Wanted to let you guys know about this plugin, as this one truly is worth the "price". Sure there are tons of free plugins out there, but not all of them make a difference in your toolbox.
Just downloaded it, used it on a master, thought it really added some great sparkle, and the client complimented how great the highs sounded, and I agree. Yet another heavy-hitter from Slate, just like their Revival, which is also free, and one of my most-used and actually indispensable plugins.
This sounds good…invigorates the mix nicely.
It takes an iLok account, but not an actual iLok, as this can work in a cloud session. So it's all FREE. Just wanted to let you know!
A quickie here, relating to what I'm asked often: "Where should my kick level peak in the mix in terms of dB?"
A lot of producers look for peak-based info. So let's see.
I've never vouched for the "mix by numbers" thing.
Why?
Different drums can peak very differently.
You can have a heavy-ass, loud, badass clipped kick that peaks way less than some other, even flimsy tiny organic kick, for example.
There is no way you could have one fitting peaking number for those in the same mix, for example.
Just gotta use one's ears.
Learn to listen, and also get a few strong reference tunes that will remind you: this is how it should _sound_, not _look_! How it sounds is all that matters, not how it looks on a peak-based meter, which is a very one-dimensional thing.
Facebook reminded me of this one (I used to post a ton of music stuff on Facebook over the years), and I thought this is still a very legit technique. Allows you to place a sample of any length on song start and then start the song right after the sample and still keep the relevant bar structure (in Logic for example, you can add a sound before the song on "negative time" – hence the name).
1) Here’s a video on how I design bass tones using my favorite saturator, Saturn 2 by Fabfilter. Video will say more than words would, so feel free to watch it!
2) As I really like bass design, here’s a thought. As you’ve seen, there’s already a bass pack on my Patreon (Serum format / audio files), in both Serum and audio format. I’ve been thinking I’ll expand the bass pack by adding a few sounds there now and then. Already got a few nice new bass sounds for you. They’ll be available for all tiers but the lowest one. TL;DR: NEW BASS SOUNDS COMING SOON! 🔈
15 bass sounds for Serum for you guys – get them here!
(once again pls dont share the link, but do give a friend a nudge to join!)
What kind of stuff is it? Well, let's say that if you know my music, one might say these are the kind stuff I use in my music, heh. Personally I don't like extra-angry Skrillexy schtuff, but I can appreciate a good sub with some nice added harmonics. Kind of nineties / jungley / housey.
This is the only song from the EP that I can open, as the others crash.
The SP-12 in the pic:
I got it as a gift from a generous friend, as the first song I did with it (or the foundation of the song, rather, as it only has 5 secs of sample time) was Place Of Color.
Here you go: the just-released HAUS EP vol. 2 tunes for ya! I could do stems of Place Of Color if anyone wants (the other two projects just crash and not sure when a fix will come)
• "Headhuntersjuke". A new unreleased 160 BPM footworky track. You can not get this anywhere else. • Two 2020 remasters of old Fanu D&B classics: "Are You Someone’s Prayer" and "All That Is Left Is Surreal". Gave these older tracks a more contemporary treatment, and they’re now loud and clear and they bang hard! You can not get these anywhere else.
These are only available here and from Bandcamp Subscription special folder only available to subscribers. So these are not in stores.
Ahoy all plugin lovers (I assume that is all of us here, hehe)!
Now that we have a nice number of people in the house…I thought we might try having a shared discussion.
Who doesn’t like good free plugins? I thought we might share our findings.
I’ll start by posting a few good and useful ones that I've used and actually found decent. I don’t want to go all long and crazy this time (I feel I get overwhelmed seeing lists of 50+ plugins, as you can never be arsed to try them in depth). I may well add some more later on either as a comment below. I hope we get a nice number of good recommendations, so do let me and others know in the comments what you’d suggest!
This time, I don’t want to write long, exhaustive post – I can appreciate lenthy posts myself but also understand sometimes it’s nice to have something that’s easier to digest for a change. So, I’ll give you some pointers and you’re free to do some research on these plugins on your own and most importantly test them, as they’re free!
PS: Taking next week off, so do expect an interesting video about a certain new product ;--)
EQs
• TDR Nova– a great dynamic EQ. I use dynamic EQs heavily in all my work, to control frequency ranges and to prevent them going too loud instead of simple compression affecting the whole signal. This is a solid free choice! • TDR Slick EQ– a nice semi-parametric EQ with saturation. Sometimes it's good to not look at the sound, and EQs like this are nice in that regard. And it allows for a bit of added character as a bonus.
EQ/saturation • SGA1566. A two-stage tube mic preamp…try out the sumptuous saturation you can get out of this one. • Code Red Free. Models a British EQ. From the same company as the above preamp. The tone you can get from driving this one is so dang good on drums! • Bad Buss Mojo. This one can go CRAZY. ”It’ll go from “I can’t hear that you’ve done anything, but I like it” all the way up to “Why did you run my mix through a guitar amp?” • IVGI. ”Reacts dynamically to the input signal. Modeled fluctuations react dynamically and change depending on the drive setting. IVGI features a Controlled Randomness, which determines the internal drift and variance inside the unit.” • Airwindows Drumslam. It models one of my favorite old tape emulation plugins, Massey Tapehead (which, sadly, isn’t available in any formats other than AAX anymore). Try it on drums!
SYNTHS • Synth1– an amazing virtual analog synth. The site says, ”the most famous Subtractive & FM synthesizer in the world and the most downloaded VST plug-ins of all time.” • Tyrell. A freebie from the software mastermind, u-He. Promises an ”analogue sound” and I do agree that the sound you get out of this badboy is well worth the price tag! • OxeFM synth. Doesn’t try to be the most amazing-looking FM synth in the world, but it does sound good! • Fury 800. An emulation of Korg Poly-800. Sounds so good! So oldskool…do try out the presets!
COMPRESSORS • TDR Kotelnikov. This is too good to be free. I love it that it can so nicely be set between peak and RMS modes. ”Kotelnikov has the ability to manipulate the dynamic range by dramatic amounts, while carefully preserving the original tone, timbre and punch of a musical signal.” I fully agree! • VladG: Limiter no6.There was a period when I spent a lot of time with this multi-module beast. It offers a compressor, limiter, high frequency limiter, and a clipper. This is NOT a recommendation for professional-level mastering use, but one thing I’ll say: you can get your song fairly dang loud with this guy using its limiter and clipper. Tip: Use ”digital clip” as the setting of Protection module. It will clip the master (instead of pushing the peaks down like a good limiter does): the other modes, while protecting you from peaks, smash transients, sadly. You can get some hecking loud ”home masters” with this guy! (The reason I can't recommend it for pro-level use: you either smash transients while getting no ISPs OR keep the transients in the clipping mode…and a clipping mode is not a good look if anyone takes a look at the waveform of the song.)
FX etc • Izotope Vocal Doubler. iZotope Vocal Doubler is a free plug-in designed to enhance your vocal with a natural doubling effect, adding richness and depth. • Izotope Vinyl. Vinyl simulates the dust, scratches, warp, and mechanical noise reminiscent of yesteryear.
Clippers • Event Horizon. Good one! Even mixing legend Dave Pensado likes it! Clippers can be good for clipping peaks off of the signal (allows for making it louder) and also adding a bit of tone on it.
OK…your turn: let us all know what you’d recommend!
What does it mean that beats are “broken"? How to make DNB / jungle? Let me show and explain. I’m using Addictive Drums 2. I’ll also do a Part 2 later, getting deeper with processing. Will also put out some breaks as audio thru Patreon later.
The new mixing article brought in a lot of new members, so thanks to both all you new peeps as well as all older members. I can assure you I'll be providing you with fresh content.
I hope you've all been productive! I'm having a quick day off to recharge and kicked off the day by testing Steinberg's Backbone drum re-synthesis plugin, and I think I'll add doing a video of that to my "Patreon to-do" list as it's pretty interesting for all drum heads.
Anyways, I'd love your thoughts on these:
1) I'd love to hear what you'd like me to cover.
Sure enough I have a lot of material on my list of ideas (next video soon!), but I thought sometimes it might be nice to pick a topic presented by a member and then do either a post or a video on that. I've seen some Patreon users have that tied to some paying tier, and I'm not sure about that – maybe it could be a public one (like this post), but in a way a paid one does kind of make sense in that regard. Thoughts are welcome!
2) Song stems/parts etc?
Many of you probably know me as a producer as well as an audio engineer. It's been my vibe here to keep things a bit more general and production/mixing-oriented, and I haven't included my musical productions here at all – but I've seen some Patreon users offer things relating to their music; I haven't pushed my music stuff here that much, but should I somehow offer that? Maybe that'd call for a new mid-price tier or something like that. Chewing on this currently, so all ideas are welcome.
All in all, feeling extremely good about this. This is definitely a long-term thing for me and I want to have an abundance of content here over time. For the past year or so, I've been involved in too many work projects outside and in addition to my main thing (mixing and mastering), which has lead in me not having enough time or energy for my own stuff…and that period has helped me see better what I truly fully want, and it's pushing my own things (music, audio engineering, Ableton stuff, as well as Patreon). I've now let go of the extra project work stuff for others to concentrate on my own audio and music business even better.
I hope everyone's been doing good and stayed productive! I'll get some more coffee, work on new music, and then it's time to do a 2-day Ableton workshop.
This is all based on having worked as a mix engineer and a producer for a long time. A lot of this is something I work on in every client mix and also discuss with my clients and producers. I dare say these basic principles should help you to mix.
Maybe some of this is something you’re already pretty familiar, but hey, in that case, may this be a refresher.
I want to keep it general in order not to go extra-hyper long (I went waaay longer than planned anyways).
