, while some thinks less is more (Dave Pensado for example prefer mixing at either 48 kHz or 44.1 kHz).

What that guy said.

I would say watch some basic mixing tutorials and what not, but you have to be careful, because many youtube mixers are just trying to get views and have no clue what they are talking about. They're just trying to draw attention to their music.
 
A perfect mix comes from experience and just having an ear for music. You can train your ear by listen to all types of music and listen for the flaws. Im an hiphop artist but I typically listen to orchestra scores, soundscapes etc. You also have to understand your tools and how they work. Rick
 
Last edited:
My stuff sounds okay but it's not up to snuff with most modern commercial tracks. I run all my current sessions at 96khz if that means anything. I know it's good but it's still a lot less frequency response than 192khz

No means to offend you but if you think that your problems lie cause you don't mix at 192Khz, then you're gonna have a bad time.

Care to post a mix of yours so we can help? :)
 
The professional mixes you're listening to aren't brut mixes but mastered ones. If you want to compare your productions (unmastered) with commercial ones (mastered), just adjust the levels to allow an A/B comparison at the same volume. Then you can have a clear vision of what can be improved on your side.
 
The trick is to mix as professionals do.....
Or rather practice as a professional...
-how many hr of mixing have you done
-how many hrs per track
-do you experiment or copy paste to get results...
 
there is no single trick.. you have to let the vocals sit IN the mix, while having still a dynamical sound. you have to use reverb, m/s techniques, eq's and comps very wisely. just watch some tutorials, read some books about it and if you know what every single knob in your daw does, you will have no problems getting the results you expect
 
I've been lucky enough to be allowed to intern for a local studio. Been sitting back and taking notes. Then I come home and practice. Trained ear, good monitors, acoustic treatment and lots of tutorials will take you a long way. Take the bits and pieces of each video, book or magazine to try and build your own style to mixing and mastering. Best thing to start off with is mastering your DAW, then learn EQ, them learn compression. Hope it helps.
 
Back
Top