Copyright 2017 by Kevin de Wit

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Published By:

Kevin de Wit
60 Bellbird Close, Pakenham
Victoria, Australia, 3810
www.kdwmixingmastering.com

Contact: kevin@kdwmixingmastering.com

Published in Australia
 10 Lessons That Improved My Mixing Skills Forever

Introduction

When I first started mixing seriously I was constantly searching

and asking people for the solutions to all the problems I was
having. I was trying everything I could to get my mixes to sound
professional and as good as the music I was hearing on the
charts.

Some techniques I tried would make a small improvement in

one area but there would still be other problems that werent
resolved. It took a long time doing all this trial and error work
until I could consistently produce great sounding mixes.

Plus, I was gathering one technique from one person and then
another from somewhere else. In the end, it wasnt one single
thing that worked. It was a combination of lots of skills and
techniques that made the biggest changes.

I wanted to help speed up your progression through your mixing

journey by giving you 10 of the most important lessons I learned
that got me to the level I am at today.

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 10 Lessons That Improved My Mixing Skills Forever

Lesson 1

A Great Mix Consists of lots of little moves

A great mix doesnt always involve big drastic changes. Quite

often it contains lots of little things. All these little changes then
add up to make a big difference. Where something might seem
so trivial that you feel it isnt worth doing, but if you do that
change on 20 tracks then those little changes are not so little
anymore.

Imagine you remove a little bit of mud off a track by doing an EQ

dip at around 200Hz. This will clear up that track nicely, but then
imagine you did that same EQ on every track in the song. Not
only have you cleared the mud on the track but the culmination
of all those EQ cuts will create a song that is clear and bright.

Most of the time the difference between an amateur mix and a

professional mix is the tiny little details.

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 10 Lessons That Improved My Mixing Skills Forever

Lesson 2

Listen to the Song and only do what needs

to be Done
Early in my career I had watched a lot of teachers and other
engineers and noticed that they were using lots of plugins on
their mixes. I assumed if they were doing it then I should as well
without knowing why. Dont get me wrong there are times that a
lot of plugins may be required on a track but dont assume it is.

As I got more experienced I started to see a few different

engineers that were following a totally different approach. Most
tracks would have maybe one or two plugins on them and some
tracks didnt have any. The trick was that these engineers were
listening to the tracks and if they liked what they were hearing
then they didnt do anything at all. If you get really well recorded
material, then why do you need to EQ or compress that track.

I, like many new engineers, put these plugins on because it was

fun not because the song needed it. This then resulted in a mix
that was really over processed and all the natural life was taken
away.

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 10 Lessons That Improved My Mixing Skills Forever

Lesson 3

The Vocal is King

When I started to work on Country and Gospel material it

become very clear that the vocal is always the most important
element. This has actually been the case all along, but
depending on the genre how much the vocal stands out from the
music might vary, but it is always present and clearly heard.

Quite often in the early stages I struggled to get my vocals at a

good level, so they were easy to hear without being too loud. It
would either end up being too loud or too soft. It was very hard
to get it just right.

Working on Country and Gospel where the vocal is so much

more important, it really started to cement the approach and the
concept in my head. Then it was just a matter of practice,
practice and more practice. The more I practiced the more it
started to become easier to know what to set the levels to.

I still get it wrong sometimes but it is less often and when I do

get it wrong I know exactly how to fix it.

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 10 Lessons That Improved My Mixing Skills Forever

Lesson 4

The Last Track you add to the Mix

will be the Loudest

It seems that this just naturally happens. As you go through your

mix the last track you add and mix in the song will be the
loudest. Because of this I would always take the approach to
add the lead vocal last. Even if you like to mix it early on in the
mixing process you should mute it for a period and then add it
back in at the end just to make sure it is the loudest track in the
mix.

Based on this idea my approach is always to get the

instrumental song sounding great and then I add in the BGVs
and get their level right. Then just at the end I will add the vocals
and get them to sit right on top of everything else. Depending on
the song there are times I will go back and forth as I might prefer
to do the vocals at the start, but then I always end with this
approach.

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 10 Lessons That Improved My Mixing Skills Forever

Lesson 5

Tune the Vocals

Every vocalist wants to hear their work at its best. While you
might not run around telling the artist and everybody else you
tuned the vocals, you should make an effort to tune them just
enough to make them sound great.

It is not suggested that you tune them to perfection or to a level

that you can obviously hear it, but just a little subtle tuning to
keep everything in the right area will make the song sound
better and the vocalist prouder of their work.

Make sure you listen to the vocals fully first because you might
find that you have an amazing vocalist that even a subtle
amount of tuning is not required. I have also had on occasion
where a vocalist actually likes the slightly off notes that they
naturally hit, so if you are in doubt to whether you should tune
the vocals or not then check with the artist first or just do it and
see if they say anything.

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 10 Lessons That Improved My Mixing Skills Forever

Lesson 6

It isnt the Plugin; it is how you use it

You can buy every plugin under the sun because someone told
you this one has the greatest sound, but if you dont know how
to use it or why to apply this plugin it isnt going to give you the
great results everyone tells you it will.

Most professional engineers can get a great mix from using

almost any plugin. There will be times when a certain plugin is
required but mostly they get the great results because they
know what they want it to do.

Based on what I have learned over the years I always suggest

to new engineers that they learn to mix with the stock plugins
that come with their DAW before they think about purchasing
extra specialized and vintage emulating plugins. If you cant get
great result from the stock plugins, then you are not likely to get
great results from other plugins.

