4 mixing tricks I STOLE from top 40 mix engineers
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- 4 mixing tricks I STOLE from top 40 mix engineers
Tim Palmer podcast episode
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My name is Paul Third and I am a Scottish youtuber / audio engineer / mixing engineer / audio geek. I mostly cover audio engineering related content ranging from audio plugin shootouts / plugin comparisons (acustica audio plugins, universal audio etc etc) to actual analog vs digital / gear vs plugins plugin tests via access analog and mix analog. I even include ddmf plugindoctor tutorials in my plugin reviews so you can be your very own plugin tester and experiment and understand whats actually going on under the hood. I also discuss digital music distribution from time to time and like to give my viewpoint on online music distributors such as onerpm and distrokid.
All of my audio blind tests involving music production software are conducted in avid pro tools 2021 which is my main daw and I also use HOFA blind test 4U as my blind test software. In terms of my audio interface I record and monitor through a universal audio apollo x6 through topping dx7 pro+ dac/amp and use an se dynacaster for all of my voice overs.
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What is the most valuable tip you learned from another engineer?
faders are everything, sound change per section is a thing, compression is not for volume control, can't polish a turd: all you need is basic tools, and once you need to reach for really complex ones (to fix rather than enhance) - something is wrong, and it's NOT your fault
Mix fast based on first impressions. Go to another session, do the same thing. Pause and do something else for 15-30 mins. Repeat. Eventhough you have more breaks, it is the biggest timesaver I know. I do the same in production - the important thing though is to know when NOT to stop. So when I'm in a flow, moving fast and am creative I won't stop. But if I start thinking and fiddling, I do.
Shawn Everett's trick of listening to individual frequency bands of a reference and compare. Use solo buttons on a multiband-thing (compressor). Super enlightening the first few times you do it. Super useful to get yourself back on track when you feel lost.
Early reflections and subtle reverb use. I used to do way too much reverb until I learned how to apply it.
Also to not over process the sound. So as little plugins as possible. Less is more, is the way I prefer.
@@jgfjfgjfhjfI agree especially on the compression part! You can do so much damage with compression being used wrong.
Really agree with all these techniques.
My main philosophy when mixing now is
1 - building contrast. To get something loud, you need something quiet. To hear a reverb, you need something dry..etc
2 - Prioritising : some elements will need much more attention than others
It's quite easy with some practice to make a listenable mix (ie : something people won't say "this sounds like recorded in a garage"). Once you reach this step, you really should use the skills you learned to bring even more life to the music you're mixing.
Focus on let's say 3 elements and apply FX or some color on them, then mix the song according to these elements. This is obviously very style style-dependant, but that's how you'll build wall of guitars, shiny reverbs or dark 808s.
Other tricks in random order :
- dual mono mixbus compression (instead of stereo) widen the image in a really nice way
- dimension D chorus as a sent is magical to set the vocal in the mix
- dark delay about 5% wet with 1/4 - 1/8 sync is also magical in insert on vocals
- creating a room reverb for drums that you'll distort and compress af works nice to create texture
- automating the low-cut frequency on the instruments that sits in low-mids is a good trick to make chorus alive
- keep your mixbus chain as clean as possible while you're mixing (so you don't fight against it), then don't fear the big moves once you're ok with the mix. If the mix is better with 2 EQ, 2 compressors, 1 widening tool and 1 saturation tool on the mixbus, be ok with it. But avoid top-down mixing as you'll end up fighting against it most of the time
- blue 1176 in all-button works well on anything you need to fatten (including vocals)
- many more that I probably don't think of rn
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My main philosophy is:
1. Give whoever is paying the mixing/mastering bill exactly what they want.
2. Compliment the song.
I'm getting too old to argue with paying customers. Or to remix something a million times without additional compensation because people are listening on cheap earbuds/phone speakers. Services like Sessionwire and Audiomovers are a godsend.
@@RealHomeRecording even better !
This is an awesome and truly informative video! I learned something new within the first few minutes!
I wish more content creators would put out content that focuses on teaching a technique that you can use with any plugin or hardware, as opposed to giving tutorials on how to use a specific plugin.
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No matter what you talk about, I can't get enough of your English.
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@@PaulThirdyeah, grass is always greener I’m sure, but I wish I had your accent. Lol
Using transient designers as opposed to compression on room mics. Reducing attack and adding sustain preserves the detail of the original performance, without bringing up huge amounts of cymbal crashes (which happens when compressing heavily). This allows for more focus of the room sound on the drum shells and gives you a more open drum sound.
