8 Tips for Cleaning up Your Music Mix
Are you familiar with the idea of music mixing? If not, grab your luggage, and get on board so that you are not left behind. There are couples of things you need to grasp when mixing. To begin with, the mix isn’t just about balancing several tracks with one another. In an attempt to mix, the engineer (mix engineer) turns a great number of tracks into an effective one as a whole.
Furthermore, when an up-to-scratch mix is achieved, the tracks being mixed translate into one; the vocals, drums, guitars, and even the synths. They belong to one another.
Do you know the forms of mixing? There’s not much in this, but the common form of mixing is the editing in a digital audio workstation, otherwise known as the DAW. Some of the DAWs include logic, Ableton, and pro Tools, just to highlight but a few. Mixing can also be done in the analogue realm via tape and some other mediums.
There are several tips for a clean music mix. Clean music is, in essence. When talking of clean, I refer to frequency intelligibility, clarity, and mixed translations. Discussed below are some of the tips for cleaning up your music mix.
Review Your Gating
When mixing, gating is usually used on the drum kit microphone in an attempt to minimise audio bleed; when one kit piece picks up the sound but a different kit microphone is played. For instance, a vocal microphone could easily pick up the drums.
Check your Subs
On a normal mixing occasion, you can easily control the signal to your low-end subs. This means that you have an added means of altering the mixed sound. Pushing the subs or pulling them is of the essence if that is what it takes to accomplish the mix.
Having your subs at an average level is recommended when building your basic mix. You should then consider the sub volume after successfully setting the overall mix.
Hit your High Pass Filter
Needing low-end coming through most of the time is of no use anymore. You don’t need that. You can easily enable the HPF on your guitar and vocals. In some instances, you can control the point of your high pass filter. You can consider a high pass filter in the 200 Hz mark on the vocal to clean up.
Cut Before Boosting
The first and foremost part when creating a mix should be cutting out the disturbing frequencies. After successfully achieving this, you can consider boosting where necessary. Cut narrow and boost wide.
Consider your Volume Balance
Analyse each channel, mute it, and pay keen attention as you listen to your mix. The next step is to unmute the channel. This helps you in analysing where the vocal jumped too far out. In this instance, you’ll need to pull the volume back a little.
Record Like there’s no Mixing
Record as if you have forgotten about mixing. This makes it easier to move a microphone than treat a record that won’t sound fantastic in the mix.
Learn your Tools
To have a clean music mix, you need to identify issues and be aware of which tools will provide efficient and effective solutions rather than messing around with your audio devices and hoping for the best.
Re-visit the Effects
This is the final step in cleaning your music mix. You can turn on all the effects and listen to the difference. This can be of great help in the final music mix.
To enjoy your music mix, you need to pay keen attention to the above-discussed tips and put them to use. This will help your mix have frequency intelligibility, clarity, and perfect mix translation. Indeed clean music is, in essence.