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 10 Lessons That Improved My Mixing Skills Forever

Lesson 7

Vocal Riding

Vocal levels are critical to a great mix as I mentioned in lesson

3. One way to make sure you are getting clear well heard vocals
is by riding them. The term riding vocals is where you perform
volume automation using a fader live while the song is playing. I
was amazed the first time I saw someone ride a vocal, as I just
assumed you only did automation at the section changes and
major events.

Then I saw the vocal riding process in action and noticed that
they are automating the movement of the fader of a vocal track
all over the place for the entire length of the song. Making sure
that every word is clear and never gets hidden by the
instruments.

This is a talent that takes a lot of practice to get right. I find that I
will do a vocal ride the best I can and then I will go back and
manually edit the automation bit by bit to make sure all the
words are heard.

Another technique that is handy for checking the results of this

process is to turn your mix down really low to the point where
you can just hear the vocals and see if any words or sections
disappear.

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 10 Lessons That Improved My Mixing Skills Forever

Lesson 8

Instrument Automation

Similar to Vocal Riding, again I was amazed to see this process.

The process involved muting the vocals and just going through
the entire song and automating individual instruments to get all
the interesting parts to be highlighted and to have something
exciting going on through the entire mix.

Bringing up a little guitar riff or a piano part in sections.

Changing the panning of an instrument just for a very small part
or even just muting an instrument altogether.

This item alone changed my mixes entirely. I went from a flat

mix with very little interest to suddenly something that had
instruments jumping out all over the place and the listener had
something to catch their ear through the entire song and not just
during the solo.

It needs to make sense though. You want the automation to

sound natural and to suit the song and what the song is trying to
achieve. You dont just want random instruments panning all
over the place and volume increase on parts that just dont
make sense.

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 10 Lessons That Improved My Mixing Skills Forever

Lesson 9

Templates for Multiple Versions

Having a well-structured template saves you time and keeps

your mixes consistent. It is a good idea to have a template that
you could use to bounce out multiple versions of a track
instantly.

You could set up a Template to produce a Full Mix, Instrumental

Mix, A cappella Mix & a TV/Performance Mix all with the click of
one button. To do this you need to remove any reliance on a
single Mix Buss and move that Mix Buss process down a level
to the section buss e.g. VOX, BGVs, Guitars, Drums, etc.

Where you would normally put a Mix Buss Compressor and a

Tape Emulator on the Mix Buss you change it to have individual
instances on each Buss instead. My template ended up with a
Mix Buss Compressor and a Tape Emulator on the Drums Buss,
Guitar Buss, Keys Bus, VOX Buss etc.

All these Busses then funnelled into the Mix Buss but had no
processing on it except for just some metering to monitor the
song level. So, when you produce a Mix without the Vocals it
doesnt change the way the Compressors and Tape Emulators
respond, which is what happens when you do the processing on
the Mix Buss.
It also sets you up nicely for the
future if you ever decided to add
an Analog Summing device to
your studio, as you can take each
buss out to the summing device
and then back into the Mix Buss.

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 10 Lessons That Improved My Mixing Skills Forever

Lesson 10

Mixing in Mono

A really handy technique to get your mixes sounding great is to

put your mix in mono. You might be wondering why do that
when everything is stereo these days. Well there are two
reasons.

First it is a lot harder to get all the instruments and vocals to sit
nicely together when you are working in mono. In stereo, all you
need to do is pan an instrument over to the side and suddenly it
is clear and not hidden by any other tracks. Put it in mono
though and it might just disappear behind some other instrument
sharing the same frequency range.

Working on it in mono makes you work harder on your EQ and

Compressor settings to allow each instrument to be heard. Once
you are happy with the mix in mono then when you switch back
to stereo it will sound amazing.

You will probably need to make some minor volume changes to

account for the placement of the instruments in the stereo field
but that is easy.

The second reason is because while you think everything is in

stereo it isnt. If you have ever listened to a song on the speaker
of an older iPhone it was mono. If you listen to a song from a
HiFi system in your house while walking around and not sitting
between the two speakers, then it will be mono.

Do you own a Sonos system in your house? Each speaker is

only mono, so unless you have purchased two and set them up
as a stereo pair you are listening in mono. A song played in a
car because of the enclosed space becomes a sort of hybrid
between stereo and mono. It is not very obvious which side of
the car an instrument is sitting. Music played in a Shopping
Centre/Mall is only going to be mono.

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 10 Lessons That Improved My Mixing Skills Forever

Bonus Tip

Here is a small but important bonus tip.

Get real mixes complete and out into the world. If you are someone that
likes to practice and never really challenge yourself to work on real
clients songs and release them, then you are not going to make the huge
improvements you want. It is good to practice but you need to jump in the
deep end to really push yourself to the next level. You are not a Mixing
Engineer if you havent released any Mixes.

Getting feedback from a clients or fans can be painful but the jump in
skills you will make because of that feedback will be amazing. Clients like
to test your skills sometimes by asking for a specific type of effect from a
popular song. This then forces you to study and learn a new technique to
be able to deliver it.

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 About the Author
Kevin de Wit is a Mixing and Mastering Engineer working
with artists and bands all over the world. He is the owner of
KdW Mixing & Mastering, an online business dedicated to
providing audio related services.

Kevin has been working in the music industry in one form

or another for over 25 years. He has also been working in
the IT industry providing architectural designs for large
corporate enterprises.

When Kevin isnt working in either music or IT, he is a

single father of two children and loves to play guitar and
record his own music. He has a very unique family with
one child suffering from Severe Autism and the other a Mild
case of Aspergers.

He lost his wife to cancer when the children were very

young, but none of this has stopped his will to survive and
succeed. If anything, it has given him more drive and
determination than ever before.