Tips for better clarity in your mixes

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Clarity in mixes is not something people understand or perceive well when they first start mixing, but it’s a magical part of a song that often distinguishes professional mixes from amateur mixes. Clear-sounding mixes instantly grab your attention because they feel precise, open, airy and easy to understand. While clarity in a mix might seem easy to create, it’s actually very difficult to achieve.

I can say that I’m starting to better understand clarity myself. If you’re familiar with my music, you know I like busy music and my songs are generally quite full, with multiple layers of sounds. It’s a challenge for me to get a clear mix because of the number of sounds I use, but for me this is also the best way to practice mixing clearly, as it’s more difficult than if I were only using a minimal amount of sounds.

Here are some of the things I’ve learned when creating clarity in my own mixes.

Less is more, and less is clearer

The less you have going on, the clearer your song will be. Nothing clashes and there’s less to try to find an appropriate spot for. When mixing, you need to find a fitting place for every sound you use. If you have 5 hihats, 3 claps, and 5 melodies, this can become quite a challenge.

How can you clean up a mix and make it clearer?

I see a lot of clients struggle with cleaning up their mixes. Most artists suffer from a strange thought process that goes something like “I’m afraid the listener is going to get bored, therefore I will fill my mix with as much as possible so the listener never feels let down.” To this I would reply that there’s a remedy in your DAW…the mute button! Let me explain:

1 – Loop a section of your song, the part where it’s the busiest.

2 – Mute everything, then start by un-muting your essential sounds. What are the fewest number of sounds that can communicate your song’s idea clearly? Toggling mute on parts of a song sometimes create interesting perspectives and can reveal things you didn’t realize about your arrangements—it often takes fewer sounds to create a clear mix. This can mean no fills, no decorations, no backgrounds, just the essentials.

3 – Are your essential sounds sharing space in the frequency spectrum?

Technically, if you have less, sounds are most likely to occupy less space and clash with one another less frequently. Generally, there are a few areas where your sounds can clash:

  • Frequency: If you divide the spectrum into 4 or 5 bands, you want each band to have the same number of sounds. Low-end would be under 100hz, then 100 to 1k for mids, 1k to 3k for high mids and then 3k to 10k for highs, then 10k+ for the air/transients. If you have a hard time muting your sounds, you can also isolate a few different sounds in different bands.
  • Amplitude: Also known as volume, amplitude is often not understood properly. People want everything LOUD and are afraid that secondary sounds won’t be heard. Everything gets heard in a mix and sometimes, things that are less loud are way better. Some sounds should be the loudest, then the others should be mixed in relation to those. The greater the amplitude distance you have between your sounds, the more they’ll feel like they’re breathing instead of fighting. This is your dynamic range, a concept that’s often misunderstood. I would recommend playing with levels here and there as well. Having modulation on the amplitude of a sound is a good way to create a breath of fresh air in a mix. You can use a tool like MTremolo to give you a hand with that.
  • Sample length: This is something many overlook but is very important when it comes to samples. In many cases, samples people use are too long (too much decay) and that can cause a lot of noise, especially once compressed. Take kicks, for instance; people love big, badass kicks but don’t realize how problematic a long kick is in the low-end, especially in mastering. It bleeds in the bass and everything becomes mushy. I often use Transient Shaper (by Softubes) to shorten kicks or other percussive elements. You’d push the attack if you want and reduce the decay. You can also reduce the decay of a sample in Ableton if you go in the “Preserve” to be switched to “Trans” and then make sure it’s one-way, and play with the percentage to remove the decay.
  • Stereo space: I’ve explained this before and will refrain from repeating myself, but stereo clarity is crucial. If your sounds are spread wildly, you might get into phasing issues which means, you’ll end up with holes and sounds ghosting when they should be heard. I know that discovering phasing issues might be a bit of a mystery to many new producers, but with a good metering, you can see them. You can also listen to part of your song in mono to see if everything is coming out properly.

