Music Mixing tips that no one wants you to know

Hey everyone! So today, I’m going to share with you all some music mixing tips that no one wants you to know. 

Let’s get into it. 

First tip, you need the ears to mix

So in college, they actually have a training method where you can learn to hear how to make a great mix. 

I think it’s called Golden Ears. 

But, the way that you learn how to mix and get the ears for mixing without Golden Ears, is literally just by listening to music that’s already been professionally mixed and mastered and you listen to that music through the listening environment that you’re going to be listening to. 

So say for example if you’re going to be doing your mixes with a set of Yamaha’s HS5’s and you’re going to be doing that in your bedroom, then you should be listening to music through those speakers in your bedroom for a few years. 

Now when you’re listening to the listening environment, it could actually be a set of any speakers or any headphones, just as long as they are good headphones and speakers and they are flat. 

Some people mix in their car speakers because it gives a good sense as to the kind of audio that someone will listen to when they’re enjoying music. 

Believe it or not, a lot of people still listen to their music through their car speakers So listening your music through a set of car speakers will show a realistic way people will listen to your music. 

Some people listen to their music on a few set of speakers. 

So like some will listen to it on a boombox, some will listen to it on headphones, cheap headphones, etc. etc. 

And they will listen to it through these methods because it gives you a good overall sound as to how they will sound when someone listens to it. 

So listen to music and use your critical listening skills when listening to music. 

Compare your mixes to the professionals mixes and then google how they did something. 

You’ll find that a lot of the fixes are actually easy, it’s just that now you’re just understanding how to use the DAW for mixes. 

Tip 2, Learn that most of your mixes, which is around 90% of all your mixes are only going to have 4 effects. 

The 4 effects that you need to learn are compression, equalization, reverb, and delay. 

Some people say that you need 5 mixing effects and the last one is saturation. 

But personally I’ve been getting along just fine with the first 4 that I mentioned. 

A lot of the problems that you encounter in a mix, can be solved with these four elements. 

Now, you can use a chorus effect, you can use different effects that are in your DAW, but in reality, it’s a really simple process to being able to mix a fine mix. 

I know you guys are probably out there and you’re saying, “But German, I saw the way that this person did it and they used this specific EQ or this specific Limiter. Or what about Parallel compression. 

All of those things are fine, but when you first start out, try and make really good mixes with just the tools that make great mixes. 

Don’t overcomplicate things. 

Last tip, it takes practice

So when I first started mixing, I knew a sense of how to actually mix, but I didn’t know how to practice it. 

And really it just took what I mentioned above to really solve the problems that I needed to be solved. 

You really need to spend some quality time listening to music through the system you’ll be mixing to hear out the differences when you use EQ and Compression. 

Reverb and Delay is a little Easier to hear. 

But the thing is that when you’re mixing, you want to listen to all of the tracks at the same time.

There are times when you just want to listen to just one instruments, but for the majority of your mixes, you want to listen to it through all of the tracks at the same time. 

So take some quality time to learn how to mix and you’ll be golden. 

Just to let you guys know, Golden Ears is an expensive program to buy by yourself. 

It’s really expensive, which I think has some value to it, but if it were me, I would just listen to music, it’s more enjoyable anyways. 

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I sure hope that I have been an inspiration and a hope to you all. Please remember to pray, read your bible, go to church, and love God above all else. Like, comment, share, subscribe, and I will see you all next time.

If you want to go to heaven, then believe in Jesus and you will go to heaven. (John 3:16)

Thank you all for listening in on this blog post. 

German Gonzalez, signing out!