You’ll also see I won’t refer to frequencies and numbers that much: I usually try to teach principles at first.
I thought of getting more specific, but thought this post would then be even longer (took me a few evenings just to write all this with all the audio work going on).
It’s very likely that I’ll expand from here, and maybe at some point in my life, I want to do a large mixing course either as a video or as a book, and this may serve as a decent base for that, as well as writing practice for myself.
This is more about starting with important fundamentals instead of some insane pro-tip ninjitsu OMFG-ness.
Heck, let’s go!
PS: If you find this useful, please do NOT copy this for a friend, but suggest my Patreon to them. This can be read by anyone that has paid for a tier, even the lowest, 2 EUR one.
1) WORK ON YOUR LEVELS AT A QUIET VOLUME
This is how I start every single mix (after the housekeeping, grouping etc).
I really, really believe in the power of this. When you work attentively at a level that’s way below your normal listening level, it makes getting the (relative) levels of sounds/tracks much easier than working at louder volumes.
I never work at loud levels, as I find that way it’s harder to discern what’s too loud. The louder you go, the harder it becomes – at least for me.
This is a super crucial step in starting a mix, and it goes far in the process. If you are lazy with levels and start limiting the song, for example, it’s often going to either sound a little off, OR you’ll be listening to the song, hearing that something isn’t right, but you can’t say what it is. I often flick the master limiters off even in the final stages of a mix+master just to check again that all the levels are fine (sometimes some sounds may play a bit loud, and it’s useful to keep checking for those).
Also, the quieter you play it in your room, the less room sound you’re going to hear (I’ve largely let go of using headphones in the past year or so as I’ve become so super familiar with the sound of the room in my studio; I’ve been in this studio for 3.5 years now).
Having said all this, there issuch thing as too quiet and too loud. But you probably know what I mean, and what’s “the perfect quiet attentive level” for you once you try it out.
TIP:This works at any stage. If you feel that something isn’t right, pull the master fader quite low, and chances are you’ll realize that some sounds are playing too loud, which can often kind of ruin the mix. TIP 2: Also, sometimes you need to solo things track by track to find something that just sticks out too much (e.g., if you have a ride track that’s too loud, sometimes it’s hard to put a finger on it if it’s kind of non-pervasive yet still disturbing the mix, so “finding” it can be the key).
2) COHERENT TONE BEFORE MASTER TWEAKS
This is something I swear by. All the mixes I do get mastering treatment, too. And before I can get the master tone right, I have to get everything right before they hit the master. After getting levels right, I stay at the somewhat quiet volume, and if there’s anything sticking out frequency-wise, I smooth it out. E.g., in most mixes using crashes for added energy, cymbals often just stick out and they’re too bright (cymbals actually do contain a ton of high energy, and most of the time you want to tame it a bit). Every producer gets tired of hearing their song, and it’s super common that some sounds just stick out level-wise or frequency-wise. This is just another stage that’s going to make sure you’ll make the mix consistent. If you end up doing master brightening, the sounds that are too harsh or bright just end up sticking out too much. Not saying this cannot be done at a later stage, as it of course can, but make this a good practice in the beginning, as once again it’s somehow much easier at the early stage where you work on it somewhat quiet. Why do I find this and the first point so important? Even though I’m a paid pro (and sure enough a dude working on my own songs), sometimes I still may end up in a situation where I knowthat something isn’t right and I just end up listening to it but I can’t point out immediately what it is, but I know it’s kind of sticking out and making it a bit “restless” and less than perfect (I find good leveling is the first step in a professional mix), and doing as much of the “evening out” work as early as possible has definitely been one of the most important things for me in terms of getting a mix done fast, as sometimes there’s a lot of work and you can’t spend ages on a mix.
Make these “evening out” steps an important part in your mixing.
3) WORK ON THE MIX IN MONO
(Later edit: oops, the arrow on the upper plugin, MSED, should actually point to Side Gain, not Mid Gain, to illustrate that side gain has been taken down, which makes the sound mono)
You know that clubs, public PAs etc are often in mono. But what you may not know necessarily so well is how your song works in mono. There are so many sounds in sample packs, for example, that are made very wide just to get your attention with the high wow factor.
But these sounds are not necessarily that mono-compatible. This means that when you play the sound/song in mono, that nice, wide, loud sound drastically drops in level.
If you only work on the mix in stereo, you may miss the entirely, and later on you may notice that if you play it mono, many of the sounds lose presence. It’s OK that they play mono in mono, d’uh, but they shouldn’t necessarily lose their level. Tools such as free MSED by Voxengo allow you to raise the mid gain of a sound, and that’s all you need to do: play the song or sound in mono, and if it seems to lose too much level in mono, use MSED or such plugin to raise the mono gain. Don’t just raise the track or sound level, as that’ll raise stereo/side content, too. With sounds that are already wide enough, no need to raise stereo. I always work on the bulk of the mix all mono, making it as powerful and loud as it has to go in mono, and after that, I switch it to stereo, and at this stage, I often have to make some sounds less wide. You can use MSED for that, too: just lower side gain. Or, in Ableton Live, Utility has Width control, and that can be used.
Have a mono-making plugin on the master of your DAW and map it to a key so you can quickly flick the mix to mono. E.g., in Ableton Live, Utility can have its width set to 0%. Also aforementioned MSED with side gain all the way down works. There are many plugins for this out there.
Learn to do powerful mono mixes! You’ll find that all powerful pro mixes work very well in mono while they can be wide (great width and good mono power aren’t mutually exclusive, not in the least).
4) ORDER OF MIXING
I can’t speak for everybody, but as I often work with music with strong bass and beats (and sometimes vocals), this is the order that works super well for me:
• Drums (somehow I often tweak hihat level very last in the mix, for energy, esp. in house etc) • Bass • Instruments • Vocal
Why like this? If you have strong beats, they have to work well so you can build everything else on/around them. If the beats are flimsy, nothing really sits well, and it’s hard to do a strong bass (music with thin beats and strong bass sounds funny…try it). When the beats are strong, a strong bass can its place and you’ll know where the kick sits. (TIP! Try tuning the kick…man, it’s helped me with so many client mixes when I’ve taken the liberty to pitch the kick, often down, often by even 2 semitones...do try it, as sometimes you don’t realize it could be pitched better until you just try it).
Drums and bass should always sound hecking nice – strong! – just like that, with nothing else added. Then you know you can add instruments there.
With vocal music, I always mix the vocal in last. Every single time. This way I ensure that the song would work as an instrumental (btw in this stage I may have to take the instruments down a bit or do my sidechain technique, as explained in this post), and then I can also hear the vocal’s possible initial shortcomings best, as everything else is mostly in place.
I can highly recommend this order…I couldn’t change it!
5) DON’T HAVE YOUR KICK AND BASS CLASH
…or if you do, make sure their sub frequencies are not playing at the same time. Yes, yes, we all know this, but I still I get mixes all the time where the bass and kick are too close to each other frequency-wise.
In any types of music, you need to make a decision about your bass and kick placement.
For good separation, one has to sit lower than the other.
In a lot of electronic music and bass music, the (sub) bass sits below the kick. In styles like boombap / oldskool hiphop, the kick canbe lower than the bass. There are also tunes where kick and bass do not play at the same time, so that avoids the problem altogether. Today, there are great tools for seeing how close your sounds sit to each other and also doing dynamic sidechaining when needed. For example Pro-Q3 by Fabfilter, Neutron by Izotope, and MAutoDynamicEQ by Melda are great for seeing clashing frequencies and dealing with them. Do use them, as they help you to clean up the mix. I’ve done a video of dynamic frequency ducking using ProQ3 and also using Ableton Live’s own tools.
There are no hard and fast rules, as music isn't math, exactly, but…
A good rule for kick/bass separation is at least 30 Hz. Ideal would be an octave.
E.g., in my music, I aim to have the sub at 45–60 Hz, and kick at least 30 Hz above it or higher...if you can have an octave between them, that's amazing (e.g., sub at 50 Hz, kick that x2 = 100 Hz). That’s simple math, and that’s super easy to remember.
There is no real "rule", but the bigger the separation in terms of where they peak, the better.
Have them be apart by 30 Hz *at least*...and even more is better and makes for a clear, powerful mix.
6) DOES YOUR KICK REALLY NEED THAT SUBBY TAIL?
Also, another "non-rule": the shorter the kick, the less problems with the bass it often means (UNLESS you're doing the sub of the song with the kick…e.g., in trap).
A subby kick tail – if you have a sub bass – often clutters things up and creates a messy feel. Especially in genres like bassline house, tech house, etc., I run into this way too often with my clients. The problem isn’t that obvious to the producer, as they’re not necessarily the ones who are trying to achieve the loudness that I’m asked to achieve, and then I’m left to deal with a kick with sub tail and a heavy sub bass. When they overlap and the song is limited loud, it starts to distort way too easily. If I’m only mastering the song, there’s not much I can do, but if I’m mixing it, I either ask the producer to shorten the kick, or I may pull out a gating tool (Ableton Multiband Dynamics can work, and also tools like Shaperbox [above pic] can often help if the kick has a regular pattern).
So, keep your kick and sub nicely separated. Otherwise it'll mean trouble for the mastering engineer, and if they clash bad, I'll end up carving and doing all sorts dynamic control and we still won't get the desired result, as the clashing elements start to "fart" really easy in limiting.
