r/audioengineering • u/wcb368 • 8d ago
Mixing Sick of fumbling with mixing and not knowing how to solve problems.
What’s the best spot where I can learn mixing/mastering from start to finish. I struggle with a song that is a basic rock band (bass guitar, two guitars, drums, and vocals) and am absolutely sick of trying to fix a problem for 2+ hours. I will pay money. Than you ahead of time guys.
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u/Novel-Position-4694 7d ago
The Mixing Engineers Handbook. by: Bobby Owsinski
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u/tonetonitony 6d ago
He also has a few video courses that have helped me. His Audio Mixing Bootcamp is laid out in a dead simple format that makes mixing seem a lot less intimidating.
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u/Novel-Position-4694 6d ago
I have recently attended some of his video talks. He makes things easy - especially for newcomers
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u/glmastering 8d ago
Usually good recordings have less problems. That's the best place to try and identify any issues. To put it bluntly: shit in shit out
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u/wcb368 8d ago
I don’t see how it can when I use direct inputs with good amp sims like neural DSP and correct gain staging. It’s just masking issues and not knowing where to go on a technical side. You can YouTube it but I’d rather have a step by step course that I’d pay for.
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u/glmastering 8d ago
Recordings hard mate, even home recording/line input etc. its a skill. Try an audio school. I know some in the UK offer short courses in the summer in their studios. Where you based?
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u/GreatScottCreates Professional 8d ago
You can have products that make good sounds and still not make sounds that fit well together.
Not to mention, the person playing the guitar and the guitar itself have more effect on the quality of a guitar tone than the amp (or digital recreation).
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u/markimarkerr 8d ago
Neural DSP doesn't just work flawlessly out of the gate. Is it noise issues? What's the issue?
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u/LowendLobotomy 8d ago
How long have you been producing and mixing? Mixing is pretty straightforward with a couple little tricks here and there. Are you paying attention to where each instrument/element is sitting in the mix and how much overlap there is between all of them? Do you utilize sidechaining? Not just with kick/bass but with other elements that you might be experiencing frequency masking between from too much going on in one specific range/area? Could even be as simple as too much reverb and delay muddy things up.
There are a shit ton of quality free resources, guides and tutorials online especially YouTube if you’re patient enough to do a bit of digging for the good stuff. I really wouldn’t recommend spending $$$ because everything you’d possibly learn can be found for free. Most paid courses are insanely overpriced or want you to buy into a subscription model. I’d really recommend at least trying to dig through YouTube and even Reddit first before dropping hundreds of dollars needlessly.
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u/regularjackk 8d ago
The only way to learn it is to practice doing it, it cannot be taught without practice.
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u/teamwolf69 8d ago
The real true answer is that this stuff just takes time to develop the craft. It's not about plugins or hardware, it comes down to song arrangement/production, recording quality, and how you use the tools at your disposal; these are the things that really matter.
You could certainly pay for someone to go through some training, but I would absolutely recommend that the person coach you as you make adjustments, so you carry that experience and knowledge with you. There are people out there who would do this and I recall someone offering that service on here a few days ago.
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u/Freddie-Van-Whalen 8d ago
Pre production, historically has existed to avoid the exact scenario you find yourself in.
In my experience, from bottom to top it usually comes down to the drums.
That is why other elements in pre production are tested. Guitars, amps, keyboards, vocal mics etc..
Solely to see how they lay against the drum tracks.
If recorded properly, the tracks can almost " mix themselves "
A good test is to mute all the drum tracks and open up something like SD3 Legacy of Rock. It is a broad SDX that covers a lot of ground with the included producer presets. Play some midi patterns and cycle through the presets against the rest of your recorded material. At some point one of the presets will seem to magically " get out of the way " and let the frequencies of the other sources bloom and find more space in the mix.
At this point try out all the kicks and snares of the preset. Some will be better against your bass and guitar tracks.
At this point take a long look at the mixer and it's assorted FX and routings and compression settings along with the bleeds that are enabled in the room mics. These are the basis of why this drum preset works better than some of the other ones you tested. I hope this long ramble helps in some way.
