[Mbroady]

Originally Posted by jim1960

There are plenty of mistakes one can make but there's no one right way to do any of this stuff. To get consistency, you have to first figure out what sounds good to you. In this regard, reference tracks are important. Find a recorded song you think sounds really great, grab the wav file from the cd, and import it into your session. As you're sculpting sounds, refer back to that wav file and try to get yours close to theirs.

It's also important to understand the role different tools play in getting a mix sounding good.

EQ is where a lot of people get in trouble. Instruments and vocals exist within frequency ranges. It's very easy to muddy up a mix by having various components of the mix stepping on each other. And if you're not recording in a well treated room, that opens to door to all sorts of nasty sounds showing up on a track.

This video explains eq pretty well.


This video explains the issue of overlapping frequencies (the source of muddiness) and how various frequency ranges can affect a mix.


In this video, the same guy shows how to create separation between instruments.


The next most important thing, imo, is compression. Compression is used to reduce the dynamic range of a track or mix by bringing down the levels of the loudest parts. This can be dangerous territory for beginners who often tend to over compress and squash a mix so much that the dynamic range disappears.

This video explains the concept.


This video does a decent job of showing how to use compression.


In this video, Dave Pensado focuses on compressor ratios but he gives a good demonstration of how to use compression for a purpose.


There's a lot more to a good mix (reverb, delay, etc.) but learning better use of EQ and compression is a good starting point.

Look forward to some weekend video learning. Thanks for posting, and bonedigger, thanks for asking the question.