7) DECIDE WHAT THE MAIN SOUNDS IN THE MIX ARE
This is something I wish I could go teach my younger self. All in all, this is fairly simple. You need to decide what the main sounds in the mix are: not every sound can be the main sound playing at full level all the time. An example: in a vocal mix, in 99% of the cases (unless you have some dreamy vocal in the background), vocal is the king (or the queen) and has to stay on top, and other instruments “serve” it and make room for the vocal – and they don’t have to do it ALL the time, and if you’ve seen my Pro-Q3 video, you’ve seen how I use it to make room for the vocal in instrument tracks only when the vocal plays. This way the instruments can play at full force when the vocal is not there, but when it is, they make space for it.
I also do this between instruments: e.g., a guitar will dynamically make room for the vocal [above pic], while a “complementary” synth sound occupying largely the same main frequency range with the guitar will make room for the guitar when it (the guitar) plays.
So this way you’re making sure that the sounds that are supposed to stay on top do actually stay on top. Some 3 dB of cutting in the right place can make a huge difference, and especially as you do that to several tracks, things start to fall in place. What I love about Pro-Q3 is that you can do the cutting to mid signal only if you want, so the sound that’s being cut keeps all its frequencies in its stereo signal (e.g., a vocal is often mono, so no need to do side signal ducking, necessarily).
You don’t necessarily need a dynamic EQ to do these, and you can automate an EQ, but a dynamic one will save you serious time in the long run.
Once again, seeing frequencies is your friend here.
BTW, I feel I might point out: I’m not a Pro-Q3 salesman even though it might look like it. I’ve bought it.
8) AUTOMATE LEVELS
This kind of relates to the previous point a bit. Man, this is another thing I wish I could go and teach my younger self: do make use of level automation! Not everything has to play at the same level all the time. This can be subtle or more drastic.
In mixing, especially in dance music where certain sections need to have certain impact, I often have breakdowns slightly quieter than drops. This means that the sections where you often don’t have bass, for example, play slightly quieter, and once the song drops, it gets 1-2 dB louder. It’s not something you necessarily “hear” but you “feel” it’s there.
I’ve also been doing this increasingly to sounds for the past few years and I just love it. So easy, so helpful. E.g., if I get a song to be mixed where there’s a guitar in the intro and it has some nice power there, but if it continues playing as loud once the main vocal comes in, I probably automate it to play a bit quieter. I may also raise its level slowly, increasingly towards a busier section that has to hit harder. Or, sometimes a sudden boost works better. Sometimes even automating the level of a hihat in a house song can be used to inject a bit of added energy to a section where things need to get a bit more lively. Or maybe you’ll have a ride that plays quiet in more mellow sections, and it jumps up by 4 dB when it’s time for action.
TL;DR:use level automation for sounds and song sections to emphasize or decrease their power in the mix! You’ll find that a few tactical level tweaks here and there may make everything fit much better all of a sudden and things feel less congested as not everything is fighting for the same attention all the time.
9) IF YOU WANT TO GO LOUD, START LOUD!
This can be an efficient method to learn mixing even if you don’t aim to go super loud: limit your song to desired level (btw I suggest 2 master limiters or more for a clean result) early on – this will reveal how well the mix can take it. Especially bass and low mids will easily distort if they’re too fat, congested, muddy, so the unideal mix will reveal itself, and you will have to clean it up.
Learning to mix so that it can actually be limited loud – while clean! – is a very efficient method for learning how to clean mixes up.
This also makes it a bit easier for the mastering engineer. Every now and then I get mixes that are a bit on the unideal side, while the client wants it pretty loud, but even by pulling out all the tricks in my bag, I can’t make it loud. In these cases, the producer might’ve got an idea that the mix isn’t ready yet (I do offer mix reviews, by the way, when needed).
BTW I want to emphasize that even though I’m known for providing really loud mixes and/or masters when they’re asked for, I’m not an advocate of loudness per se, but it’s still part of my job to offer it if the client wants it. An analogy would be offering super hot and spicy dishes when the customer wants it. Loud stuff made me an engineer, and later on of course I started working with less loud styles like house, hip hop, etc, and loudness-wise that’s easy when you’ve learned how to do fat, loud tunes.
10) IF YOU WANT TO GO LOUD, START LOUD!Part 2
If you want your music to be loud, bold, ballsy, and aggressive, learn to achieve it in the mix. Do not expect the mastering engineer to do it for you. Period. There’s been times when I’ve been sent a song that’s slightly on the wimpy side and I’m asked to make it aggressive and bold via mastering. Kind of cannot be done. Or, I can do what I can in mastering, but it ends up sounding kind of funny…like wimpy loud. A mastering engineer won’t make you sound like Noisia – it comes from your mix.
Saturation, clipping, EQ – whatever it takes. I understand it'd be useful to explain all this here, but this alone is a large topic, and would call for a post of its own (note to self for the future: this is a good topic).
Learn to achieve that ballsy, bold TONE and VIBE in the mix…it’s (mostly) there.
11) BUT CAN YOU EVEN GO LOUD OR CLEAN? SHOULD YOU GO MORE MINIMAL, BRO? WHAT ABOUT THAT SPACE IN YOUR MIX?
Not all tunes can even go loud that clean. What do I mean?
Well, pull up some loud, clean tunes that you like. One thing to consider is that they’re most often fairly minimal and sparse: they’re not super busy with 4 pads, loud guitars and leads, extra fat drums, and loud vocalist all playing at the same time – they’re usuallysomewhat minimal.
So think about the space in your mix. It’s easier to make a minimal tune clean (and loud, if it’s even desired), while the more elements you have, the more cluttered it gets, and that makes everything harder: mixing, space, dedicated “space” and room of sounds in the mix, making it somewhat loud etc.
As a producer, this has always been a challenge/issue for me, but it’s been an amazing learning process, all the same: I’ve often liked to make tunes that drop kind of minimal, but I love building it gradually, making it busier…and in two minutes, a song that starts kind of sparse is super full of sounds. That can, of course, be “a thing”, and it’s often been for me – and learning how to mix it can be a pretty long process, but honestly, it’s a GREAT feeling and skill when you learn it.
There, mixing and just toning down (the busy) elements go hand in hand.
Which takes us to…
12) WHEN EVERYTHING IS LOUD, NOTHING IS LOUD
Simple as that. “A wall of noise” can be a thing, but not necessarily desired. What I mean by that: everything really loud in the mix so that it just becomes too undefined…a loud wall of noise.
Most producers don’t want that.
Even if you want to go loud, study elements in loud songs: many elements aren’t actually that loud, and there’s definitely a hierarchy in terms of what goes loud and what has to stay in the background.
If your drums are loud and your bass is loud, you can probably fit a loud synth or a vocal there, but the rest have to stay in the background...you can’t make everything loud.
Often a mix is a like a good recipe…not all spices can have the main role.
Think of a really good-quality pizza where some ingredients shine: it’s not full of everything. And even if it has many elements, there are some elements that are sparse. Good mixes are often like that.
13) ELEMENTS OF A KICK
It took me a while to learn and understand that a kick can be thought of as having three elements: lows, mid body, and highs. When I was a young producer, I often just played with the level (and saturation), and it wasn’t enough.
Lows are what give the mix and kick weight, and this is super important in most genres, of course, but especially in house, techno, and hip hop, you often want it weighty, so get the lows right, but dont have it clash with the bass. In styles like dubby techno, the kick often is fairly subby, and mids and highs aren’t necessarily even that desired (total opposite: EDM, a snappy kick with not that much sub).
Its mids are what give it that presence. This also clashes the most with the music, so do get this right. While it can help the kick stand out in terms of its body, don’t have it interfere with the music toomuch.
Highs are what can help to have the kick cut thru the mix in a nice and snappy way. This is what I ignored by far the most when I was a young producer. Ever since, there’s been many times when a simple high shelf has been all that’s needed to help an otherwise perfect kick “raise its head” in the mix just the perfect amount.
All of these have their place, so mix the kick accordingly.
TIP 1: When the tone is right, a bit of transient boost can help (or something it’s good for cutting the punch, if the kick is punchy)…tools like Spiff are indispensable at this.
TIP 2: Saturation can work wonders in rounding a kick and giving it a bit of overall presence. I’ve often used Ableton Saturator for this, and there are other nice tools for sure…market is full of them, so pick your tool and give it a shot.
14) PLUGINS AND HEAVY LIFTING
Sharing the heavy lifting makes very much sense. A good example is master limiting: when you want to go loud, you’ll often find that using only one master limiting may result in distortion and pumping a bit too easily, while sharing the limiting between 2-3 limiters always yields a result that’s way more transparent.
Same goes with EQing: most digital EQs are fairly light, so instead of doing crazy boosts with one EQ, try sharing that between a few instances and see if you hear the difference.
In mastering, I have several EQs on the master, and I find that gives me an extra smooth result.
Also in vocal compression, I usually have two vocal comps in a row (UAD LA-3a and LA2A)…even when I need to restrict the dynamic range a lot, this way I can keep it transparent.
Even in master compression, I often use a few compressors for maximum smoothness.
If you’ve been heavy-handed this far, try this, and you may find the result is smoother.
15) EQ CUTS – WHEN TO GO NARROW, WHEN BROAD?
In a nutshell, narrow boosts result in an unnatural sound, and are hardly ever needed. The only times I’ve done narrow boosts have been when I’ve created a bit of punch in the fundamental frequency range of a kick – this works sometimes when done in the right spot in low-mids.
Other than that, always boost broad, as it yields a way, way more natural result. Every now and then I get mixes where I can spot a narrow boost, and in pretty much 100% of those cases, I ask the client to go broad, and the result is better.
Cutting, however, can be quite narrow, but also broad, depending. When you want to tame the overall tone of something that doesn’t have a clear, tight resonance somewhere – for example, when taming the high-mids of a synth or a vocal – go for a somewhat broad cut. I absolutely love the isolation functionality of Pro-Q (headphone icon) that allows you to hear the frequency range of the EQ node you’re moving…it’s so super useful in finding the range you want to tame.