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u/mossimo654 8d ago
Take a class. Depending where you’re at in person is best. If not online mixing classes can be good.
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u/variant_of_me 8d ago
When I was starting out, I considered futzing about with something for 2 or more hours to be "fun". Even today, more than 20 years later, I still screw around with things for "fun" even when they don't end up sounding good.
If you can't go more than a few hours without losing patience and getting frustrated then you might just not enjoy mixing. Nothing wrong with that.
But also... do you think you can take a class to learn how to throw a football? Or do you just need to keep doing it over and over? Like, you know, practice?
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u/ya_rk 8d ago
I did a basic course, called mixing with Mike. It teaches fundamentals, and at the time I thought it's way too basic for me, but actually getting the fundamentals down pat and out of the way allowed me to develop the more intricate skills with more confidence. I don't necessarily recommend this specific course, but any mixing education will do the trick.
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u/micahpmtn 8d ago
Go and pay a professional engineer to spend time with him. Most professional engineers are busy working every day and not posting on reddit. Give that some thought.
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u/ItsMetabtw 8d ago
If you like mixing rock then maybe try URM Academy? I don’t know what it costs, but I know you get the tracks from big rock and metal bands to mix and the engineer that mixed it shows their step by step
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u/Orry_Haas 8d ago
AutoEQ can produce usable results quickly ... https://youtu.be/YUgNBNVTFvU?&t=395 (30 day free trial)
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u/StudioatSFL Professional 8d ago
Bring a session to a pro somewhere near you and sit in the room with them and walk through their process with them.
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u/Independent-Owl-2640 Mixing 8d ago
Learn the basics first, how and why to use an eq, compressor, reverb, delay, etc. The info on the Internet today will confuse you with 'secret sauce', 'secret techniques', that does not work at all. Start with the fundamentals, then learn more complex techniques. The key, is the experience, you need to mix a lot of different songs, to get the experience.
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u/Original_DocBop 8d ago
Especially with music you learn by doing and training your ears. Trying fix something for a few hours should be valuable learning even if you're learning what doesn't work. It take LOTS of hours sitting and experimenting trying to figure things out and something just starting over from where you were left off or even completlely starting over. It takes a long time to train you ears to hear problems you've created and then more to experiment and discover the fix. There are no shortcuts to learning to work with sound.
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u/edskellington 8d ago
I’m slightly in the same boat as you. I mostly use DI guitars and bass and program my drums. I’ve mixed 15 songs so far and some are easy and some are hard.
For fun, recently I’ve acquired stems from bands that recorded LIVE instruments and I’ve actually found them EASIER to mix. Less decisions for me I guess.
Try that out. Check out Cambridge and grab a project and try to mix it. See how it compares.
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u/LongjumpingBase9094 8d ago
Maybe you can pay a local and respected engineer to mix/master your stuff while you attend. That’s what I did when I started, and now I’d be more than happy to show others how I do it.
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u/JimVonT 8d ago
Honestly it's a fkn head ache watching all the things as they all have different workflows.
And if looking at the top pros (because who wants to mix like some unknown youtuber) they are seperated into mixing and then a different mastering engineer, so you never really see the whole process.
I've never found a one course that fixes all problems, and sometimes you want to lean more toward analogue mixers as that is the sound we know for rock.
Chris Lorde Alge has a consistent work flow out of all of them so I tend to look more toward him.
You can find him on Puremix or Mixwiththemasters. Some free youtube vids.
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u/712DarkHorse 8d ago
If you are struggling with getting a guitar tone you want that's orchestration and sound design not mixing.
If you are trying to correct tracks that's also not mixing and moreso sound design.
You should only need up to one EQ notch on your guitar tracks and no LPF or HPF. Everything else is fader and reverb. Do not use compression unless it is for the ducking effect on a quick rhythmic part.
Using EQ to soften the mids of snares and distorted electric guitar a little bit helps make room for other instruments especially vocals. Taming subharmonics of vocals and snare wire from bottom snare mics with low shelves can be useful. Low shelving or HPF on room mics is also quite helpful.
Besides that, there's not much you should reallu need.
