The Number One Secret to a Great Sounding Mix

So you want to know what the secret is to having a great sounding mix? You want your mix to sound like the top professional mixing engineers? Then listen up because here is the secret... You ready?

There is no secret. 

I'll say it again in case the italics didn't drive the point home, there is no secret! If you want to be a better mixing engineer and you are looking for a cure-all secret to great sounding mixes, I've got bad news for you: there isn't one. The top mixing engineers in the world do not have some super secret technique that makes all of their mixes sound great. The truth of it is to get great sounding mixes, it takes hard work and lots of time. Even then, there is no secret. You just keep working at honing your skills and learning new techniques. Also, be creative! Don't just look for some rule or technique that others do, but come up with your own! I'm not saying don't learn from others, because that is hugely important. But don't be afraid to try new ideas and get creative with music. In my opinion, that's really what it's all about.

Okay, so there is no secret. But there's still got to be things you can do to make your mix sound better. What are some of those things? Well, there's literally hundreds, but I'll list off a few that have made a huge difference in my mixes.

• Trust your ears
• Finish projects
• Put in a ton of time
• Use reference mixes
• Be creative
• Learn from others

The list goes on and on. The point is, there is no one big secret. It takes time, work, education, experience, and creativity to get a great mix. The beauty of it is, you are responsible for your own success. Because there is no secret, you can be just as good as the rest of the mixing engineers out there. The only thing standing between you and your goal is yourself. You have the ability to work hard, learn a lot, and devote a ton of time into your dream. If you are willing to focus on it and keep at it, there's nothing that can stop you. 

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How to Make Your Chorus Bigger

When you are a mixing or producing a song, you want there to be some dynamics. This means that you want there to be dynamic differences between verses, choruses, bridges, and so forth. If you don't have any dynamic change, say when you get to the chorus, then your song will sound  flat and have no parts that stand out.

Today I'm going to talk about two things that will help you have a bigger chorus in your songs.

Tip One:

Automate Panning

Automating panning is a nifty little technique to widen up your choruses. Basically, the idea is that you have your panning automated to widen or narrow at particular parts of the song. Since we are trying to make a bigger chorus, we want to widen the sound when we hit the chorus. You can do this to multiple instruments but I recommend drums or guitars. Try having the drums panned in the center during the verses, and then have them pan hard left and right when it hits the chorus. This will help to widen your chorus and make it sound much bigger. You could also do this to acoustic guitars. If you doubled acoustic guitars, just have one play in the center during the verses, then bring both in panned left and right on the chorus.

Tip Two:

Record Dynamically

This tip is all about getting it right at the source. When a song is being performed and recorded, make sure the parts are dynamically written and then recorded that way. Have the guitarist hang back during the verse and let the drums and bass carry it. Then when you hit the chorus, open it up with all the instruments. This is basic songwriting dynamics, but if you don't have this right, it's going to be a lot harder to make your song dynamic in the mixing process.

These are just two tips to hopefully help you make a better dynamic mix. As always, don't be afraid to get creative with it! Try things and remember to break the rules every once in a while.

Need Mixing Done?

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The Free Mixing Session is Over!

First off, a big thanks to everyone who submitted your songs for free mixing! I had a blast working with you all and got to mix some great (and hilariously awesome) tracks. If you still need mixing done, contact me at willsterling23@gmail.com. Currently rates are $25 per song. Below is a link to my mixing portfolio if you'd like to hear some samples of my work. Cheers!

https://soundcloud.com/willsterling/sets/mixing-samples

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Free Mixes!

I will mix one song of your choice from either your EP, Album, or single!

What you will get: Strategic EQ, compression, setting levels, widening your mix, automation, proper gain staging, the addition of creative effects such as reverb, delay, etc, and EQ and limiting on the master bus to bring up the volume and clarity of your mix.

You will get three files back when I am done: Original WAV File, Master WAV File, and a Master MP3 file.

Also, be sure to tell me if you intend to send your song off to get mastered, and I will leave EQ and Limiting off the master bus as well as giving you 3 to 6db of head room.