If there’s a resonance, it usually needs a tighter cut. I do this to almost every kick in every mix: I scan the low-mids (120-150 Hz) with a narrow boost of 18 dB and cut where it starts to “howl” (you’ll know what I mean when you hear it). I cut there. I may do several of these cuts really close to each other, and this can really help to reshape a “blobby” kick to an almost new, classier kick. Try this, and you may be amazed how much you can do to a kick this way!
Also in some hihats and synthesized sounds there may tighter resonances, often fairly high, that can often seen visually. Use a tighter cut here. Try cutting till the sound isn’t harsh anymore (dynamic EQ that only cuts when the signal exceeds the set threshold may be your friend unless the resonance happens all the time); experiment with cutting too much, and you’ll then hear why narrow cutting can sound bad…you’ll cause this “hole” in the sound. Pull back a bit from here till it’s natural again.
Do a lot of on/off action especially with more drastic cuts or boosts to hear that you’re not overdoing it or making it unnatural!
16) DO NOT HIGHPASS EVERYTHING
Now let me do some repetition to hammer it home first:
Do not highpass everything. Do not highpass everything. Do not highpass everything.
Once more: Do not highpass everything.
OK, so “Why?” you ask, as you’ve seen people say online you should highpass everything. When people say if often enough (like that “Premasters/mixes must be leveled to -6 level” myth [which isn’t a bad thing, but a bit of a myth nevertheless]), it must be true, right? I’m going to be the guy who’s going to tell you otherwise.
The thing is, almost every single time I see the “highpass everything” rule I also see that the person who gives this advice does not bother to explain this much further. I also see a bit of “cut so high that it starts to get hollow, then pull it back a little”.
Now let me tell you I rarely highpass ANYTHING. And mixes come out nice, full, fat, and warm. Just ask my clients.
OK, I often highpass the master around 10–19 Hz, and sometimes a vocal track around 60–80 Hz OR something like a hihat if there’s some clearly unnecessary extra lows or even subs. Also if you record or sample from vinyl, you’ll see some insanely low freqs (as low as 10–20 Hz), which are OK to filter out. This type of cutting is OK, and you won’t hear it.
The “highpass everything” rule in general results in thin mixes, as producers end up cutting everything a bit, and too high, and this, little by little, track by track, thins out the mix, even if you don’t necessarily realize it. Every year, I get either tracks for a mix or premasters for mastering, and I listen it for a while and I notice it’s slightly thin, and I ask, “Any chance you’ve done highpassing on many tracks?” and the answer is usually positive, and I ask the producer to disable highpassing, and hey, the material comes back nice and fatter.
This leads us to…
17) DON’T HIGHPASS THAT VOCAL EITHER
Every now and then I get vocal tracks that sound thin, and it’s the same story here as well. Producers highpass their vocal tracks but don’t always know where it should happen and they go way too high, and it thins out the vocal, and there’s nothing I can do to put the body back into the sound when it’s been radically filtered out.
This is OK for very low mic rumble, but I wouldn’t advise going higher than, say, 60 or 70 Hz.
Dear diary, this actually happened today, too.
When you work with an engineer, it’s FINE to not highpass one single thing: leave it up to the engineer…it’s his job. We got ya.
18) SO HOW TO DEAL WITH THE LOW CLUTTER THEN?
In general, heck yes, there will be low clutter, boxiness, and congestion, but highpassing is mostly good for more radical, utilitarian cuts as mentioned above.
By far the most transparent way is to either low shelf or just bell cut things. That’s it.
For example, in vocals, most of the time you will have a bit of low-mid resonance, and that’s just normal: this is something that’s quite easy to see with an EQ, and it’s also very easy to cut out. In male vocals, for example, you’ll usually see two peaks. Just use an EQ that allows you to hear the EQ node range in isolation, find the “mumble” range, and this is a walk in the park. Only address those resonances, and the result is natural, while highpassing that range means instant thinning of the vocal, and we don’t want it.
TBH, the first step in “non-homebrewizing” a vocal is cut those low resonances found in almost every non-processed vocal.
A lot of instruments have extra weight and boxiness between 150–700 Hz: find it there and cut it out and you’ll find things may get nicely less congested. So, go very easy on highpassing and use more natural means of cutting for a more natural result.
19) USE STRONG REFERENCE SONGS
One of the things that seriously pimped my production game was realizing I should produce and mix against good reference songs.
I forgot who said, “Mixing without a reference song is like making a smoothie without a lid on the blender”, and while it may be slightly wild, depending on one’s mixing skills, I definitely do agree to an extent.
Our ears adapt very well and very quickly – and they also do that with a mix when it’s not great.
Whipping out a reference song will tell your ears, “This is how it should sound, roughly”, and you’ll hear the shortcomings in your mix more easily: lacking brightness, often too much or too little sub, drums maybe too loud, stereo maybe a tad too wide…you get the gist.
Just make sure to match the level, as even a 2 dB difference makes it harder, because even if your ref song plays 2 dB louder, it’ll sound that much better just because of that.
So either bring your reference songs down OR limit your song as loud as the refs, or find a good middle ground (earlier in this post, I mentioned mixing loud early on, and that’s what I was doing for a while).
I still use reference songs all the time, in both mixing and mastering, as even though I know the sound of my room well, I have to appreciate the nuances that my clients prefer in my work.
You could either have reference songs in your song project on its tracks (I’ll be doing a Patreon-exclusive video on how to do a mastering project in your DAW that allows for quick, efficient referencing with songs in it) OR have “montages” of trusted reference songs. I find both extremely useful. I have reference song montages for all genres that I work with. This can technically be done with any audio editor in the world: just have fitting songs back-to-back, set their levels somewhat equal, and that’s it. For this, I use Wavelab, as it allows for easy creating of so-called montages, and it even allows for tabbing between montages. What I can appreciate is that Wavelab doesn’t actually create a new audio file out of the tracks: it only refers to them, so they don’t take up HD space.
Montages are great as you can jump between songs super fast and have your exported song there, so you can compare yours to reference songs very easily and quickly this way.
Every time I mix/master an EP, I place its songs on a montage and jump between the songs to observe if the tone is coherent between songs and adjust the project accordingly, export again, etc.
TIP!The shorter the time between hearing the reference song and your song, the more efficient the referencing. I do a LOT of super fast CMD-tabbing on my Mac to switch real fast between the ref montage and the song I work with, and I can recommend this highly.
20) MAKE MORE SONGS
…and learn from them. All the things and mistakes you learn from a song will help you with your next songs. Sometimes it’s not worth polishing a song for weeks if it’s just been produced in a way that doesn’t allow for full fixing…sometimes things are messy etc.Sometimes it’s best to move on instead of wasting time on a song and realize that you have probably learned something.
Making 15 songs will teach you more about your own way or producing music than honing 4 songs to absolute “perfection”.
And, somehow, at least in my case, it’s never the songs I’ve worked ages on and lost some sleep over are never the ones that people like the most. Go figure.
21) LEARN FROM OTHERS
Learning from others can be an amazing resource: seeing how other producers make and mix their music can be very useful and help you to understand where you could do better or how you could tackle some things more efficiently.
The web sure is full of videos of people producing music, mixing music, etc., and if you can collaborate with others, I can almost guarantee you will pick up things along the way and also see different ways of doing things.
There are also many paid courses and video series about mixing music, and also, nothing’s more entertaining and educational than production masterclasses, and I still enjoy watching them myself (mags like Computer Music are a superb resource, for example, in terms of all things production).
If you know of a producer whose mixes and production you like, don’t hesitate to get in touch with them and enquire if they’re willing to help even with just some general questions. While not everybody is up for this, some love to help. Do take into account that not everybody is willing to help for free and it can be rude to expect that, so at least a small donation can feel good.
Also, mixing-wise, not to wave my own flag too much, but it’s part of my job to help producers with mixing and production issues. While I do a lot of “just” mixing and mastering, I also do videos of what I’ve done to my client mixes, and they surely have helped many.
I also help with general production topics, and the higher Patreon tiers offer just that. I absolutely love discussing music, production, and mixing.
Also feel free to get in touch directly, and I’d be happy to help.
While I'm still working on the next two posts (mixing post, then video), I wanted to dig up this vlog post from a few years back. It's about motivation in making music, musical career, and rewards.
I didn't make much noise about this back then, but I think the content is still highly relevant.
I hope it's useful.
Let me know how you've been doing. New content SOON.
I get asked about plugins a lot, and I wanted to do a post about some of the plugins I use the most.
I have and use WAY more plugins than these, but these are the ones I use by far the most in mixing, music production and mastering (this post is less about mastering, though, which’d kind of be a chapter of its own, but mastering-capable plugins are mentioned, too). I mix and master music for my living every day (Facebook link / rates list) and also make music actively (Bandcamp), and, to be frank, these are the ones that see the most regular use, and most of these I wouldn’t want to let go, as I find them dear to me. These plugins are for audio processing / mixing / mastering. I had to leave instruments out, as that’d also be a chapter of its own and would warrant its own post (note to self for the future).
Writing this, I definitely felt I want to do posts later on: • some more special plugins, • some esoteric ones, and • great free plugins I love.
PS: Feel free to ask stuff, and I’ll try to reply. PPS: If you need mixing and mastering or music production help, please contact me at fanusamurai@gmail.com about that (notice that I also have tiers for those, and public mixing and mastering rates list is here). PPPS: Feel free to mention in the comments what YOU use the most!
Without further ado…here we go!
FABFILTER PRO-Q3
I can’t lie: I haven’t used any other EQ as much as this one (and Pro-Q2) since it came out. It seems to be the favorite EQ of many producers and engineers, and there’s a reason why. Sound-wise many other digital EQs would suffice as well, but let me tell you why I like this one.