Chaos-inducing mixing errors

There are a number of tools and habits that can create chaos in a mix—I run into them often, and here are a few I see regularly that I can provide some advice for:

1- Using loop samples: There’s nothing wrong with using a pre-made loop or sampling something from source, but you won’t be able to access the loop’s sounds individually, and can get trapped dealing with issues that already exist within the loop or sample. If you’re using a loop, make it the centre of your song and make sure that you work the other samples around it. Tip: Using busy loops can be a bit of a problem, but you can use a multi-band compressor to control them, or put them in mono and use a multi-band stereo tool like the Shaperbox 2 to decide on the position of each sound.

2- Auto-panning nightmares: Making things move can feel exciting, but it doesn’t help mix clarity if you overdo it. Using multiple auto-pan effects on sounds can be cool, but the human ear can only handle a certain number of complex things going on. If on the first listen, one can’t understand the movement clearly, there are chances the modulation isn’t helping. TIP: Use just one auto-panning effect per song, max.

3- Delays and reverb: Reverb and delay multiply or make sounds longer, songs busier, and therefore, potentially more confusing. Reverb can be useful, but a type like Hall can make things sound a bit messy. I would recommend to have your reverb set to a short decay and low wet/dry. Darker reverb can also help preserve the highs in your song. Tip: Using reverb with a Chamber/Room at the beginning can help to know how much you should use. Also, if you can use a delay instead of reverb for creating wider sounds, use an EQ to tame the clashing frequencies.

4- Intense compression: Compression glues and adds body to sounds, but a compressor with a slow release and high ratio can also mess up the precision of a sound. Keeping some transients intact can really help a sound to pop out of a mix. If you compress, perhaps using the magic 1:1.5 ratio with slow attack to help the transient snap. TIP: Parallel compression is always useful for clarity.

My last general tip is to always check your mix in mono…it really helps!

I hope this was useful.

Music Feedback: When to Take the Opinions of Others Seriously and When Not to Care

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If you make music, you’ll get what I’m trying to explain here—the head space where you’re fully aware that it’s important to make music solely for yourself, but yet you really want to share it with the world, with other people who could potentially like it. If you love what you do, maybe someone out there also loves it, too?

Where should you draw the line between making music for others versus making it for yourself?

Honestly, it’s a tough question. The voice of reason in most people will answer it with something moralistic, like:

Making music for yourself is the way. Sharing is good, but don’t make a big deal out of what people say.

Unless you have a real mastery of your emotions, if you’re an artist, you will, at some point, want to share your work. If you share your work with “random” people, especially close friends or family, you’ll mostly get random feedback which can be confusing and hard to analyze constructively. Sharing your work is, at its most fundamental level, about seeking validation. Even old fart producers like me who have 20+ albums and have toured, still carry the need for validation. The difference I see between myself and younger artists, is that I carefully pick the people I share my music with—a way of knowing if you’re still relevant to people you trust. In past posts, I’ve explained how to network properly and how to build a circle of solid contacts.

A pattern I often see is artists having a very productive session, and the resulting track feels very emotionally powerful to them. Validation comes in when they seek to determine if the emotions in the session were valid, or if they were hyped over something bogus.

This sort of pattern results in an “they’re right, I’m wrong” thought process that causes cognitive dissonance. Let’s examine this pattern from a technical point of view:

  1. You make music absolutely for yourself, but this is artistic masturbation; it’s normal to want to connect with others to validate these feelings.
  2. The opposite is making music for a label, other artist, crowd, club, or festival, in which an artist is chasing other people’s opinions and lacks control over their own work—they usually end up frustrated.

If you ask someone for advice about music, sometimes people come at it from the problematic position of “I’m right, you’re wrong.” They’ll tell you what they think is good or not, based on their point of view. Sometimes people are not totally open to giving real feedback and will be biased. When most people are given the opportunity to criticize, they’ll find something wrong. It might not always be useful, but sometimes with music, particularly concerning technical aspects of production, there’s value in receiving good feedback.

When Should You Take Someone’s Feedback Seriously?

It’s up to you, but it’s heavily dependent on your ability and accuracy in evaluating your own work beforehand. Here are a few tips for evaluating your own work before seeking external feedback:

1. If your track creates emotion in you, never doubt it, even if it never reaches anyone. Not all tracks need to be released, heard publicly, or shared. You can make a song for yourself and perhaps a few friends—this is a totally valid way of making music. The “need” to release all your music is really a misconception that you’re entitled to be heard because you made a song. Honestly, you aren’t.

