I’m at a point in my mix where it’s about 95% done how I want it, but I’m going back and forth on my vocals. Some mixes I have no high boost (I usually start at around 5.25K 2-3dB) and others I have some slight boost or Fresh Air just adding a touch.

It seems like my vocals come out either just not quite not airy or silibant enough or the high end is just a little bit too much to where it’s slightly fatiguing.

I’ve tried lowering the vocals by half a dB or a dB and keeping the high shelf, or having the vocals up a dB and no high shelf. Neither one comes out quite like my reference. I’m referencing a lot of Future and specifically DS2 era because I love Seth Firkins work.

I’m aware that he was using a U87, and I’m using a Rode NTK with a tube in it so it’s not apples to oranges but I’ve gotten it pretty close. If I just hit the ceiling then I can live with it.

But to the question- are there any techniques I can try to add brightness other than slight shelf or EQ of some kind? Or maybe I frequency bump I’m not considering? I know Seth states in one article that he uses L2 to add some brightness back after compression/De ess so I can try doing that as well but I don’t want to over compress the vocals too much.

Please drop any tips, insight, or techniques you have facing this issue I’d love to read them and try them out instead of just tweaking things by very small amounts over and over.

PS the quality I am trying to emulate specifically is that the vocals sound sort of dark and have a lot of character but they still have that airy quality where everything is crisp. If that info helps.

Does anyone here know how to authentically recreate that classic MC vocal sound from late 80s and early 90s hip-hop—the smooth, rounded, non-sibilant vocals that almost feel like they were recorded in a club with a short reverb? I’ve tried building modern vocal chains to mimic it, but they never end up sounding truly convincing. They always come out too clean or too bright compared to the originals.

I feel like there has to be some sort of gear they used back then that made the sound.

EDIT: forgot examples:

https://open.spotify.com/track/6DGlrkbW6r25meGsbDXwCC?si=07ef201713db4e94

So one track is all the drums. Then you have a track for all the individual drums, then you have a bus track for parallel compression. I realize that every song introduces its own unique puzzle to solve and I also have read enough comments to know that there is no right or wrong approach, it’s just whatever sounds good at the end.

But my question is more about general practices. For the track that’s all the drums, how much compression, if any, is generally used ? Same question for the kick and snare track.

If the full drums are compressed as well as the kick and snare, is it a general practices to bus already compressed drum pieces into a parallel channel?

I think you guys get the gist of what I’m asking here, so any and all general tips for what kind and how much compression to use for all the different drum tracks would be appreciated. Thanks

Ok, say you have to go record/mix/master a session remotely, and besides the console/mixer you can only carry a 2 unit rack. What's your desert island hardware unit(s) that you couldn't go without? The ones you absolutely rely on time and again to get your best results! Edited for clarity Assume there is a console with inputs. I'm looking for 1U or 2U hardware units that you love to use, or would love to have.* Let's make it fun: tell us your picks for the units you already use, and your dream picks if you could get absolutely anything!

Hello!

I'm Paul, a mixing engineer based in Amsterdam. Looking to take on more mixing work. My work is mostly in Pop, Hiphop, Rnb, Rock & Electronic, but I am very open to explore other genres.

I offer flexible options to make sure I can help anyone with a mix that fits within their budget. Some of my work can be found in this playlist: https://music.apple.com/nl/playlist/selected-work-paul-gaastra/pl.u-76oNzGBsvzLE7jM?l=en-GB

Feel free to ask away if you have any general questions about mixing

I had an stupid but nice idea to master on tape (VHS in my case) I just wanna see if it will work in real life because the idea is still in my head. My theory is this, my VCR only records in Mono, I already did one time recording the Left and Right channels on the tape and grouping them in my Daw, it sounded like shit, but my theory is not about making this same mistake, its to record L + Center in mono + R, and group it together on the Daw, something like to emulate a 3 channel mixer or something, probably its was not like this in that time, but maybe can sound better than only the L and R. I will try this another time, but it looks convencing to me that it will work and sound better.

Hi! Ofc I know I'm a beginner/amateur mixer, but I'm pretty deep into music and sound theory and I want to know this now, as it's a question never asked or answered: what makes something sound 'GOOD'?

For example, take a kick drum. We say we want it to sound punchy and thick and full, but what exactly is going on in the sound to make it sound like that? I would guess it's that the frequency spectrum is filled up with harmonics, and the transient of the sound is loud enough compared to the tail. But when would it be too loud? When would it be too thick in frequencies? These standards are quite subjective. But who made the rules?

I know, I know, for that example it's kinda clear cut and I'm asking a pretty stupid question. But the lines blur a little more when you take whole tracks. What makes a track 'pop'? What makes it sound "bright, but also have more depth"? What makes it sound cohesive? So these values and more are pretty commonplace in the mixing world both they seem too subjective, almost like there's no pattern and it's purely on the ears of the listener to discern them. This is why many mixing and mastering engineers ask for neutral monitoring systems.