1) GUI. It just looks good. But it’s not the looks for me: small things like double-clicking to create an EQ node make a massive difference when you work on hundreds of songs per year like I do (one reason why I don’t use Ableton EQs as often: you can’t create an EQ node by double-clicking…may sound small, but it’s annoying when you should use that tool every single workday of the year).
2) Sidechaining. V3 introduced sidechain dynamics, and it just works so well (I’ve done a video on this, so I won’t go deeper on it in writing: https://www.patreon.com/posts/38671166), and it also looks good: I love seeing the incoming trigger signal, which makes very accurate sidechaining in a kick/bass sidechain scenario enjoyable. It doesn’t have time parameters, but I’ve found it always works well. I use it mostly to: • make room for main instruments in a mix,
• carve the kick frequency dynamically out of the bass
• any basic EQing needs in both mixing and mastering (it also offers a liner phase mode)
• cutting and massaging the low-mids of a kick drum and sometimes largely re-shaping its sound.
3) Dynamics. It’s such a great tool, as it can act like a compressor (taming a freq range once it exceeds a set threshold) and like an expander (boost a freq range once it exceeds a set threshold). I use the former to slightly “compress” a snare range in mastering, for example, and also expand the snare range if I find a snare is too quiet in the master. It just works, and you’d be surprised how well the expansion can pull out the midrange energy dynamically.
4) Resonance peakfreeze. You get this “freeze” view where the resonant peaks slow down and freeze, and you can literally pull them down. Now, with v3, you can do that dynamically, too, for an even more transparent result! I don’t do this that much anymore, as I use oeksound Soothe for resonances a lot…more about that later!
(Honorable mention: Ableton EQ8. I can’t say it does anything that Pro-Q3 won’t – it does less. But it’s an extremely light bread-and-butter EQ. If it had the same features that Pro-Q3 did, I’d use it way more. Honestly, I’d kill just to have double-clicking create an EQ node, but it doesn’t do it. Also, it doesn’t have a linear phase mode that’s better for mastering; it’s a minimum phase EQ, just like all other Ableton plugs, and they’re very OK for mixing of course.)
UAD PULTEC EQ
I almost exclusively use this on kicks or drum busses that needs some fattening.
It just works – I’ll be honest, I’ve never compared it to any other EQs, so maybe it’s just a good EQ curve or maybe there is some of that good old analog-emulated mojo at play.
After all, UAD are known for emulating legendary analog gear, and Pultec EQ sure stands among the very classics.
It also offers you a way to attenuate the bass range in addition to boosting, which, I believe, is part of the Pultec charm, but as funny as it may sound, I’ve never used it!
I’ve also used the high boost that it offers on a drum bus or a kick a few times, and it sounds good, too (TIP: if your kick isn’t cutting thru the mix, try boosting its highs instead of lows!)
Certain elements of IZOTOPE OZONE
I won’t go into everything that Ozone does – you can find plenty of documentation about it online. I do use ALL of its modules, but these ones are the most special/irreplaceable/amazing. Ozone is a multi-module mastering plugin that offers a great variety of different plugins.
I’ll list the ones I use heavily.
• Exciter. Now the low-mid band of this plugin is strictly indispensable in my mastering work, as it allows me to pull out this certain “fullness” in the lower midrange that you just cannot do with an EQ. Getting the rich low-mid tone right is often one of the most critical parts in mastering for me, as I work a lot with bass music, and it helps me to get the low-mid more “audible”: this affects kicks, snares, bass, pads – everything. I know this is very hard to describe with words, but sometimes a slightly wimpy and cold-sounding mix turns into a nicely “fuller” and more pleasant one when you get this up. I literally would not want to let this guy go! I do also use it sometimes to excite the high-mids for energy, and sometimes the very highs for sparkle and sheen (more about this in this very post), but I also have other tools for that...but I don’t have another tool that does what the low-mid excitation does.
• Master Rebalance. This is a fairly new yet super useful and exciting module that allows you to control the bass/vocal/drums levels by several decibels. It’s obviously not 100% as precise as adjusting that in the mix but it does a really good job nevertheless (I’d guess it uses the same algorithm that Izotope RX does). It has definitely made me send out fewer of those emails to producers saying, “Can you turn the drums/bass/vocals up in the mix by 2 dB and resend?” and any plugin that makes me email my clients less is a good one (when I mix and master a song, I don’t have to ask for that, or use this device, as I can set the levels myself when working with separate tracks, while in mastering you work with one file: the master bounce that the producer sent you). I love this one. Ozone Advanced gives you its modules as separate plugins, and there’s been times I’ve used 2 or 3 of these on a master. The only downside is that it’s very heavy and causes serious latency, but in mastering that is OK (while that’d suck in making music…you couldn’t play and record anything in real-time).
• Maximizer. A mastering engineer needs a good limiter or a few, and this is one of those. I’ll write more about this in the limiter section.
Now let me say that all Ozone modules are GREAT and I use most of them all the time – it’s just these three (especially the first two) are something I find super indispensable.
(Honorable mention: Dynamics module, a great multiband mastering compressor, which I use when needed, but if I get to do the mix, I won’t need it, as I get everything right in the mix).
LIMITERS
These are also called maximizers.
The main reason I need these is I master songs for producers, and the final step in mastering is making the song louder.
Technically speaking, a limiter won’t allow peaks to go above a set threshold, which allows for making the signal louder by raising its level without it distorting (due to the peaks that’d otherwise shoot over zero and cause distortion at digital-to-analog conversion stage). A limiter is technically a compressor that keeps pushing the peaks down very fast. By the way, don’t confuse this with a clipper, which actually clips off everything that’d go over the set threshold, which can also kind of be used for limiter-type work but it causes distortion more easily. A decent free clipper is in Limiter no6 by VladG, by the way, that I many many years ago I even used as a cheap “limiter” in some experiments, and it sounds surprisingly good, but for the record, I don’t suggest that for any professional song-limiting work!
The limiter I use the most is IzotopeOzone Maximizer, which is a fast limiter that hardly ever requires any messing with its parameters, but I’ve found that out of its several operating modes, IRC III is the only one that works perfectly for me. In a nutshell, the other ones have let me down several times, either by going kind of soft or distorting (even though afaik IRC IV should be the most advanced one).
I also happen to have Invisible Limiter 2 by AOM, which is very similar to Ozone Maximizer sound-wise, and I can fully recommend it, as it can go very loud while being very clean and transparent.
One notable difference between the Ozone and AOM limiter is that the latter does not have a built-in feature for eliminating inter-sample peaks, which, in a nutshell, are very quick short peaks that shoot over zero and may cause distortion especially in some cheaper systems (there are not something your DAW or even audio interface might be able to register and show, so they’re a bit tricky). However, this can be done with Invisible Limiter by setting its ceiling to around -0.3 and Quality setting to 3 (I might have to double-check this, but IIRC this does it).
I also have and use a limiter called Limitless by DMGaudio, which offers a bit of a dynamic, flexible limiting which can be slightly slower than that of Ozone or AOM limiters, but in such way that you can’t tell that it’s any slow. Whenever I run into scenarios that I get a little too much distortion in low-mids in master limiting, I usually pull Limitless out, and it often helps. Limitless can also work in an EQ type way in terms of boosts and cuts and it also has a great clipper, so it’s a true tweaker’s dream in many ways.
For the record, I hardly ever limit the tracks* of a song unless master limiting seems to pose some issues that the master limiter cannot tackle. Kind of relating to this, I highly suggest using several master limiters when mastering loud, bass-heavy music: sharing the heavy lifting between 2–3 limiters allows for a more transparent result, while using one master limiter heavily can often result in either pumping, distortion, or softened transients.
(* = sometimes I clip bass sounds purely for a more aggressive bass tone – think of “Metalheadz type” bass. For this, for example the clipper of Limitless is great)
SLATE DIGITAL REVIVAL
This is a great “very high frequency amazingizer”! I find this ridiculously good in getting that contemporary high sheen right…indispensable in last stages of mixing/mastering and getting that very high frequency energy there. Think hihat tops, shakers, drum tops, etc.
EQs don’t do what this guy does. The best thing? It’s free. It’s ridiculous that a plugin this good doesn’t have a price tag.
I use this in literally hundreds of songs per year. Love all other Slate stuff too.
The Exciter module of Izotope Ozone can do similar stuff, but I still find this better and somehow sharper.
SLATE DIGITALVIRTUAL TAPE MACHINE
This is literally always on on the master track when mastering, so I run hundreds of songs thru it every year.
It can be very subtle, but you can also push it harder if you want more saturation in the mix. It can even shave off crazy transients if need be (see section on Oeksound Spiff) in a nice, musical way.
I use it in a subtle way in mastering (mastering is more subtle than mixing) in such way that it adds a bit of “girth”, which is literally impossible to describe in words. I remember the first time I tested the tape, I realized I want it, as the “size” it adds is very classy. You can also use it to add a bit of bass (TIP: by default it adds around 3 dB of bass, so make sure to make it -3 in its settings to have it add no bass).
It has a few different tape model settings; some sound a bit more hi-fi, and some slightly less bright.
Technically a tape adds this musical harmonic saturation which is often perceived as very pleasant, and that’s where the tape magic lies. It’s definitely more subtle than a “whoaaahh” effect, but it does make a difference.
I’ve found that some models distort more easily than some others, so gotta watch out for low/low-mid distortion; especially in a kind of sparse but bass heavy music (like bassy house) the added distortion is easy to perceive, so gotta hone things carefully not to make it too roasted, as good as it sounds!