2. Listen to your song in different contexts to see what it feels like. For example, listen to it while commuting, in your living room, in your car, in front of a friend (in person!) or in the middle of your favourite playlist. This can reveal flaws in your work. If something feels off and you are limited technically, then you know that asking someone for feedback with a precise request should provide value to your work.

3. Use a reference tool such as Reference from Plugin Boutique which, if you compare your work with a song you like, you can easily see what is missing (tone or loudness). Fixing issues might be a roadblock for some artists, and that’s another reason it might be useful to get feedback.

Once you’ve done these three things, I’d upload a snippet to Soundcloud to get a reaction or share it privately with a few friends. I would never post music in forums without knowing what regular users are like in the first place. I also don’t share with close friends; they never get it and sometimes it can make the friendship awkward. I prefer having two circles of friends: music-related and non-music.

Never forget that it’s important to age a song for a few weeks or months, just like a wine, then come back to it afterwards—this trick reveals incredible details you can’t initially see or hear.

When is Feedback Disposable and Not Worth Taking Seriously?

  • When someone implies that you should change something in the arrangement or sound design based on their tastes.
  • When someone discusses some so-called “unwritten rules” about how music “should” be made (ex. you have to make all your sounds from scratch, you can’t use samples, etc).
  • When their technical feedback is questionable. For example, some people might comment on bass without having access to a sub.
  • When someone who lacks empathy can’t understand the vision of the track and tries instead to see it from their own point of view. For example, my ex never understood that music I made at home would translate differently in a club.
  • When someone tags your music with buzzwords. Sometimes people would listen to a song and say “oh, it’s chill” but not understanding that on a large system, it might groove.
  • When you receive comments such as “X is good” or “X is bad“. As if the person had the universal understanding of some permanent elements in music—such comments don’t mean anything at all. We all know that if person X finds it bad, person Y might think it’s genius.

I hope this helps you understand what type of feedback is worth taking seriously!

SEE ALSO : Common mindsets of musicians who have writer’s block and how to solve them

Changing Genres: Coming to Electronic Music from Other Genres

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Since interest in electronic music really blossomed in terms of popularity, musicians from different spheres have all tried to capitalize on it. 20 years ago, big musicians in rock, pop, dabbled with it. We saw Madonna and some other bigger names venture into electronic sounds, but they sounded mostly like tourists in a country that they were visiting. With the recent victory of Billy Eillish at the Grammy’s for her album, not only it is mostly electronic, but it was also recorded in their modest home (precisely, in a bedroom) in Los Angeles. I’m currently involved in a few mixing engineer groups on Facebook, and while many were laughing at the album, some people took real interest in it—sometimes, less might be better, and you don’t need the latest toys to make something interesting.

Most newcomers to the scene, however, lack the knowledge of electronic music culture, and understanding of what electronic music is or sounds like. For people like me who have been listening to the genre for decades, when I hear someone with a rock background pick up synths and try to make techno, there’s something that always sounds slightly off: it doesn’t sound like what electronic is generally like, or it sounds something like rock, but not in a good way. In the 50s, people experimented with making classical music on synths—most of it was plainly horrible. Same goes for the early attempts of synth presets mimicking very colourful instruments like a trumpet. “Trumpet” presets make jazz musicians cringe, and with good reason.

Should an experienced musician restrain themselves from venturing into a new genre? Of course not. But knowing some tips to make the switch is probably the right course of action.

References and Getting to Know What Works

The biggest mistake I see from people who come to electronic music from a different scene, is not understanding who they are making music for. I can’t speak for how it works in the rock industry, but I think there are fewer fragmented areas of it than there are in electronic music. Electronic music has DJs, fans, labels, media, internet, etc., all with different sub-scenes. Knowing your specific audience can influence how you make music itself. For “musicians”, this is something many have a hard time getting their head around. For instance, if your track is made for DJs, you wouldn’t approach it the same way as if you make music for yourself, or for the general public.

“Why would I do it for DJs?”, a rocker once asked me.

Well, they expose your music to a public that might be interested to listen to it in a specific context. Your purpose is not the same as if you make music for, let’s say, home or even, after-parties.

“Oh, there are different types of DJs?”, he replied.