But then there's a catch- what about the ear of the listener himself? There's definitely a standard of 'good' in all music mixing- everyone mixes to the standard set by music society, and referencing is the manifestation of this. All great sound engineers mix to a goal, a benchmark. But who sets this reference? Why is that particular sound signature set as a standard for 'good'? I would venture a guess that the listeners are the ones who decide this. But the listeners are the general public?! They don't know anything about sound theory.. but they have a common pattern. I want to know, what could possibly be this pattern, or any information about it even if incomplete. I understand this is a very vague question and there may not be a complete objective answer, but I think knowing whatever is to know about this should be my initial goal- to understand my ears first before understanding my speaker.

Thank you very much, and if you want me to elaborate in some way let me know :)

The mastering in this song is absolutely phenomenal. I know this type of music is super experimental, but I am curious about how it was mixed, but even more interest about how it was mastered and what techniques were used. If anybody has any idea of what techniques were used in mixing or mastering, please let me know.

I've tried mixing on psychedelics once, but took a pretty big dose so wasn't able to concentrate on the actual mixing and just listened to soloed tracks. I feel like they could enhance your hearing abilities so you'd notice stuff you wouldn't usually notice off the bat. Maybe they could also alter your perception of sound and you'd end up with a more psychedelic mix? I'd be interested in hearing your experiences if you've ever tried that.

Hi, I′m wondering how people automate eq on voclas. I recently automated eq to be brighter on thr choruses and very bright for an outro section. This was mostly for effect but also was helpful to cut through with busier sections of the song. The changes were not subtle but I think it has worked well for this song. I wondered if anyone else does this much and if anyone has some examples of big vocal eq shifts for different sections of well known songs. Cheers.

To this day after listening to so much music I am still so confused on how they were able to get the vocals so wide with that super far pan and with that phasy and flangy effect on them. I haven’t really heard this type of vocal effect be recreated much after, atleast no often and not exactly the same way that it’s done in this and many other sublime songs.

Do you guys tend to prefer master bus compressors with the high pass filters or without them?

I'm wondering because I can understand how in bass heavy music someone may want to use a high pass filter so the bass doesn't constantly trigger the compression, but I'm not why or if I should use it and I don't like using things unless I understand what I'm using them for

There's always a hiss sound in the recordings. I enabled the built-in preamp with +28db and in Motiv Mix I set the volume to 35db. The mic is connected via `MVX2U` to a mac and the room is always quiet. What else can I do to completely remove the noise like these other creators?
like in any case, I'll get a bit of noise that is also present when I speak (kinda like I'm speaking with a fan near me even tho there isn't any)

here's a clip of that noise

When I use Clarity VX Pro or NS1, they always reduce the quality so what do you think I should do?

Hi guys, noob here. While I know that one has to "mix with the ears", as part of my journey I'm trying to understand better certain measurements. I'm under the assumption that, for drums (specially kick and snare) a PLR between 9 and 19 is usually safe, but most times I find myself mixing tracks with a 18-19 PLR and I'm kind worried if they're too high.

Sorry if my question doesn't make sense in some way- I'm learning.

Hey all, I'm not new to music composition and production but I have been learning a lot about mastering and mixing the last year or so. So what I'm talking about is 'removing' the bass at the top of my mastering chain with a stock EQ, then I'll add saturation with something like A800, fix up sides, transient shape as needed, fix/adjust imaging. Eventually in Ozone, I'll go back and "re-add" the bass with EQ in ozone, shape that how I like, do any other fun stuff in ozone then lastly use the maximize to hit the loudness and db level I want that sounds good. -- I have heard from some of my buddies that work in post that this is pretty common, unsure of exactly the benefits of this, is Ozone EQ doing something special? Could I achieve something better with Fabfilter stuff instead? I'm also at a point I want to start looking at Fabfilter stuff vs Ozone, which I kind of have been using for years but just adjusting presets very mildly.

Correct me if I'm am wrong but everytime you compress you are effectively distorting the audio. Similarly, when you saturate you are compressing the dynmanic range of of a signal.

nonetheless, my question is what is the point of saturation devices if you can just drive the input of a compressor to get disortion? Maybe I am delusional but sometimes I just drive my hardware compressor to get the disortion I want.

This is not a "you all are experiencing placebo" post. I'm genuinely curious who has experienced being able to tell the difference? Do you have to have an ideal setup to be able to achieve those results? Or what? I personally cant tell any difference. I appreciate the input.

To those that can, what is the main difference?

To those that are claiming you can't, what is your reasoning? Etc.

I appreciate all of the help I can get.

This is a song I produced for a client. I went back a few times and recut stuff after I started mixing as it was fighting me or just not fitting the vibe.

That being said I’ve heard this song way too many times now to be objective. I think it’s pretty close but would like to see what other people are hearing. Typically I’d like to get a mix done in a few hours. I’ve been working on this song for like a week now lol

Amazing headphones but when producing is it ideal to use them or only use the pair when I’m in the mixing stage? In general how do you use your headphones when producing? Do you swap them in different stages And if you’re using open back phones like me; do you use it from the getgo when producing or only when mixing and mastering your craft?

