Amos Clarke - 44 Reasons Your Mixes Suck - A Mixing Engineers Guide: A Mixing Engineers Guide

44 Reasons

Your Mixes Suck

A Mixing Engineers Guide

Amos Clarke

First publication in May 2018. 44 Reasons Your Mixes Suck - An Engineers Guide, Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved Amos P. W. Clarke

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system without express written, dated and signed permission from the author.

A BOUT THIS BOOK

Welcome and thanks for getting hold of my book. If youre stuck in a mixing rut, then hopefully this book will help you out of it. Even if youre a reasonably experienced engineer, then perhaps you might find a snippet or two of usefulness, or you might have a chuckle at the whacky drawings - yep, theyre mine.

As you work through this book, some of the reasons may seem like song-writing problems rather than mixing issues. You may feel comfortable blaming the artist because of their poor composition skills and your resulting lackluster mix.

However, listeners dont care about the reasons why your mix sounds below par. Youll never hear a song that starts with a disclaimer from the mix engineer! Mixing engineers are in a precarious position and can get blamed for other peoples mistakes: musicians who cant play, singers who cant sing, poor songwriting, second-rate production - the list goes on. This invariably means that to maintain our reputation, we have to act as the gatekeepers; the last bastion of defense for the song. Therefore, its our duty as a mixing engineer to act professionally and raise any issues that may affect the quality of the finished song mix, that way, everybody wins.

Carrying out this quality assurance part of mixing means that we need the skills to identify the problems, like listening for disharmony or pointing out poor song format.

However, many of the problems associated with a second-rate sounding mix are much more fundamental than those just mentioned. They result from poor mixing decisions, bad habits, and a lack of understanding and experience.

Hopefully, this book will help. Ive tried my best to bring you 44 of the main reasons that make a mix sound amateur. I hope you find it useful.

Note: Any time a specific plugin or manufacturer is mentioned, its purely as an example or suggestion. The author is in no way, affiliated to or intending to promote a product or company.

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. ITS TOO DAMN LOUD !

Thanks to the loudness war, so many amateur mixing engineers think that a pro mix must be a loud mix. So, they cheerfully load up their favourite limiter plugin onto the master buss and drive the level so hard that the final mix file looks like a brick. The problem is that doing this destroys the transients, which are the very elements that make a mix sound punchy. A slammed mix has a limited dynamic range which can raise the noise floor and can cause distortion in the mix. This flawed approach makes a final mix almost impossible to master.

S OLUTION :

Ditch the limiter on the master buss. Ensure your peaks NEVER hit 0 dBFS on the digital meter. Aim for an average loudness level of -14 to -12 dB.

2. It sounds too harsh

Harshness in the mix is generally caused by unwanted distortion and excessive frequency content in the 2 - 4 kHz range. Its very common when using cheap, harsh-sounding condenser microphones and cheap digital converters. The issue gets worse when a multitrack session has many tracks exhibiting harshness. The big problem with harshness in a mix is that our ears are naturally fine-tuned to this zone of the frequency spectrum, with too much causing listener fatigue.

S OLUTION :

When recording, use the best quality microphones and interface that you can get your hands on. When mixing, watch your spectrum analyzer and apply subtle EQ reductions in the 2 - 4 kHz region on any tracks that need it. Ensure that any EQ applied to other instruments in this harsh zone is done with extreme care.

3. Unbalanced levels

Balance is the term used for even-ness. If a mix sounds balanced, then all of the musical elements have a relatively even volume level in the mix. Its normal for some levels to be raised in the mix if you want to highlight a musical element, like a lead solo guitar. Amateur mixes often exhibit poor balancing, and a poorly balanced mix is an absolute tell-tale sign that your mix aint pro!

S OLUTION :

Learning the art of mix balancing takes time, and an excellent way to train your ear is to listen to the mix balancing in your favourite songs. If youre mixing a project, then find a similar sounding professional mix that you can use as a reference. So, park your reference mix on a track in your DAW and refer to it regularly during while you mix. Another tip to help your level balancing is to monitor your mix at a very low volume level while focusing on the mid-range elements. Its much easier to hear when a musical element is dropping out, or popping out, of the mix.

4. Too much reverb

Back in the 80s, lots of reverb was cool. Now it can sound dated. Excessive reverb can also make your mix sound washy and result in a less punchy mix. Probably, a more accurate view is that with modern music, the use of reverb is much more genre specific.