Tbh I always lowpass the rooms so I can beat the shit out of them and not worry about cymbals. I love heavy compressing rooms haha
@@PaulThird haha, mate I don't blame you and I still love to slam those rooms and saturate too however, I experimented with this technique and just got better results.
No need to worry about all that cymbal information coming up, so that when you want to do compression on the drum bus, your parallel comps will have the benefit of the room with a bit more detail and if it is a bad room your working with it is defo less "washy" in cymbal land without compromising the high end on the shells as a result. Definitely worth experimenting with Paul. Hope you're doing great mate! Massive congrats on the studio too!
Same, but using pro-g in ducker mode. Cleanly reduce or even render transients out of existence
A Scottish accent never fails to settle me straight into zen. :)
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Some really interesting tips here! I forgot about the simple thing of doubling the bass and saturate one of them. Thanks, dude!
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Similar to the 'sidechain compress the instrumemts' trick I heard about years back is to send to a bus from all the midrange instrument busses, compress that so it's quite squashed, parallel back into the mix underneath and THEN sidechain compress that bus with the vocal. Non parallel squashed instruments all sit in place all the time, but the squashed bed of instruments makes room for the vocal
Also, your screen looks like a blood bath at 7.20!!
That's how I like it haha
I’ve been doing the bass thing for many years. Splitter tool. Low end of the di gets the dbx 160 compression. Above 100 hz gets an amp and cab .. with variations of tones.
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Yo Paul I've been doing that for years. I've been using a transient designer to target frequency and the free Fuse Audio Labs RS-W2395C after it, which has an analog clipper in it, which sounds so good.
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Solid mixing tips, Paul - thanks!
I prefer the cantankerous Pict Paul, though, forever reminding us to stay alert for the audio industry is largely bollocks!
It's a lot of hassle but I may make the odd appearance haha
You got a new subscriber brother. Thank you ❤❤❤
The plugin jaycen was talking about was the Ps22
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What I have learned is that buying and using plugins, tweaking and perfecting balance based on increasingly unsteady judgement is what the industry is advocating. Sound On Sound being one of the first, best examples of this. The whole magazine was essentially saying 'buy the next big thing if you want to be successful' whilst advocating personal choice (but rather quietly and only when absolutely necessary). The industry wants you to feel like you have to 'finish tunes' or 'make a hit'. This is all bollocks of course. It's the pure pleasure of working with sound that is key.
So what I'm saying is that if you spend hours working on a synth sound and at the end of it you've got this lovely thing but have failed to make a tune.. To hell with the tune. It simply doesn't matter. There are many people who stand to make a lot of money if you can be convinced otherwise.
That's why i said you've got to experiment and make your own judgement. Once you've got a good working template in place you can fly through a mix and get consistent results... But that takes time and a ton of shitty mixes. The only true way to get better at mixing is by actually mixing
I liked the idea to add width to the midrange of the bass. I've done it before, but it has not become a habit. Will try to remember and try it more often.
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Yes, thumbs up for a MTM Fuser video please. Long term Trackspacer user but that one has me intrigued.
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Thanks, Paul!
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Loved this style of video!
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Separate L and R processing for stereo width, emphasis and de emphasis, parallel compression and saturation busses, noticing how certain types of saturation can add punch or remove it, reverbs to sends and busses, automating during different sections, don’t need to hpf things for no reason, paying attention to phase relationships, small cumulative moves is a legitimate style of workflow, volume matched comparisons, its OK TO DO NOTHING to some tracks, mix buss compression isnt always needed, automating parallel compression (especially multiband lin phase) during choruses can increase density and loudness without having to lean on a limiter, loudness is a skill and starts on each track, maintaining balance between punch and loudness
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I think the soothe sidechaining method via the jaycen joshua method, I think he mentions to set the oversampling to 1x because of timing issues. Just a heads up.
Did I have OS set differently? I've not touched that preset since I saved it. Pretty sure I had it to x4 cause that's how his preset was by default
That's a daw specific issue. Some daws struggle with accounting for delay compensation in the side chain signal. Logic is terrible, but I've read Cubase and ProTools are fine
@@fcmas I don’t think this is the reason. I haven’t had any issues with 1x and he recommends it so…
@@PaulThird yeah the template from the meetup sets it 4x but my friends who took notes from the event mentions that he sets it to 1x due to some timing issues
I've got his PT template. I'll see if I can extract the plugin preset from it and see what it comes out as
Have to taken a look at bass lane pro from tone projects? It seems like that’s more suited for widening lows, or mid lows with its mono recovery. I know stage one has phase recovery, i guess my question is which one should I buy lol.
