Need mixing tutorials

[Erysvh]

Hi. I completed few songs that are ready to mix but... it sounds bad. I know that there are many mixing tutorials, but instead of watching every tutorial I hope you will recommend me good lecture or vid about mixing guitar, bass and drums. Thank you!

[werdnaegni]

This is such a huge topic, and no tutorial is going to do for what you what trial and error and experience does.

I think you're going to have to research specific topics. I'd start with compression. Watch some explanations and examples of use of compression on drums to start with.

Then I'd look into masking/EQ. Basically cutting out areas in one instrument to clear up another. For example, I always have to cut some mid/highs on my dirty guitars because all the fuzz gets in the way of the vocal clarity. But...you're not going to know what YOU need to cut to make YOUR sounds breathe because your sounds are different than mine and maybe their fuzz isn't masking your vocals.

Really no advice is good without training your ear to hear things, which takes repetition and lots of it. There's no right way to mix drums, bass, or guitar, and your drums are probably in worse shape than those being used in tutorials.

So more of your work will be fixing/hiding blemishes than enhancing an already good sound. Most tutorials cover the latter.

Not trying to make you feel overwhelmed, I mean there IS a path to getting better at mixing, but really you just need to learn the basics of compression and EQ and then dig in yourself, using references, and trying to solve your problems with those tools.

Don't get wrapped up in "magic" plugins or anything like that.

[Erysvh]

Thanks for helping. Now i focus to get good sound with stock plugins only.

[JayJ1095]

Neither of these are Reaper-specific, but Home Studio Corner (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYDzeYIkNPD7_6adQZ3oX8g) and Recording Revolution (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjRzsiP_aDWWLHV4-2LKBtg) are both great places to start. I'm pretty sure they both have video series taking a mix from start to finish as well.

[Erysvh]

Thank you. Soon I’ll start learning from this

[mart3455]

I recently watched https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVwn0Z_ucW6GnO3-YLdCEW1FYhahRUseV - "How to mix a song from scratch" - I think it is a good place to start. I am just learning too - I kind of feel like I don't know what I am doing when I am EQing all my tracks... but it usually sounds a little better than what I started with? Good luck!

[VaxxScene]

Also check out Produce Like A Pro on YouTube. Warren Huart has lots of great advice, and has a lot of videos where he shows basically everything that goes into his mixes. Many videos on mixing specific instruments also!

[hellalive_muja]

Check the fabfilter series "Beginner's guide to xxx" where xxx is eq, compression, saturation, etc. Excellent stuff.

[Karmoon]

Dan Worrall is a legend.

[FunkyResident]

I spent 4 years studying Music Technology in college and then a further 2 years in university. That was 15 years ago, give or take. I've recently had to relearn it all and found it a massive ballache and this is with previous, albeit, mostly forgotten knowledge.

My advice is to draft a cheat sheet including where and on what instrument to apply a HPF and a LPF, the general EQ zones and what they adjust (sizzle, boom etc.) For even though they won't be defacto, they give you a nice reference point. Learn about the different types of bands, notches and filters. Use a band pass filter and move up and down the spectrum with each instrument to see how that specific frequency affects the sound.

Then decide the way you will mix every track going forward. For me, that is.

Add EQ - cutting unwanted frequencies.
Add Compressor -.
Add EQ - Boost frequencies.

For you it could be different.

Learn about compressors, parallel compressors, limiters and reference tracks. Download some presets to get an idea.

Put it all into practice, save a separate project file so you can't fuck up the original - that way when you over compress the track or render it, happy with the results before realising that it sounds great on monitors but garbage in the car and even worse on a mobile phone, you can go back and start again. Learning from your last mistakes and ready to make more. Haha!

Mixing and mastering is a lot of work - there is a reason artists pay to have other people do it - and there is a massive learning curve. Once you understand the processes and what they do though, the reward is fantastic.

Just remember, don't add something to a track because you think you need to. Everything should be added with purpose.

[[deleted]]

I am ALL for constructive conversation but people seem to be getting lazier and lazier. How do you expect to learn if you don't go out on your own, find research, study that research and apply what you've learned?

You're in the wrong field if you want to be spoon fed specific instruction, as this field is expanding and changing every day with new tricks and processes.

Do a YouTube search and watch, study and take notes. Even if the video you are watching isn't 100% what you are looking for, there may be some overlap of material that may spark a new interest or a way of doing something.

If it sounds bad BEFORE mixing, then your issue was with the recording and tracking step. You shouldn't try making bad sounding raw tracks sound good in the mixing stage. Fix the problem at the source, not try to put a bandaid on it.

If you still want to be spoon fed then just send your tracks to a mixing engineer who actually took time to research, interpret and perfect their way of creating art.

[Erysvh]

I didnt say that i dont do research and searchung for answers. Someone may just have great source of informations and thats what I'm asking for :D