FABFILTER SATURN
Favorite tool for bass distortion needs (NEXT VIDEO WILL BE ABOUT THIS).
When mixing bass and feeling it’s going to need a little help in its harmonics, this is the key.
This plugin allows you to create several bands and saturate them independently of each other, and the bands have an EQ, too.
This is a godsend in making a fairly subby bass with not enough harmonics cut thru the mix and also making it nice and audible from smaller speakers. I always then check the bass from my iMac speaker and Mixcube, and if I can hear it from them, boom, job done.
The recent v2 also brought some transformer models, which are suitable in bringing in some desired harmonics in mastering. I've already used those a few times. As a mastering engineer, I feel that there IS such thing a a song that's a bit too clean, and a hint of that vibe can work as the slight spice the song needs.
I absolutely love doing this; I won’t write more in length about this, as a video will come very soon!
I use Ableton Live’s Saturator in a similar way, but I use Multiband Dynamics to create three bands, so I can leave sub unprocessed.
OEKSOUND SOOTHE
This is from the website: soothe2is a dynamic resonance suppressor. It identifies problematic resonances on the fly and applies matching reduction automatically. This results in a smoother, more balanced sound and saves you from having to notch out the frequencies by hand. The reduction kicks in only when and where needed without affecting the nearby frequency areas. This preserves the timbre of the original sound source and results in transparent treatment with minimal artefacts.
And I agree: it’s like an intelligent dynamic EQ that does a lot of the harshness-cutting work for you. You can use it to emphasize frequency ranges as you wish. I use this in both mixing and mastering, as it works so well. What’s super useful is its Delta mode, which lets you hear only what it’s taking out. I mostly use it for mids and high-mids, where it excels.
It’s already saved me a ton of time, and I sure don’t miss dynamic EQ notching anymore (I still do it a little bit every now and then, but not often)! It used to be h*ll in vocal mixing to automate complex dynamic notches here and there, and while I still may do a bit of that to be super-nerdy, Soothe handles 80-100% of that work for me.
Examples: resonant snare in mastering, shrill vocal in mixing, harsh cymbal in drumloops or masters (cymbals are often too loud and bright in many mixes), a pokey trap hihat (trap hihats are always too loud in mixes) etc.
Want to sing high praise for this one!
OEKSOUND SPIFF
This is by the same company that made Soothe (they’re Finnish like me, yay). This is a transient tool. If you don’t know what a transient is, it’s the very short initial “snap” of a sound. Technically not all sounds have transients: think of a slow ambient pad – there’s no snap or click. Transients are not quite the same thing as “punch”, although I find that term is more vague than transient. Transients are not as much a part of the body of the sound, which I feel comes after the transients. Anyways, I’m nerding! (what can you expect of an audio engineer, though)
I mostly use this for drumsounds, but have used it in mixes for stuff like guitars etc for a few times. E.g., sometimes when drumsounds feel a bit “soft” or “loose”, emphasizing their transients helps to make them a bit more “snappy” and they can cut thru the mix a bit better, which also contributes to the energy a little bit.
I literally don’t use other transient plugins anymore: this is all I need. What’s great about this is that it can also shave transients off, which is nothing short of a godsend when dealing with overly transient-emphasized songs or tracks.
TIP: if, when working on your song, you run it into a master limiter and you use transient boosts, make sure to flick the master limiter off every now and then to hear it’s not all overdone. Flicking the limiter off easily reveals if you’re overcooking it. This is sometimes an issue when a producer sends me his mix to be mastered, and prior to exporting it, he disables master limiter without listening, and I get the super-snappy version. I can kind of smash the super transients most of the time, but I wish I didn’t have to. There’s been times where Spiff has taken care of it all. Sometimes I also get, for example, kick tracks in mixing, where it’s just too snappy (too much is too much, trust me – think about an overcooked EDM-type kick) and it can ruin the mix. Spiff usually shaves as much of the snappiness off as is needed.
A truly great plugin.
VALHALLA VINTAGEVERB
My most often used reverb for sure: it’s the mainstay of my default Ableton Live project (I’ll do a video about Ableton Live default set considerations…hold tight, it’s coming!) and has been that for as long as this plugin has been available.
I’ve found that with long reverbs, it’s more lush and somehow classier than for example Ableton Reverb (more about it below).
The plugin offers several different models, and the GUI shows you nice info on how the different models sound.
Most of the time I use this as a 7–8-second reverb for general ambience, with predelay set to 20 ms, lowcut around 800 Hz and highcut at 8000 Hz.
I’ll be honest: I’m not a reverb nerd as much as I’m a nerd with many other things. But this is definitely a great all-rounder, and the price really makes it a no-brainer.
UAD Lexicon 224
Now when I want LONG lush ambience reverbs, there really isn’t anything like this. The feedback of the tail is just divine and thick, and there’s this special something that I’d call resonance or something that really brings the sound to life. Think fat chords or ambience sounds you want to fade for a really long time…this adds something unique to them. I’ve never even tried to use this as a short reverb, while I bet it’s great at that. There’s definitely something special in the Lexicon sauce; this is modeled after a highly-coveted hardware reverb (which is all digital, so I assume modeling has been easier than hardware modeling).
ABLETON REVERB
Somehow I only use this for drums, while this obviously could be used on anything, but as the two reverbs listed above tell you, I’m quite covered. I find this is AMAZING for drums – especially when you need this short “filler” reverb for a drumsound (e.g., a snare) that is a little too short. I absolutely love making this one quite thick (don’t cut too much out of the lows), keeping it 100% mono, finding the perfect dry/wet ratio, and then finding the perfect “added length”. It’s just so good, you really won’t realize it’s there, but when you flick it off, you’ll feel “Oh wow that drumsound got too short”. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t like long washy snares, no, but sometimes when I mix songs, especially sparse mixes, a thin/short snare may feel too short, and this reverb is just the ticket for adding a little bit of short thickess to it. It actually works very well as a short, wide reverb, too: think of trap with a clap that has to be wide but not long. Like a client of mine said, “I can’t stand a clap that’s too dry or mono”. Ableton Reverb FTW!
(Honorable reverb mention: Aegean Spirit Reverb. A VERY "springy" spring reverb. I never have it on, but absolutely love doing dubby "throws" into it.)
These are great bread-and-butter compressors that do most of your everyday standard compression needs, to be honest, so don’t let their simple GUI fool you.
It’s easier for me to say what they do NOT do, actually: they don’t do very slow opto compression (I do this when very slowly controlling some section levels in mastering, for example, and for this I use UAD Shadow Hills and Manley Vari-Mu comps) and this very punchy FET compression (designed to keep more transients and emphasize punch – think classic 1176). They also don’t really add much character, but even Ableton Live alone offers you great tools for that (actually that right there is a good topic for the future).
For your everyday “utilitarian” compression needs, these are all you need. They even do sidechaining (I love it how easy it is to set up in Live), and the basic Compressor gives you visual info on what’s happening gain-reduction-wise.
A very typical compression scenario (out of many) where these comps just shine: a speech track. Typical speech tends to vary a lot in level, and especially when it’s mixed with music, there’s going to be parts that are either too loud or too quiet. As a starting point, try 5-10 ms attack, 50 ms release, 2:1 – 5:1 ratio, feel free to do quite a few dB of compression (you’ll hear it when it’s overcooked), and you’ll find that the speech track becomes way easier and nicer to hear.
Glue is a more simplified compressor with controls that only have a few positions, which, in all honesty, can sometimes help (so you don’t get too nerdy). It’s based on an SSL bus compressor, and works very well in a lively drum bus, for example, where you need to keep the levels in check – try 10–30 ms attack time, release as fast as it goes, ratio either 2 or 4, and bring the threshold down to get around 5 dB worth of compression: this can nicely “unify” the levels of all drums in the drum bus. Also feel free to experiment with numbers! Use your ears as your guide, as always in audio stuff.
UAD LA2 and LA-3a compressors
Very briefly put, I find these excel in vocal compression, and I often have them both in my vocal mixing chain, never hammering either heavily, and the result is extra smooth.
I mix vocal music regularly, and I need some staples, and I can’t remember the last time I used something else for compressing vocals. As much as I love nerding out, I can still appreciate efficient one-knob plugins, and these guys are classics for a reason: in vocal compression, they're amazing – not too fast, not too slow, and they truly do the job.
I’ve found that especially LA-3a can offer some more aggressive character if you run the signal loud into it. There’s been a few cases where it’s been needed – e.g., if some trap vocals have sounded a bit too tame, this has often been the cure. It’s slightly “radio-soundish” when pushed, for a lack of a better term (if you run safe levels, you don’t get it, so have to run the signal hotter into it to get some vibe).
Voxengo MSED
There's a lot of nice and wide sounds that can't take monoing very well, and I face those in my work all the time, literally. What do I mean by this? When you play the sounds in mono, you notice its level drops a lot. This is because of poor mono compatibility / phase correlation. Always get the mono power/level right first: play the sound in mono, and if it loses level, raise its mid gain – that’s all you need to do. Voxengo MSED allows you to do this. Every now and then I get premasters where I notice this. I can fix this entirely when I'm mixing a song, but when I'm only mastering it, I cannot. To address/fix mono compatibility issues in the mix is easy, though; plugins such as (free) Voxengo MSED allow you to control the mid and side levels independently. Play the song/sound in mono, raise the mid gain for sounds till they're loud enough in mono. After that, flick it back to stereo, and set stereo width to taste. That’s it: you’ve improved the mono compatibility of the sound. TIP: Voxengo SPAN, a free analyzer, has a phase correlation meter for seeing this. In a nutshell, the more the meter leans to the right (listen to the sound soloed and not the whole song), the better it plays in mono (you can test this of course), while if it leans more to the left, it means phase correlation is poor, and it most likely drops in level in mono.