Yes indeed, I replied, and that’s another level of complexity in electronic music. You don’t make music for opening sets or after-parties, the way you would for peak time—and even for peak time, each genre has their own standards of what constitutes “peak music”. House, EDM (aka Vegas music), minimal, techno, etc., all have different styles. Even ambient and drone, have their own version of “peak time music”, which might sound bizarre if you’re not familiar with these genres, but go to an ambient or drone festival and you’ll know what I mean.

“But I just want to make cool music”, he then said.

Yeah, I know, I do too. But then again, if it’s for yourself and friends, you then know who you make it for and that’s very cool. If you’re aiming for a broader market and want to commercialize it, that approach probably won’t work well. Electronic music is a genre where you are free to do whatever you want and have unlimited resources to make many dream ideas come true, but the whole commercialization aspect of it is really messy, complicated, frustrating, paradoxical, and sometimes counter-productive. I’m aware this is the case in other genres as well, but the “successful” dance-oriented market is pretty tricky.

So what’s the real problem if you don’t follow a certain aesthetic?

Well, the most common scenario I see is enthusiastic people following their current tastes (often based on music that was cool 5-10 years ago) and without any self-criticism or feedback release music, and years later feel embarrassed about how off they sounded, or how badly it aged. Not a big problem, but it’s simple to not fall into this trap.

If you’re familiar with this blog, I frequently discuss the importance of references.

  • One thing that might surprise you is that I often recommend Spotify as an exploration tool. Let’s say you like the Chemical Brothers… Spotify can expose you to similar sounding artists. You can also see the latest releases by an artist and how he or she has developed. Personally, I love that.
  • Another thing I suggest is to spend some time listening to a lot of different artists. That also includes checking online magazines (I love XLR8R), get familiar with DJ charts, see what festivals book them or other artists you like, and get to know the other artists playing.
  • Going out to events is important, too. To hear music in context really gives huge insights to a musician. As an engineer and coach, I occasionally pop in to local events to see what’s happening.

Collaboration, Mentoring, and Networking

I think another very important thing to do when you venture into other genres is to quickly find someone of reference or reputation that you can trust. Develop a relationship where there’s no filter on your discussions or feedback—this can take quite a while to find or build.

Working with friends who have great taste or hiring professionals also, for the most part, provides you with some quality control.

  • Try to get to learn about plugins that are used on a daily basis by professionals.
  • Have some ideas of where to buy quality presets for certain soft-synths for the purpose of learning how some sounds are made.
  • Have a good idea of influential artists behind current trends. For every bigger, commercial trend, there’s a lesser-known artist who started a movement, an idea, or a musical direction that often “inspires” bigger names who commercialize it.
  • Get familiar with festivals that are fun and that could be good hubs for networking.
  • Build a network with media, promoters, and DJs. There are a lot of benefits and opportunities this type of network can produce.

However, when everything is said and done, collaboration is about making music, and getting to know the tips and tricks while networking. These are, in my opinion, some of the best things to know about if you aspire to make your way into a new genre!

SEE ALSO : Making and breaking genres in your music

Does Your Mix Sound Too Clean? Unpolish It.

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If you think about it, it’s pretty astonishing to consider the number of tools that exists to make our music sound more professional. Since the 90s—when the DAW became more affordable and easily attainable for the bedroom producer—technology has been working to provide us with problem-solving tools to get rid of unwanted noises, issues, and other difficult tasks. We now face a point where there are so many tools out there, that when confronting a problem, it’s not about how you’ll solve it, but about which tool you’ll pick. Some plugins will not only solve a particular problem, but will also go the extra mile and offer you solutions for things you didn’t even know you needed.

The quantity and quality of modern tools out there have led myself, and others I’ve discussed this topic with, to a few observations regarding the current state of music. A lot of music now sounds “perfect” and polished to a point where it might be too clean. Just like effects in movies, deep learning, and photoshopped models—it feels like we’re lacking a bit of human touch. On top of the tools, engineers (like me) are more and more common and affordable, which makes it easier for people to get the last details of their work wrapped up. For many, music sounding “too clean” is not an issue whatsoever, but for others—mainly those who are into lofi, experimental, and old-school sounding music—the digital cleanliness can feel like a bit much.

