Mixing Levels
Lesson 12 from: Music Production 101: Producing + Songwriting for BeginnersTomas George
Mixing Levels
Lesson 12 from: Music Production 101: Producing + Songwriting for BeginnersTomas George
Lessons
Introduction and What you're going to Learn
00:20 2Writing a Chord Progression
11:37 3Writing a Bass Part
10:19 4Building a Drum Beat
08:57 5Writing a Melody
17:15 6Arrangement - Part 1
14:23 7Arrangement - Part 2
19:06 8Vocal Demo Melodies
04:31Lesson Info
Mixing Levels
Hi. In this video, I'm gonna take Tom's song and I'm gonna start mixing it. So when you're mixing, what you're focusing on is just making sure that all of the instruments are well balanced and that everything is kind of working together to make a high quality end product. You don't want something to be too loud and you don't want something to be drowned out in a mix, just wanna make sure that everything is working together to make it sound good. Ok. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start on a particular part of the song and just move some faders, just make some movements that help the mix as a whole and take it from there. So let's focus first on this first chorus. Let's have a listen. Ok. There's a lot going on there and there's a lot of like competing happening in the instruments in terms of like level. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start moving some faders and just see what happens uh when I take away some of the louder stuff and then bring it back in and just see how it feels ...
cool. So I pulled the pluck away for a moment just to see what the rest of the mix sounds like. And then I kind of decided that it was quite loud. So I just slowly brought it back in until it kind of started to feel right. The thing with the drum kit, however is there's so many different drums inside the kit and I think there's a little bit of work that needs to be done inside the kit to rebalance the different drums. So I'm just gonna dive into battery and, uh, try and take care of that stuff. So when you're doing this, just listen out for the loudest stuff first, just to try and hone in on the things that are kind of annoying you and pull those down. Ok. So I think this Tom here is annoying me a little bit. So I'm just gonna turn it down and take it from there. Ok. Cool. Now the snares are quite loud. That's not necessarily a problem. But when I try and find the kick, I can't really find it. It's difficult to find it's there, but I don't know exactly what impact it's making. So I'm gonna check it out and kind of remind myself of the sound of it as well and then try and find it in the mix. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna ride the fade. I'm gonna push it up and then, um, just kind of pull it back down again. Until I find the level that I'm comfortable at. What I'm also gonna do is bring down the uh the delay, the echo effect on this time a little bit because I think it's just a bit overwhelming and mixed. OK. So what I did there was I applied a filter and the high hat there just to soften the edge on it a little bit. Cos I didn't want to turn it down even further because it became inaudible. So I just used a filter uh otherwise known as an EQ to kind of just roll off the highs, just take the edge off a little bit, soften it up. OK. There's another kick here that's annoying me a little bit. OK. That will do for now just gonna pull down the entire kit a little bit. OK. From here, I'm just gonna check out the other instruments and see what work needs doing there as well. OK. So by pulling the piano back quite a bit or just uh eliminating it for a moment that I could work harder on balancing the bass against the drums, which can be quite a useful way of doing that. If there's lots of kind of midrange material like a piano, sometimes it can be really, really distracting to do that. So sometimes it just helps and sometimes it's useful to just mute something for a moment just to remind yourself of the impact that it's having on the mix you might have noticed a difference there. When I just pulled the pad out, I couldn't really hear the pad by itself. I couldn't find it by itself, but the moment I pulled it out, I realized the effect that it has on the mix. So that's also good to do. Ok. I feel like I'm getting somewhere now. I think the mix is just a bit cleaner and less kind of exhausting to listen to. So I'm just gonna move on to other parts of the mix just gonna skip through the song. OK. So we have this riser now, let's dial that down. OK. The rice is good. The only thing is I just think it's a bit too bright, it's not too loud, it's just too bright. So I'm actually gonna do is really simple. I'm gonna load up an EQ and your software, your digital audio workstation will, will have an EQ and I'm just gonna load up a really basic EQ and I'm gonna use here what's called a shelf. OK. Might look like that on your version and I'm just gonna reduce the treble basically on that just to soften it up a bit like I did with that drum before. OK. And I'm just gonna use this one up here as well just to take off the edge there. Just a little bit. OK? OK. So we got, uh, the plot nylon guitar that comes in at this part of the song over here. So we should get to work mixing that. Let's see what it sounds like when it comes in. OK? And we have the strings here as well. So, what I'm gonna do is actually cycle this part of the song. OK? And that's going to cycle over. OK. There's a drum there that is kind of new to me. So, so let's check that out. OK? Just making some slight adjustments here. OK? That'll do for now as you move along the structure of the song, you'll just start to uncover things that you didn't necessarily notice before. As you'll notice many instruments don't actually have to be loud in the mix. Um in order to have an effect and sometimes the most effective thing you can do is just to have it at the level at which it starts to have an effect. Not everything has to be as loud as everything else. Ok. Let's now tackle the, is it a nine on guitar, I think? Yeah. Ok. So, so far we've got a relatively good balance going down. I've just started this mix by just moving faders and just adjusting the relative volumes of all of the instruments just to kind of get a good starting point. And then from here we'll dive into some more details. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.
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