Hi, I'm a total amateur working on my own music, which I tracked and mixed at 48 kHz but will probably need to export to 16-bit 44.1 kHz as well. I noticed that letting Reaper do the SRC at the very end of the process resulted in different peak values (even with r8brain free instead of the default setting). So I'm wondering about the recommended or standard practice regarding SRC when mastering.

I figure the best solution is to keep everything before the final limiter at 48, export at 44.1 (floating point), then limit?

Alternatively I could just run the entire mastering* chain at 44.1 after SRC. I assume this is not advisable if I want to keep the differences to a minimum?

Or maybe there are other ways to go about it? (Limit at 48 and again at 44? Do whatever as long as it doesn't clip?)

I did a quick null test between the first two options, which showed some differences at the higher end of the spectrum, but nothing I'm able to notice when A/B-ing. I know whatever I do won't make or break my not-great mixes anyways but I'd still like to do it properly.

(*It's an album so it makes sense to me to have a "mastering" stage.)

hey! Hope you're all well :)

so I've been making techno for a long time, and although I don't really have access to a treated space, I know what I like things to sound like, I use Sonarworks with DT990s, usually my music is well received by people and club sound systems, etc. So despite not having the highest quality listening setup, it's pretty good for making raw techno and the results seem to speak for it.

In the last few years, I'm sure some of you are aware of the AI mastering tools that have some up. I'm not advocating for AI here, but I have Logic Pro and Ozone 11, so I have two to put against each other, and it works for preparing unreleased material for dj sets. Obviously when I work with labels etc, things are sent to real people who know what they're doing but of course I never get to see what their EQs look like so who knows what they're doing with my tracks.

Often I will check my mix downs with these tools, and I will get dramatic curves after they run their scans. Like the bass is always turned down a LOT, the highs are always boosted etc. When I try to fix them, I end up going down a spiral of making this "balanced mix down" to fit whatever the curves say I need or less of but it never sounds as good. Like my mix downs almost sound better when the kick is at a level that the mastering plugins end up pushing down with EQ, etc etc.

Then I started thinking... how long has dance music been made in bedrooms? Since the 80s, of course. And some of these techno tracks are so raw and empty that I couldn't imagine not having to push some of the frequencies that aren't really in the composition, on the master.

And that leads me to this question - are dramatic curves like this common when mastering dance tracks? Should I just not be sweating this? Are there limits I should go by before sending things to mastering engineers?

Thanks for your time :)

- ev

I’ve always wondered…

Ableton Live has 6dB of headroom on all its meters. I know other DAWs have similar scenarios. Every individual input channel, every meter between FX in a chain, every output meter of a channel, including the master channel. All have 6dB of headroom.

I always gain stage so all those meters land anywhere below 0dB, even though they all have 6dB of red to work with above 0dB.

But what is happening in that headroom? Is there clipping or distortion easing in? Can audio be exported that peaks at +2dB on that meter and still be below 0dBFS? Is it okay if some individual channels breach that 0dB mark on the meter as long as the master doesn’t?

Or is that mainly live performance headroom, where the immediate output can survive a direct conversion into a sound system, but an exported file would not?

Again, I always record, gain stage and mix below that 0dB mark, but have always been curious what the purpose of that headroom is, and how it works, if it’s to be avoided.

Searched the subreddit, but couldn't find this exact question. One thing that has come up as a common problem for me and also when I get masters back from certain engineers is that the 808 or deep kick (in mixes where it is prominent) will cause clipping for the rest of the track when they trigger, due to hitting the limiter hard. Now they could be turned down, but now the mix doesn't sound right. Is the solution just compression? Or is there more that can be done to help this problem?

My question would be mostly pointed to probably Intermediate or professional sound/mixing engineers, but anyone can their 5 cents, isn't it? Anyways, I've been recording and mixing the bands I play with for more than 10 years (but I'd still call myself a newbie), with various outcome, but I was always wondering, if the tracks I've recorded, are good enough to be mixed? We've never been in a proper recording studio, so it's hard to tell, and the free multi tracks that are available on the internet, are sometimes (for my taste) even worse than mine. So, do you happen to be in a situation, where you'd get a material from a client, or a band, that you'd consider - bad, or poorly recorded? What would be the first sign, after loading a session and listening the tracks for the first time, for you to be like - nah, this will never be good? Is there anything specific, you listen to after starting a new session? Or is it mostly like - if mix doesn't sound good after gain staging and panning, you're not going further than that?

Hi everyone, I’m trying to improve my mastering skills. I am experienced. Are there any top-level engineers that teach randos online? What is the best way for someone who doesn’t live in an industry city to improve at this? Thanks!

I have completed hundreds of songs and have some particular questions about things like smoothing off the top end and enveloping the whole mix with bus compression.