Archive for 'Plugins'

Do you find yourself layering guitar parts in your sessions only have them wash together, sounding vague and mushy? Today I want to show you a simple way to bring some clarity and width back into your guitars. With nothing more than a little EQ we can subtly get that separation and focus you want when you have a dense mix of guitars.

In most cases the lead vocal is the most important part of your mix. The best mixes out there always seem to find a way to get that vocal to sit right on top of everything else. How do they do it? Well there are a lot of small steps to get you there: vocal compression, riding the vocal with automation, and of course proper use of EQ. But today I want to show a super easy “hack” to making sure your vocal always sits on top of the mix nicely.

When you mix, you tend to gravitate to one main EQ and compressor for the bulk of your work. I know I do. If that’s the case, then why go through all the trouble of navigating for and inserting the same plugins on each track? Setting them up as your default EQ and compressor in Pro Tools can speed things up and get you mixing faster.

Tell me something about that fancy new plugin or microphone you want to buy: how well do you know your current gear? If you’re like many people, you probably have only used your current gear for one or two projects and you already want to buy something else. You’re looking for that elusive magic bullet. Instead you should be learning your gear.

Owning Does Not Equal Knowing

Here’s something to consider. Just because you own a certain piece of gear (hardware or software) doesn’t mean you really know it. Just because a certain mic preamp or plugin has been sitting in your studio for two years does not mean it has been put through its paces. And if you don’t really use your gear enough, how can you ever know what it truly is capable of?

You can’t, that’s the issue. Just simply buying a set of studio monitors doesn’t mean you will know how they sound in your room instantly. Or how they will affect your mixes after an afternoon. It takes time to learn gear, which means you really aren’t in a position to give an opinion on something unless you’ve used it enough.
Read More →

Mixing in isolation can lead to bad mixes. No one wants to hear it, but if you don’t compare your current mix to something that’s already mixed, mastered, and certifiably awesome then you have no idea if you’re really in the ballpark. Bringing in a reference track to your sessions in either mixing or mastering can give you instant perspective. With a few quick adjustments you can get your mix back on track to mixing success!

Recording drums well is hard. Recording drums well at a live performance is even harder. With more bleed, less separation, and usually less time to get the sound you want, sometimes your drum tracks don’t turn out quite the way you hoped. Using something like Trigger, a drum sample replacing plugin from Steven Slate’s company Slate Digital, can go a long way to getting the punchy and polished tracks you’re after.

I’m afraid to tell you that you likely suffer from short term memory loss. More specifically your ears suffer from short term memory loss or bias. If you’ve mixed for even 5 minutes you may have discovered this yourself. It’s a serious problem for all mixing engineers, and one that if properly understood can refrain you from making dumb mixing decisions.

A Little Goes A Long Way

When you sit down to sculpt a mix together you’re hoping to take solid tracks and turn them into audio gold. At least I know that’s what I’m trying to each time I mix. The problem comes when we believe we have to make drastic changes to our tracks in order for that to happen.

We’ll make tweak after tweak after tweak. A little EQ boost there, some compression here, a little saturation there. We just keep going and going with this process without actually comparing our changes to the original sound. This is a problem because we quickly forget where we came from.
Read More →

When you sit down to mix a song it’s wise to have a handful of “go-to” plugins in mind to help you sculpt your sound. I’m sure you own more than a handful, but do you really want to be spending precious mixing time scrolling through plugin menus and testing out effects? I know I sure don’t.

Your Weapons Of Choice

Mixing music is challenging enough as it is, so I don’t want to divert what little energy and brain power I have away from creative decisions and instead towards plugin sifting. And with many DAW owners easily clocking in upwards of 100 or more plugins on their systems, there are plenty of distractions to be had.

My advice, pick your top 5 weapons to damage to your mix. Identify those 5 or so plugins that you will use to do 90% of your mixing work. For me these are my favorite EQ, compressor, reverb, delay, and saturation plugin. With those 5 effects I can sculpt one rocking mix in no time. I’m familiar with how they sound, what they do to my audio, and even what the graphical interface looks like. No manuals or experimentation need. Simply well known tools just waiting to be used.
Read More →

Avoid doing things in your recording or your mix that you don’t understand. What I mean is, don’t feel compelled to fiddle with something just because you think you’re supposed to in order to be professional. You’ll likely do more harm than good and you won’t actually learn anything in the process.

You’re “Supposed To” Use Compression

So many of us get it in our little heads that we are “supposed to” use certain effects and plugins when mixing. A common example is the use of compression. We read about compression on blogs, in magazines, and on YouTube and we assume that because everyone is using it, we should too.

But it makes absolutely no sense to slap on a compressor when you don’t understand what it does or how to operate it. You’ll likely make your mix worse so you’d be better off mixing with no compression at all. (I’m just picking on compression, but this applies to almost any plugin, effect, or technique).
Read More →

Most virtual instruments and samplers in DAWs these days sound awesome, a little too awesome. Have you noticed that the strings and pads and pianos sound almost a little too good, a little too clean? One thing I tend to do when mixing with sampled or virtual tracks is to bring in a bit of distortion or lo-fi to them, just to grit them up a bit and make them not so squeaky clean.