What I need from you: Individual WAV stems of the audio tracks you would like mixed. Preferably upload them in a compressed folder to either Google Drive or Dropbox and link the file to me.

My email is willsterling23@gmail.com. You may also send me your file there or feel free to ask me any questions. Please allow up to five days to get your mix back to you.

Thank you everyone for your interest!

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How Do I Get My Mixes to Sound Huge?

Today I'd like to share a couple tips for how you can widen your mix. Often times when we are mixing or recording we end up with a song that just doesn't sound as big as we want it to. It feels like we are listening to it in a narrow hallway, instead of a big, wide open sound. There are a lot of things you can do to alleviate this problem, but today I'd like to just share two.

Number One: 

Do an LCR mix.

So what do I mean by LCR mix? An LCR mix is a Left-Center-Right mix. It is the idea that when you pan something, you pan it either hard left, dead center, or hard right. Now, keep in mind that this is not a cure-all for your mixes. In fact, there is no cure-all for your mixes. The techniques you use to mix and make your tracks sound better will vary from song to song just depending on the project. However, an LCR mix is a great place to start if you want to widen up your mix.

There are some obvious instruments that should be panned in the center, but in case you don't know, here is a quick rule of thumb:

• Pan the kick drum and the snare in the center
• Pan bass guitar in the center
• Pan vocals in the center

In most circumstances all of those tracks will go in the center. Most everything else, you will pan off to the side. This will most certainly depend on the type of song and how many instruments you have, so don't necessarily apply this to everything. But as a general rule of thumb, this will help widen your mixes. 

Number Two:

Double your instruments. 

In case you don't know, what I mean when I say, "double your instruments," is to do two recordings of the same instrument, and then pan the two tacks hard left and right. This will work very well to widen your tracks, especially on certain instruments. This is a good trick for acoustic guitars and rhythm electric guitars. It not only widens your mix, but lets the tracks you have in the center really shine through. Make sure you don't just do one take and copy it, as you will need two takes with varying frequencies for this to work.

These tips should help you widen your mixes and get your song to sounding a little bit bigger. Again, this is not a cure-all trick and there are times where you will only want to pan something 50% in one speaker or keep an acoustic guitar in the center and so forth. However, on most songs this should help your mixes and take you one step closer to achieving a professional and good quality mix.

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Just Tell Me What Gear to Buy!

The other day I was browsing a forum on recording, and one post was a guy asking questions about beginner recording. He started off by saying that he wanted to get into recording, but didn't know all the gear that he needed. His father would apparently buy him any gear he wanted, as he supported his son's endeavors. So he began his post by naming off all of the gear that he already had, and then went on to ask what other gear he should get. He just knew that if he had the right gear, that he'd be ready to start recording.

This, unfortunately, is a trap that we all fall into as recording engineers and producers. We think that the gear that we have directly correlates to the sound we get out of our recordings. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but that just isn't true. Your gear is only as good as you are. Just like the guy in the forum, we fall into the trap that better gear will make us better producers.

Now I am not saying that gear isn't important. There are certainly differences between low end dynamic microphones and high end condensers. There are differences between high end studio monitors and low end monitors. But what I believe to be the most important aspect, is learning your gear. I would suggest to this guy starting out, to go out there and buy an SM 58 and an Mbox, and just start recording. Raw effort and hard work ethic is what will make you a better recording engineer. The guy who has done a hundred recordings with his SM58 will probably get a better sound than the guy whose done five recordings with his high end condenser microphone.

Another important reason to not fall into the trap of always trying to get better gear, is you'll do one of two things, if not both.

• Spend all of your money on continuously getting better gear 
• Never getting better at what gear you actually have

If you are at the point as an engineer where you feel like you have the knowledge and the experience to take your recordings a step further, but your gear is holding you back, then go ahead and buy nicer equipment. There is nothing wrong with that! Hopefully if you are at that point you will actually be able to utilize the gear that you have. 

Above all, remember that gear is only part of the equation. A good producer and engineer knows that getting a good mix is about hard work, experience, knowledge, and creativity before anything else. 

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