Why your mix isn't hitting (punching) reason 9/9 (+ extra mentions)

It took me a while to learn this one, because there was a period (ca. 2000-2010) when I was almost exclusively working with hardware samplers that weren’t that precise in terms of seeing the sample start point. So I was often layering drums but felt baffled as to why I was losing power.

These days layering drums is easier as I pay attention to this one.
Also when layering drumbreaks, pay attention to this!

TIP!
Sometimes when layering drumbreaks, it may make sense to round the transients of one of them, as it may allow the main drumloop to stay on top better, as there's no transient wars going on (this does happen, and sometimes layering drumloops gets messy for this very reason).

🎚️ Phew, this was a mix month for sure.

Let’s get back to the breaks stuff in September!🥁
Got a fat Finnish break lined up for ya!

🎚️⛔️Honorable mix-ain’t-working mentions 👇

BUSY MIX

Sometimes your song may just have too many elements. In a nutshell, the more elements your song has, the less defined its elements will feel.
You cannot have 20 sounds playing at the same time and have them all large and defined.
My own music is often quite busy, so this has been a great lesson in mixing.

TOO MUCH REVERB

Especially in a busy song^, you shouldn’t have a lot of reverb on many elements.
In busy songs, the reverb cannot be heard that well, but it hurts the definition of sounds.
Things get “cloudy”. So do consider going fairly dry if your song is really busy.
It’s easier to savor reverbs in more minimal mixes.
This will always remind me of a song I mixed that 90+ stems (lesson learned…prob never again accepting that many stems).
The client’s reference songs were all minimal, and the vocal had a beautiful reverb on it.

I was being told to add more and more reverb and make it sound like in the ref, but I was saying, we already have so much reverb in the vocal but you can’t hear it in the same way as in the ref because it’s fighting with so many other elements.

The producer finally started muting some elements, and it helped with hearing at least some of the reverb.

MASTER EQ (or other tools) TO “FIX” THINGS 🎛

This often happens with my own music, but I’m aware of it.
As I’m working on the song, it’s more important to me first to make the song work, before making the mix/master work.
But when working, I still compare a bit to stay on track sound-wise. 
I often keep pushing the master EQ to give me the mids and brightness that I want.
Then, once I’m done, I usually take a proper earbreak (weeks usually) before getting to actually mixing/mastering it.

The first thing I always hear how I’ve been trying to “fix” the mix with a master EQ that may look slightly wild (big boosts in mids / highs).
This often sounds 85% there as the mix levels are usually fine, but it’s not precise enough.

Most of the time when I disable the master EQ, I realize bass is now too loud and mid and highs aren’t enough.

So instead of trying to fix the sound with the master EQ, I just disable it and go back to the mix and make it bang 95% with the mix alone. Then rest of the finetuning is on the master EQ.

This is really good practice: don’t rely on master EQ – or ANY master tool to fix the mix.
What I also hear happen is producers mixing into a compressor to fix the dynamics.
I may get a self-mastered version, and a nothing-on-the master version. A lot of times I hear I can make it better with mastering, and on the nothing-on-the master version, the levels are off. This is because some aren't that great with mixing levels, but they rely on a master compressor to "fix" the levels, and while it kinda helps with that, the sound isn't that dynamic, because the compressor is clamping down on the sounds that would otherwise feel too loud.

…phew so that's it!

Anything to add, anyone?