I've been told by quite a few that bass lane pro is very good. I'm biased with stage one though cause I use it in every mix haha. Mono spread, depth and width get used seperately throughout my mix on various sources
Paul, big ups to you doing your thing full time. At the 7 minute mark, my brutha I know why you're doing what you're doing with the snare and kick transients. Our approach is slightly different but the result is basically the same. However, I think your way retains the harmonic information better. To be honest, I'm trying to dull things while amplifying. Not muddy or smeared but lowpassed with a 17Q or similar. Great tips. We all borrow (wink, wink) from each other anyway, no harm no foul.
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If you split the bass with an eq(?), is there a way to do it so as not to introduce phasing?
Do you make a hard cut?
More videos like this would be great
That's why i use the splitter tool in studio one because the crossovers are really well coded.
Tbh no matter what you do it'll cause phasing as you are splitting the same source and there is filtering applied.
Before using the splitter in studio one I used brickwall filters in kirchhoff so I could be really exact in my splitting but I understood it wasn't perfect due to phase but if you are worried the easy way to check is to brickwall on both, send both to a bus, and then play it with the original with the polarity reversed and see what kind of null you get so you can then play about with slopes till you get the quietest null
👍thanks for that. Good to know that phasing likely won't be an issue. I'm never sure if I should be concerned if I can't hear it. I just assume it's present and told to avoid it.
I'm picking up the Arboral Pimax on your suggestion. Really interested to hear good digital saturation
I noticed your studio has a Golden Age Premier 73. I'm considering jumping ship to a 500 series preamp and compressor.
Can the argument be made in simple terms for analog vs digital recording/mixing, that it's time vs money?
I'm a musician and as I learn more about mixing 'in the box' I'm becoming less interested in dedicating time to the dsp science and psychoacoustics that seems to be fairly important to know. Beyond the extent I'm willing to learn to achieve the results i aim for.
I like old (and contemporary)recordings. I'm not interested in a chart topping skill set. I want process the music I make to sound in the vain of the music I listen to which was recorded using gear I can't afford 😁
Sorry for the long message, I'm quite confused regarding all this
Only hardware I'll invest in is preamps and gear that I can't recreate itb.
@@PaulThird I'll take that as a seal of approval, not a guarantee 😉
Whats your approach to getting clients? Perhaps a vid about that in the future?
That would be another year at least
Is dynamic eq a more common term for frequency side-chaining? For me, that term has a better mental model when extended to the mid-side processing you mentioned but maybe I’m missing something.
Trackspacer and fuser is dynamic eq but way more complex as its a ton of bands all working independently in real time, each being triggered by the frequencies of another source.
Dynamic eq in the traditional sense is triggered by its source material.
That's why I call it frequency sidechaining
Multiband processing bass is standard for drum and bass, lots of creativity to be had.
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I found Soothe 2 is 10x better than Track Spacer for frequency side-chaining. I've never reached for another plugin to do the job, after seeing what Soothe 2 can do in this area.
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@@PaulThird I stole that one from Jason Joshua........
We all did haha
@@PaulThird lol! Facts!
Spotify link doesnt work
Which one?
Audio examples would make it much easier.
It would only give a representation of how it sounds in my mixes, through my template and processing. These are things that should really be experimented with in your own template with your own processing
As the techniques are not sponsoring the video, no problem
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Stay humble, Paul.
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I agree sidechaining is so helpful. I use the vocal to duck the reverb and delays on the vocal so they don't push the vocal back when the next lyric is sung. Focusrite FAST Reveal is a great ducker and like it says on the tin very fast.
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Remember to check out my autism channel if you want to learn more about my life 🤓🤓
Paul Thief 🤓
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What would be cool was if you exemplified the talking, lol
Nah video would be too long and would damage it's performance. These are all things to try out yourself anyway
@@PaulThird OK mate, fair enough. Take care and keep them coming;)
What are you doing to your voice? Sounds harsh, very harsh. And unnatural. If nothing, I dread the day I get a UAD interface or something is very wrong there. No insult intended.
It was an intentional experiment with compression peak algorithms. I was interested to see the affect and how it affects smaller speakers with distortion. Nothing to do with UA. Just me being wierd haha
@@PaulThird Lmao. Thanks for your candor. Here I was so serious about this and you lovely as always. (Although I gotta be frank I couldn't watch the video due to the harshness). Have a good one Paul.
I only counted 3 tricks in your vid, am I wrong?
Splitting bass
Transient design
Frequency sidechaining
What did I miss?
2 tips for bass: 1 clean sub frequencies. 2 wider mid frequencies.
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