Are you making the mistake I often made when mixing drums? Get this wrong and your drums will be weak at at best. Get this right and they will be live and full. In this episode, I'll tell you exactly how I avoid choking the life out out of my drum tracks.
Hi David – Thanks for taking us inside the mixing process. When you set out to create a mix, what is your objective (Keeping 4/3 in mind)? Creating something that sounds great on a A-Class stereo or an iPod?
I am for as many systems as possible knowing that in the end, most of the time today, it will be listened to through headphones or earbuds. The real factors that make the largest difference here come in the overall balance of the mix. This show ups most when you focus on the mastering phase. The more accurate your monitoring setup (room acoustics included), the more a mix can be tweaked to sound better in more playback setups.
It won’t hurt to keep your computer speakers when you get studio monitors. You will want to check your mixes on them to make sure they sound okay on cheap speakers.
Good point Dan. peace!
is this normal that my left speaker making biz sound? at the moment they working well,just making sound. But few month ago the left speaker was Switching off some time but when I unplug my panel and the plug it again it just fix, after few weeks they start to switching on and off during listening to something but they just fix again by funny unplug and plug job. :D. I’m sure that my jacket are plug perfectly all the time in back of my pc. now i only got problem with my left speaker that making bizzzzzzzzzzz sound. i mean i don’t think the problem is relate to my jacket or panel. plz help.thanks
What speakers are they? Can you plug something like an iPod or CD player directly to them and see if the issue is still there?
they are just the normal standard pc speaker 3.5 jacket.
Ya, I’d try plugin them into something else like an mp3 player or smartphone that has that same jack. See if you get the same issues and that will tell you for sure if your speaker have blown or their cord is bad. Often that is a likely problem with simple computer speakers. Hope this helps and keep me posted.
thank you very much, ya I try them with the MP3 player as well and problem were still there. should I change them? technical question:” Do you think simple computer speaker get damage more often than monitoring, during using audio software?.”
I would replace them for sure when you can. Computer speakers are not really created to handle to peaks of frequencies that are produced by mixing. There are several other reasons why computer speakers are not the best for mixing either. This post may help to explain those reasons. https://homemusicstudio1.com/what-is-frequency-response/
Also if you do get a budget together and are able to buy studio monitors, lets me know and ill point you on the right direction for whatever budget you have. Keep in touch!
Good stuff. I just finished a mix of a live band, so this will help point out things I can do better next time. Love the tips on centering the snare in the OHs and setting their level based on the cymbals.
Looking forward to the next part. I’m eager to see how you deal with phase and/or track alignment.
Thanks for doing these videos!
Your most welcome Dan, thanks for the feedback.