PHEW. If you made it this far, I salute you!
Looking at this list, it looks so short, considering how many plugins I actually use and even a quick look at my plugin list makes me think I gotta mention this and that and at least 20 more plugins. But I gotta limit this somehow and stop it somewhere, as I don’t want you guys to fall asleep, have you run away screaming, or faint.
I hope some of this is useful.
Till the next time!
PS: Next video coming soon, along the lines of "How to roast basses with Fabfilter Saturn 2 and make them more audible on audio systems with poor bass".
PPS: I MASSIVELY appreciate all you paying members…you totally rock and encourage me to do even more of this. I’ve been supported WAY better than I anticipated in the beginning. I was thinking of making this post a paid post, but I feel somehow that free content reaches people, and at least I’ve seen that people like supporting me even based on the free content. It warms me up inside hearing "I've been enjoying your content for years and want to support you". I truly do appreciate ya’ll.
PPPS: I’ve also truly enjoyed helping those who are paying for a music production help tier. Music production / mixing / mastering is literally my life and I do it every day, and I really just love to help, talk with people about songs, nerdy audio stuff etc…so keep it coming. (TBVH, I’ll soon have to limit the capacity of some of the production help tiers not to get too much work as I’m fairly booked with all I do as it is)
Now, time for a well-earned Finnish craft beer…keep on musicizing ya’ll!
(I'm still working on My most used plugins post…will come SOON though! It just takes a lot of writing, but will be worth it)
What I know about many music-makers out there based on asking them what’s challenging to them about making music is that many of them often say that finishing a song is one of the hardest parts when it comes to making music – or, coming up with enough ideas so that the song would be easy to finish. Seems many are struggling with 16-bar loops (or loops of any length that are not forming into songs).
Making new loops IS very much fun, yeah?
I wanted to share with you what’s been helping me tremendously in terms of actually being able to write songs instead of those frustrating loops. Also, seems many are good at writing those loops, so my technique is also built around being able to create a loop. This tip mostly relates to using Ableton Live due to its session view, but this can be done with any DAW, technically.
What was a game-changer for me about Ableton Live is its session view with its non-linear approach. Trust me, in the past I was often in a situation where I have created an intro pad and hihats with some bass etc., and I’m looking at the linear timeline, thinking, “Oh god, I still have so long to go before this is a song”, and that right there is intimidating and it feels like you have to run 20 kilometers to get anywhere. I’d add 16 bars of intro beats and watch the linear timeline again, feeling I didn’t make that much progress, trying to think what I’d add next to make it longer. This is slow and kills the joy quick.
What’s helped me is what’s so great about Ableton Live (it’s also one of its biggest strengths and differences compared to other DAWs): its Session View. It’s basically a sketchpad where you can drag things real quick from the browser or Finder/Explorer, loop them, create sections, layer ideas etc. without having to look at a linear timeline. That part is definitely fun, and making music should be FUN, right?
So, what I do these days I often create one really busy section (a “scene” in Ableton Live) in Session View which contains an absolute ton of stuff playing simultaneously, up to a point where there’s so much it sounds ridiculous, and you could not play that much at the same time without it sounding too busy. This IS fun: finding things that go well with the theme and the mood of the song – creating synthlines, little filler sounds, fills, variations of drum clips etc. We all can probably agree that that sort of "work" is enjoyable, because it's stress-free playing with musical ideas. I keep piling things till I think I have enough. I don’t think of the song length at that point.
Once it's really busy, I know I have enough ingredients for a song, so I won’t end up in the “Uhh, I don’t know what to do next” situation. Basically, at that point I’m still not looking at linear time at all, because in Session View it doesn’t exist….so it’s all fun till that point as I’m not “working hard” or anything, its just fun creating that one superloop megascene.
So all I have to do then is to spread all those things around (either to other scenes to form sections for the song or to arrangement) to create a full song. E.g., I grab the busy drums clip from the megascene, make a less busy variation of it for an intro section, then build it towards the busy one. I do this for all clips in my megascene (not all of them necessarily need thinning, though).
TL;DR: I think that first creating a very busy section with a lot of ideas and then working towards it and also away from it is pretty much fun and not as stressful as building a song part by part where you have to stress your brain trying to think what the next 16 bars should do.
You could compare this to gathering all ingredients you need for a cake before starting to bake it – as how can you bake a cake if you don’t have all it needs? Or, think of this as putting a big pile or butter in one spot on a piece of bread, then just spreading it all evenly.
This was a big selling point for me about Ableton Live: I realized Session View is way more fun for me than trying to work with a traditional sequencer where this sort of song-planning is not nearly as easy and convenient.
You can kind of do this with other DAWs, but you won't be able to trigger clips laying around here and there – you're stuck with the loop in one place on the arrangement. (btw I'm not trying to sell Ableton Live to you; I don't get one Yen of its sales or anything)
Does this make sense to you? What methods do you have to overcome the 16-bar-loop problem? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter!
Really just wanted to say it real quick: thank you! I'm honestly extremely grateful to all of you who're "here" and who have subscribed. It's started WAY nicer than I anticipated, which most definitely fuels my fire doing this.
I hope you all have been able to work on music during these (don't say it, don't say it…) unprecedented times! I sure have, as I honestly feel working on music IS one of those things that help us stay sane during these (don't say it, don't say it…) crazy times! Aside from making music, I've taken up scratching with some good zest. I turned 40 in March and man lemme tell you I feel like I've just started on this musical path…this is a gift that keeps on giving, as corny as that may sound.
I have a LOOONG list of stuff I want to unleash on you guys. Next upcoming post: "Plugins I use the most". It'll actually be the first "paid post" – meaning that it's the first non-free fully written post.
I just had a Zoom session with a producer who asked me what plugins I use the most, which inspired me to list them. So, you know what will be coming next. I have topics for the next year or so!
Anyways....keep on making that music, and thanks for being with me on this ride! Next post will take a moment to finish writing, but I hope it'll be worth it.
This is a pack of bass sounds I recorded from my analog Microbrute synth. It’s a small, monophonic beast that creates some pretty hefty bass sounds. The sounds in the pack are not anything super dirty, but they have nice (over)tones that will cut nicely thru your mix, and also, they should be something you can sculpt into many different shapes yourself.
I want to be doing these mixing quicktips every now and then instead of doing videos every time...so here's mixing quicktip #1.
When I was young and learning this and that about music production (man, there wasn't much info online back then!), my biggest mistake in boosting kicks, when I wanted some punch, was often boosting its lows/fundamental…which doesn't really contribute to being more "audible" or punchy...it adds weight, which is often necessary as well, of course.
Instead, I've learned that boosting the second harmonic of the kick often adds that "punch".
What is the second harmonic, then? For example, if the fundamental frequency – the lowest/loudest peaking frequency – is 75 Hz (also known as the first harmonic) like in that pic, then the second harmonic will be 150 Hz (75 * 2 = 100 Hz). I've found that this is often where a lot of the punch/force of the kick lies.
I even do this in mastering when there's a really low kick and I need to dig its punch up a bit.
Try this the next time you're mixing kicks and let me know how it goes!
PS: I love Pro-Q and its frequency freeze feature (like seen in the pic) that can be great for quickly seeing the strong peaks.
More tips will come! Let me know what you'd like to hear about :)
Here's a quick public demo video of the SP-12 Drum Rack for Ableton Live 10. It's available for paying members. To get it, access the post that was done before this one and you'll find a download link there.
If you want to just "buy" this and not become a member: You can do it by subscribing to any tier that is worth 5 EUR or more (basically all tiers except the cheapest one) and you can also immediately unsubscribe: you'll get charged for the purchase but not in the future.
Earlier I posted an audio file of these (I recorded the sounds from my SP-12), but wanted to make a nice drum rack out of it.
Please don't share, as this is only available for paying Patrons! It actually did take some time to make this, and the video. But pls feel free to let ppl know.
Hope you like! You can edit all the mappings to your liking of course: just enter the Map mode by clicking on the Map button next to the title of the drum rack device!
If compression is a bit of a gray area for you, this crash course video will demonstrate to you what it is. I'm using Live's stock compressor, which is a very useful compressor in most compression scenarios.
These are available for all those who are on Support team member tier or higher.
Please do not share the link with anyone, as it's not public or free, but do let ppl know of my Patreon.
They're nice and chunky; they're kind of eighties (the machine is from eighties), but highly mallable, I'd say. My SP-12 was sent to me by a good friend, Jason from Singapore. Hats off to you, Jason!
Showing you a quick tip and one of my favorite mixing “tricks” with FabFilter Pro-Q3: sidechained dynamic EQing. Basically one track is telling the EQ on another track to cut the signal whenever the signal plays. You can use this in a very broad "compressor style" or get very specific. Showing them both in the video.
(I wrote this in 2015, but it still largely applies)
Every once in a while, I get asked for some general tips for making music by those who haven't been making it very long. Me, I’ve been making music for nearly decades, and made "a few" tunes every now and then, so maybe that’s why. Or, at least that’s an indication that I manage to finish my feeble efforts.
File this one under “useful tips for beginners”, but there may be something for everyone, to be honest. I’m definitely not a “master” of making music, but these topics are something I can look back on and say at least I’ve learned something valuable regarding them and all of this is based on experience.
These are in no particular order.
