Question about seperating mixing from composing in FL Studio

PurpleMuzak

PurpleMuzak

E.Mollusk Beats
Hey Guys,

I'm trying to get more into mixing and how to do it more effectively. Especially I'd like to know at what stage of the production process you apply what mixing techniques.
I have no idea how this is handled in a professional environment and maybe some of you guys can shed some light on that.

What I used to do BEFORE was to compose the beat and then do EQing, compression etc. all in the SAME project file. This is putting extreme stress on my hardware and makes my project file look like a mess with all the automation clips going on etc.

Sooo I thought that the natural process is to seperate that into two different stages.

1. Compose the beat without any fancy mixing and export the stems

2. Import stems into a new file and THEN process it with mixing plugins.

Does this make sense? How do you guys do it?

When doing it like this though I face the problem of losing all FX on the Master Buss of the original file (like Gross Beat, filter sweeps on the whole song etc.)...should this be done in step 2 as well?
 
After I'm done I put the buffer at the default 512.
That way would confuse me too much lol separate files etc but if that works best for you, then do it.
 
That's why you have the option to name and color your channels, playlist tracks and basically anything inside FL.

What I do is:

In the mixer I order things starting with kick(s), then snare(s), then cymbals, then percussion. If needed, the buss channels after the sound it is related (kick buss, snare buss). Then, the percussion(s). Then the sub bass. Then bass (or basses), then pads, then vocals (if any), then FX (if any). This keeps things neat in the mixer.

In the playlist, I don't follow much of a pattern there, but I tend to leave things starting by drums at the top and followed by any automations, then sub and bass patterns (with automations right below them) and then the rest, with their own automations right below the patterns.

To answer your questions:

I normally do a basic mixing while I'm composing. It's that thing that you know more or less how things will sound and how you want them to sound. When finished the "creative" part, then I go for a proper mixing, but in the same project. I only export to wav after the proper mixing is done, to do the "mastering" part.
 
I mix as I go along. For example, I compose THROUGH a limiter, instead of applying it at the end.

People will neg me for this but I swear by it. :o
 
^^^no complaint as long as you understand what it is doing during the process and you can counteract the typical problems that crop up as a result of doing it - i.e. your experience is more important than my preference

to OP: all done in the same project (unless I am sketching in finale notepad2k5 then I export the midi and load into cubase or reason) . However I do distinguish between composition, tracking (where needed), mix and post production
 
Alright, thanks for the feedback guys.

In the beginning I was using a limiter as well...but not because I knew what I was doing :4theloveofgod:

So, all of you work within a single project file. Doesn't this cause your rig to nearly detonate when it is working all those vsts, fx, eqs etc. etc. at once?

If this is the way you all do it, what are some best practices to reduce strain on CPU? Do you bounce your tracks once everything is arranged?
 
PurpleMuzak said:
So, all of you work within a single project file. Doesn't this cause your rig to nearly detonate when it is working all those vsts, fx, eqs etc. etc. at once?

If this is the way you all do it, what are some best practices to reduce strain on CPU? Do you bounce your tracks once everything is arranged?
Click to expand...

It's simple: once you are sure of something in the track, a line that won't change, you bounce it to wav and load it into the project, getting rid of CPU strain by the real time processing power needed for loads of FX and all other stuff.

when I'm producing drum and bass, this normally happens with my reece basses, as they are very modulated by a huge chain of FX. I design them, make them work well with the drums and sub and then I export them to wav.
 
or perhaps just as tellingly, in my case, my rig doesn't have an issue as it is a heavy duty quad core 16gb old-style server pushed into service as a production machine - i.e. it is made for this type of grunt work
 
Last edited:
PurpleMuzak said:
Hey Guys,

I'm trying to get more into mixing and how to do it more effectively. Especially I'd like to know at what stage of the production process you apply what mixing techniques.
I have no idea how this is handled in a professional environment and maybe some of you guys can shed some light on that.

What I used to do BEFORE was to compose the beat and then do EQing, compression etc. all in the SAME project file. This is putting extreme stress on my hardware and makes my project file look like a mess with all the automation clips going on etc.

Sooo I thought that the natural process is to seperate that into two different stages.

1. Compose the beat without any fancy mixing and export the stems

2. Import stems into a new file and THEN process it with mixing plugins.

Does this make sense? How do you guys do it?

When doing it like this though I face the problem of losing all FX on the Master Buss of the original file (like Gross Beat, filter sweeps on the whole song etc.)...should this be done in step 2 as well?
Click to expand...

Great question.

If your hardware can handle it, then there's nothing wrong with mixing while composing.

And in fact I often prefer it because it'll show you where you can get away with a minimalist perspective so you're not wasting time adding unnecessary tracks in.

However most times I'll finish the song's composition before starting mixing but that's only because composing is the fun part to me. Mixing is the arduous part.

Everyone will tell you to treat it as 2 separate processes because that's the way it works in the industry. The same producer is rarely ever the mixer and they'll often have multiple people presenting their mixes to the label.

So treating them as separate processes makes sure everything goes smooth for the mixer and that the producer doesn't screw anything up for them.

Hope that helped!
 
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