Mixing Tutorial – Time Management

 

Even if you don’t do your own mixes as a music producer, it is still very helpful to learn how to make a great sounding mix. Although I have already touched upon mixing music in a couple of my earlier post, I would like to start a new series of mixing tutorials that will take a complete beginner and transform him into a world class mixer (or somewhere in between).

In this Mixing Tutorial I would like to introduce a couple of tricks I use personally to help speed up the time needed to do a quality mix.

 

Mixing Tutorial – Use Presets

 

First, use presets!!! If you already have done a few mixes and a couple of them are sounding pretty decent make sure you save the settings of the mix. If you managed to make a certain sound extra spectacular always remember to save the settings you used on that sound. Quite often you will come upon same or similar sounds where you can recall an earlier setting of the EQ, compressor, reverb or delay. Just make sure you understand that you will most likely still need to tweak the settings a bit to fit the different types of sounds. Just because a compressor setting sounded amazing on one kick doesn’t ensure it will sound just as amazing on another. The same goes for vocal reverbs, delays EQ’s and so on. But having a starting point is so much quicker than starting from scratch every single time. Especially when it comes to more complicated effects like reverbs, delays, modulation FX and more. Most Digital Audio Workstations have an option to save individual plug-in settings. Take your time to master it and it will save you hours of work later on.

 

Mixing Tutorial – Use Shortcuts.

 

Another big time saver when mixing that I will show you in this mixing tutorial is to use short cuts. By that I mean simple key commands, like shift/S for save session and so on. All DAW’s have these built in but most people only use a couple. Again take you time to learn as many as possible. It will not only save you time but also keep the momentum going. If a certain process is complicated to perform, you will most likely skip it unless it is absolutely necessary for the mix. But what if you could perform that complicated process simply by using a few key commands. You will use it all the time, experiment with the process and maybe even improve it.

The benefits of using presets and short cuts is that not only will you save time during the mix, you will also experiment more, try more options because complicated procedures are no longer complicated. Like if you had a preset and short cuts to do a side chaining compressor duck, you would use that technique more often than if you had to do it from scratch every single time. The end result will be a better mix because you can make experiment more and make quicker decisions.

 

Mixing Tutorial – Keep Moving

 

Sometimes you will get stuck in the mix. No matter what you try, you can’t seem to get a certain element to sit right in the mix. Don’t worry too much about it now. Move on to another part of the mix and come back to the problem later. Chances are that after your ears and brain are no longer focused on the specific element, you will have more clarity to hear what actually was going wrong and be able to fix it at a later stage. So don’t spend too much time on any single elements. Keep moving along and come back and address problem areas later.

This is it for the time management part of the Mixing Tutorial. For more mixing tips check out my article about Advanced Mixing Tips
Johnny Jam