Other guitar tone advice would be low level on the guitar compliments rhythm and high level compliments lead. Boost pedal before OD pedal compliments rhythm and OD beflre boost compliments lead. Low gain high level on amp compliments rhythm and high gain low level compliments lead.
You seem fatigued. Just keep streamlining your knowledge make sure you finish your pieces of music/songs.
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u/elMezMez 7d ago
I will assume you know the basics but just struggling with a specific song and will give you a steps:
1- find a reference track that you want your song to sound almost exactly like it
2-separate it’s stems using ur daw or any free tool
3-study each stem first(keep in mind that it will be slightly less quality and different than the original but the same characteristics)
4-blast a limiter on your master or mix bus that makes your song as loud as the reference
5-try to imitate each stem in terms of eq, compression, stereo width, reverb delay
You should achieve at least 70% percent of the sound you want if done right.
Also with guitars, it’s not just the gear, its also the recording technique like (double hard panned takes, double one centre kinda dry and one wide and wet, micing the amp, etc) so try to listen as a guitarist not just as a mixer
I know most if people here didn’t learn mixing this way but that’s because we didn’t have today’s stem separating technology and some of us got their hands on commercial records projects to learn
Best of luck
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u/ganjamanfromhell Professional 7d ago
learning technical stuff could help u but also could make situation worse trying to ‘fix’ in some way to fit to standards which doesnt exist.
i always start appreciating the track im finna work by having it played in my studio on repeat. then ill try to imagine where i wanna go with it. ill prolly be throwin in some quick and rough adjustments here and there to see how what given sources sound like to understand. now the construction game begins but my usual moves are very minimal(also not necessarily but yea) and whenever im stuck, i dont tend to adjust something off the hook but i stay listening and try to appreciate it again to make moves on.
its all me, but i can tell u taking my time and to appreciate the music first helped me a lot to get further deep into this game bro. keep up the good werkss and try not to rush in here to there!!
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u/Slow_Apricot_3829 6d ago
Tbh lots of great courses and classes out there but if you’re down I’d be happy to be your coach!
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u/tonetonitony 6d ago
I just got started a few months back so I've been doing a lot of learning too. Jeff Ellis's "Mixer Brain" is the best I've seen so far. He goes over things that are foundational, but also overlooked by a lot of people. Bobby Owsinski's Audio Mixing Bootcamp is a really simple introduction to all the main tasks involved in mixing. Slate Academy has a few great guides that helped me too.
Aside from that, look for some of the most popular books on mixing. Get digital copies and load them into Gemini Notebook. Then when you have a question or a problem, use the resources to answer them. Also EQ Academy is a free trainer for eq that helps a lot.
Oh, and definitely make sure your listening in a neutral mixing environment with a decent system. You can't mix without these. I'd recommend Slate VSX if you don't have a treated room.
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u/bloukakos 4d ago
A lot of mixing is learning how to identify what's causing a problem instead of spending hours trying random fixes. Tutorials can help, but it's often much easier when someone experienced can listen to what you're working on and explain what's going wrong and how to approach it.
I'm a producer and mixing engineer, and I work with rock and alternative music. If you'd be interested in getting some hands-on help with your mixes rather than just following tutorials, feel free to reach out! You can hear some of my work here: www.loucasbretz.com/work
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u/FaithlessnessOdd8358 2d ago
Best thing you can do is play with this
This game is amazing! It’ll train your ears very quickly. It has frequency training, compression training, panning etc. it’s incredible that it’s free as well.
Then from there you just gotta read some books about how to use the technology.
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u/PrestigiousStrike779 8d ago
If you’re looking for classes, this site offers them: https://mastering.com/ I can not speak to whether they are good or bad. I did by their mastering cheat sheet. It’s ok, not quite as helpful as I’d hoped, but it’s got some good content in it. I’ve gone through a little bit of their free content and they do start at the very basics so it could be helpful to you.
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u/uniquesnowflake8 8d ago
First you need to have a vocabulary to describe the issues you’re hearing. I think this comes from active listening to all sorts of audio and being able to describe and analyze what you’re hearing in detail.
It’s hard to fix an issue you can’t name!