1) DO YOUR OWN THING. Yes, yes, this is what everybody says, and you’ve probably figured it out yourself. But we mean it. It’s absolutely fine to start by copying others’ styles as well as sounds* to get going, but in the end, to make it “worth it” and keep it interesting for you, there’s no better “point” in making music than making it yours, for yourself, because it’s only that way that truly unique voices are born. And you probably won’t stick out of the crowd if you’re not unique to an extent. Besides, you know we can’t listen to any more of Skrillex clones, another Noisia clone or another boring two-pence neuro artist at this point anyways (did you know that “onion burger” is anagram for “boring neuro”? Now you do. Thanks to Trisector for pointing that out). (* = you’ll probably find out that most of those sounds were actually pretty easy to make, anyways, so now make/find your own or mangle them so that they become yours)
2) DON’T ALWAYS WORK FOR SONGS – WORK FOR FUN AND IDEAS. This is quite crucial, and I’ve read so many times something along the lines of “I’ve been making music for two years but I’m failing to finish songs, and I’ve only made six so far…but I try really hard.” I know all about the frustration when it happens: you fail to finish a song. You spent your valuable time on it…and it didn’t end up becoming a song even though that’s what you had in mind when you started working. That sucks. The “I must write a song” mindstate isn’t always very encouraging, for it demands results from the get-go, and strictly aims at results – now that’s pressure, and pressure kills fun….and what should making music be, for the most part? Yes: fun. Not “hard work”. So, work for fun and ideas, and quite often you’ll feel quite liberated and hey, the chances are that soon you’ll actually be working around the new idea towards a song. And, if it starts feeling like this idea isn’t going to be a song, it’s OK. Just keep the good idea you created so you can use it in a future project. Maybe save those with a uniform prefix in the filename (idea_SoulPrideBreak, idea_ReeseBass10) or something like that. This way, there are no failures.
3) LISTEN TO MUSIC. Pretty simple, huh? This is to inspire you – both on a conscious level but also subconsciously. Your productivity needs fuel. On a conscious level, listen to sounds you’ll sample (either sample it right away or keep a notepad about them), listen to inspiring ideas or structures in songs (I do that every time I hear a song on a bus, at a restaurant, etc, and especially if it’s a really bad song, it’s a great idea to try and pick something useful out of it instead of dreaming of napalming the band…try it next time!), listen to how some producers use some effects in a creative way, etc…as those little ideas often inspire you to try that yourself, and hey, you’ll be working towards a song again. Subconscious level…now that takes care of itself without you having to take part in it. Listening to music that’s from outside your main genre IS important. I do a lot of drum and bass, always have, and let me be honest and say (even though I sound old and grumpy…hey, I am old and grumpy and I’m proud of it) I miss those days of D&B when producers in general were way more inspired by just music in general rather their main genre. I don't really listen to DNB much even though I make it. So, get inspired by music, not just your “main genre music”. And that may well be subconscious.
4) 15 LESS-THAN-PERFECT SONGS IN A YEAR GETS YOU WAY FURTHER THAN 5 ÜBER-PERFECT ONES. How is that? Isn’t perfection what everybody wants. Well, there are no perfect songs. Also, “perfect” is a bit of a crappy word anyways, but what I’m trying to say is that it makes no sense working on a song forever in the hopes that it’ll be so great that it’ll get you signed, results in label interest etc…whereas making more songs teaches you way more about your own production techniques, workflow, shortcomings…so in short, it’ll teach you to make better songs. In a way, quantity can be better than “quality”..but don’t quote me on this without context! I’ve had plenty of experience in working on songs so damn long that you think you’re going to vomit if you hear it one more time. And I don’t think those songs ever come out that good anyways for whatever reason. The good ones finish way quicker, and the problematic ones just take time. It can be so liberating to just move on, because, after all, you create the “pulp”, the interesting part of the song quite quickly, and later sessions are mostly just a continuation of that same vibe. I don’t think you’re going to impress labels by having ultra-tight mixdowns, if you ask me, but what gets their attention is just good, solid songs. And if you’re working on a song for two months, you’re probably not working on the part of it that matters that much. And how much electronic music with “perfect” mixdowns and with no soul is there, anyways? A LOT. Potential>perfection!
5) DON’T GET TOO CONFUSED BY MILLIONS OF DAWS OR PRODUCTION METHODS AND WAYS OF WORKING – FIND YOURS. Everybody has to come up with their own workflow, and nobody can teach you how you should work. One man’s preferred ideal workflow (+DAW) might be another’s hell. I’ve seen people switch DAWs just because an artist they like said it’s their choice, and let me tell you: that will not help you make better music, and the chance that it’ll result in you making music as good as his or similar to it is very, very, slim…it’ll only slow you down. I’m not saying you shouldn’t find out about others’ ways of working, for there is often a lot to learn from how others work, and I’ve learned a lot just by talking to others about production or watching them work, and that’s a great tip anyways. My point is that the web is so full of tutorials and masterclass videos etc., which are great, but they may not help you in making music…often they’ll just eat your time. I bet there are always methods out there that might be a bit faster/better or even more fun than yours, but as a general rule, it’s highly important to use what you have and make music with that because, in the end, only that will bring you results. I get lots of Qs about my preferred DAW, what I think about DAW X, etc., and I’m always trying to say they’re all somewhat equal, and you just gotta find one that looks appealing, then get deep with it, and the results will come. This relates to the next point…
6) MAKING MUSIC IS WAY MORE IMPORTANT THAN GOING AFTER “THE BEST-SOUNDING” PLUG-INS AND/OR GEAR. Seriously. You can make great music with a laptop. Period. There are so many plug-ins of any kind out there (take EQs, for example) that finding out what sounds “the best” may be equal to chasing rainbows. I’m not saying it’s bad per se, but probably won’t help you a whole lot to make better music. Maybe some plug-in may make that snare slightly more crispy (or dope-ass or crusty-ass) than some other, but just don’t get lost in the vast sea of plug-ins before you know how to make music from start to finish and write decent songs. All digital EQs, for example, sound the same, pretty much. A lot of the revered gear, for example, is more about that “5–10% betterness” than “50% better”, so you’ll have to reach a certain level before it makes much sense. Music first, gear/plug-in lust second.
7) DONT THINK ABOUT “MAKING IT”. What is that anyways? I’ve heard/read ”I’ve been making music for 3 years and still haven’t got picked up by a label…should I quit?” way too many times as well. It takes time to get anywhere in anything, so you have to be loving what you do, and love it for the right reasons. If you’re looking for results too soon – or ”results” in general – it may get heavy for you. Instead, work on having fun and maybe just creating a great back catalog of music that some lucky people will be able to hear one day (and keep it on Bandcamp, because when those ppl find you and love what you do, they want to pay you for it). Don’t think too much about getting there now. To me, ”making it” at this stage just means being able to make songs, keep up a steady flow of music (quality before quantity!), keeping it consistent etc…just keeping it up in general. Impressing myself, making music that I'd pay for…that's ”making it” for me. Anything that may come after that (money for music sales, gigs, connections, deals, etc.) is an added bonus. Music is a journey and there is no goal. Keep in that mind. I had been making music for 10 years when I first sent out my first demo (which may or may not have to do with the fact that I started making music when internet didn’t really even exist, i couldn’t share songs by any means other than on floppies etc), which leads us to the next thing….
8) A FEW BASIC THINGS RELATING TO SENDING TUNES OUT. I know some of these probably are ridiculously basic to many, but still, it’s crazy how much unprofessional approaches I get to see on the regular. A) Do not send out tunes for the sake of sending out tunes. Only send tunes that you know are solid. You won’t be doing yourself any favors by sending to labels some tunes that don’t represent your best abilities. I’m not a big artist by any means, but even I receive tunes, and often it takes me ages to check them out, and, sadly enough, I don’t get to check them all out in the end anyways. So if I get sent tunes by someone that are poor, I may not check his tunes the next time (just because there’s 70 other promos waiting in my promo inbox the next time I decide to check for promos). And all the listening I finally get to do is after all the music production of my own as well as mastering tunes for others, so it can be a bit demanding sometimes. And this definitely relates to the next one… B) Do not send out a zip file of 14 tunes. Just don’t. It is intimidating and overwhelming. Personally, I much rather peep two songs than 14 (yes, I’ve had many of those). It also looks like you’re not really sure of what’s good and what’s not so you’ll send out an album worth of tunes and ask for the receiver to pick out what’s good. No – it’s your job. Send out 2–3 strong tunes, and that’s it. And… C) …if you don’t hear back, don’t get discouraged. That does not mean in any way that your music is crap. Most DJs and get so much music, they barely ever have the time to comment back unless it really blew up their world. D) For the love of God, do not go for “Yo, check my song” + link.That is the lowest. Your song will not get heard. It’s ridiculous how much of these I get. It means instant deletion in my book, and I bet I am not alone. If you don’t show any sort of faith or a bit of healthy pride in what you do, it does not look appealing to anyone – and you appear a spammer. Do you want to be remembered as a spammer the next time that person sees your email with a tune link? No. Write a few words of what you do, why you happened to send it to the DJ/label, so it doesn’t look like spam you’re randomly sending out to 100+ people – oh, and yeah, never go for THAT. Social media may give you the tools for that, but posting plain links or “Cool page! Hey, check out my page” on people’s FB pages / Instagram pages in hopes of attention will NOT make anyone check out your music. Again, you’ll be seen as a spammer. You have to do a little more than that. I’ve even seen some well-established artists post “Hey, check out my album – link is in my profile” on others’ pages, and that’s just sad. Well, that’s a few thoughts. If you happened to find this useful, you could do worse than sharing it.
I hope everyone's feeling goooood entering the weekend and working on some studio stuff. Me, just opened a classy brew after a long studio work week, working on some beats.
Two things: 1) new video coming SOON – a nice little mixing tip using a plugin many of you prob have 2) Ask me a music production related question in this topic, and I'll try and reply soon! (unless it's a biggie along the lines of, "How does the world work?", hehe.