If you think about it, we even have AI-assisted mastering options out there, but mastering plugins are also available for your DAW (Elements by Izotope does an OK job), as well as interactive EQs or channels strips to help you with your mixing (Neutron, FabFilter Pro-Q3), and noise removers and audio restoration plugins (RX Suite by Izotope). We’ve been striving to sound as clean as possible, as perfect as a machine can sound, and with increased accessibility, technology gives us the possibility to really have things sound as perfect as we can dream of.

So where should you stop?

Monitoring

You can only sound as perfect as what you can hear. If your monitoring isn’t perfect, you might not be able to achieve a perfect sounding mix. I know some people who intentionally will work with less-precise monitoring—it could be on earbuds/Airpods (not the Pro version), laptop speakers, cheap headphones, or simple computer speakers. Engineers usually test their final mix on lower-grade systems to make sure it will translate well in non-ideal settings. Starting out mixing this way also works; if you make music on low or consumer-level monitoring, you’ll be missing some feedback, which can actually turn out to be a good thing for your sound.

When producing on lower-grade speakers however, it also means you might not polish parts that actually need fixing. One of the frequency zones that always needs attention is the low-end—not paying proper attention to mixing it can be problematic in certain contexts, such as clubs. In other words, making bass-heavy music without validating the low-end is risky, because compared to other songs of the same genre that do sound “perfect”, your mix might have huge differences, which could sound off. In my opinion, if you want an “unpolished” sound, you should still give the low-end proper attention if it’s an important part of your song.

However, having self-imposed limitations, such as in your monitoring, is a good way to add a healthy dose of sloppiness to your mix.

Technical Understanding

The more you learn, the more you realize you really don’t know much. It’s perfectly fine not to know everything. Each song is a representation of where you are at the moment with your music production. I never try to accomplish a “masterpiece”. The more time and energy I put into a song to make it sound “perfect”, the more I realize I’ve sort of screwed up the main idea I had in the first place. Quickly-produced music is never perfect, but its spontaneity usually connects with people. I see people on Facebook amazed with music I’d consider technically boring from a production perspective, but the emotion these works capture strikes people more than the perfection of a mix.

Every time I search for something music-related, I learn something new. There are also some things I’m okay with not doing “the proper way”. I don’t think my music should be a showcase of my skills, but more of a reflection of the emotions I have in that moment.

I often see people over-using high-pass filters in their mixes, which makes their music feel thin or cold, or using EQs side-by-side that could introduce phasing issues…but does fixing these things actually matter? I’ve made some really raw music without any EQs at all (Tones of Void was recorded live without any polishing), which sounded really raw and was my most complimented work in the last 10 years of my productions.

Similarly, a lot of producers know very little music theory—how important is it? I’ve never gone to school for music and it’s only recently that I started wanting to learn more about it. Clients often ask me questions like “is it okay if I do this?” To which I reply that there is no right or wrong. Following rules might actually lead you to sounding too generic, if you’re technically-influenced.

The resurgence of tape in production and the rise of lofi love is great thing for music. People on Reverb are buying more and more old tape decks, four-tracks, and recording entire albums on them. One thing I love is the warmth it brings and the hiss as well (note: I get sad when clients ask me to remove any hiss). Some even have a shelving-EQ that can create a nice tone. Using an external mixer for your mixes can also create a very nice color, even on cheaper ones. Perhaps you shouldn’t be looking for the best sounding piece of equipment to improve your sound!

References

If your usual references are music that is really clean-sounding, you’ll be influenced to sound the same. I like that at the moment I see younger producers who are interested in uncompressed music, and like to have as much of a dynamic range as possible in their work; this is the opposite of the early 2000s when people thought loudness was the way to go—a trend that made a lot of beautiful music sound ugly as hell. Now some of the top producers have been passing their love for open dynamics on to the people who follow them, and that opens up a really large spectrum for exploring the subtle art of mixing.

When music is too clean and safe, it also becomes too sterile for many peoples’ tastes. If your references are only the cleanest sounds possible, perhaps you should explore the world of dub techno, lofi, and strange experimental music on Bandcamp—you’ll start to understand how music can exist in other ways.

SEE ALSO : How to balance a mix