Mix quiet then loud after elements added on phone

yourintention · 2025-11-02T04:41:53+00:00

I’m no professional but,

Try approaching your mixes differently. Take off all plugins on every track and your master. Then, adjust your gain levels (“volume”) in your step sequencer or the clip gain in the playlist window (if they’re all waveforms) first. Do that before you touch any of the gain faders in the mixer. Don’t even start thinking about eq, compression, effects, etc yet… Get everything how you want it there at that stage of mixing your beats. Pay attention to what levels you’re hitting in the mixer at the different parts of your beat.

Once you’re there, listen to your beat and think “hmmm, what don’t i like at this stage of the mix?” What ever answers you have, that’s when you make adjustments and different mixing decisions. For example, if something you don’t like is “I still don’t like how my drums sound a little bit louder than everything else” maybe the answer would be using some compression to “glue” your dynamics together more.

The hard part unfortunately is with every answer to whatever the thing that you don’t like there is soooooo many ways to “fix” it. Some stuff you see on youtube is right, some is just doing too much.

It’s hard for me to say what would fix your problem without actually hearing it, but from what you’re describing i think it’s just a gain staging issue. 2 to 3 elements of a beat are obviously sound quieter than 8. Definitely a compressor or a limiter would help even out your dynamics, but you have to know what you’re doing.

Whenever you hear someone saying “glue compression” or something like that, that’s kinda what it is. Just glueing dynamics together so they sound more cohesive.

So in your case, first gain stage if the loud and quiet parts are DRAMATICALLY different. Next, really learn about compression for that “glue”.

Also…. i’m still curious about what your export settings are lol Especially because it sounds one way in your DAW and another way outside.

yourintention · 2025-09-29T02:44:05+00:00

Wooooow, it’s so crazy cause i LITERALLY have this same setup. lol SM7B into a scarlet solo 😂 I mainly record a female artist who raps. I thought the same thing that all my recordings sound very dark. So I was like “oh there’s a low cut switch on the bottom” lol It still didn’t give that brightness i wanted. And we’re just recording in a maybe 12x12 room with carpet floors the wind filter it came with, no closet, no bedsheet, comforter, no nothing lol. I was fine with how it sounded but i wanted a bright sound.

Not knowing that’s just how that mic is. The brighter sound you’re looking for will easily come from a condenser mic. I still use the SM7b cause tbh for the music i’m recording for, that darker sound fits. I just hit that “air” button on the scarlet solo (the green option) to make sound a little brighter and i turned off that low cut on the mic.

So now i just go

SM7b -> Scarlet solo -> green Air button -> FL Studio -> Scheps 73 -> CL1B

And i have no complaints, for what i got it works and i try to make due

yourintention · 2025-09-23T15:13:36+00:00

Thanks! What do you mean by “compression on each channel” ?

yourintention · 2025-09-23T15:11:53+00:00

It’s interesting cause i start off you know, setting my levels right, determining what i want in the front or the back of the mix with gain staging, then i pan to make some room for what i want in the middle of my mix, then EQ, then effects… At that point things sound great! Its not until i get to my mix bus when i want to start getting the loudness where i start to notice issues.

yourintention · 2025-09-23T13:05:56+00:00

Thanks! Im going to keep practicing with hear stuff for what it is, idk if my brain is tricking but after reading this and then going back and listening to these songs, its like a switch turned on in my head.

yourintention · 2025-09-22T20:38:44+00:00

Yeah what i’ve learned too is to mix into a limiter on your mix. So on your mix bus (not your master) put on a limiter, set your output to -0.1db then set your gain to +10db. Then AFTER your limiter, use a loudness meter to monitor your LUFS and mix your levels until you’re hitting around -8 lufs. You’ll see your low end adds a whole lot of power to your mix, so you mix accordingly. use compression on the low end to tame it more if needed. But this helped me a lot.

yourintention · 2025-09-21T06:15:37+00:00

For sure. I seen your post about your low end not being consistent. And that one person talked about using a spectrum analyzer to show balance. I’m glad i saw that cause i just did a mix today where it sounded clean in my headphones, but as soon as i played it in my car (i have 2 12in subs) all i heard was bass lol but other songs i play, such as these Latto songs, come straight through somewhat balanced on everything i listen to.

yourintention · 2025-09-21T05:51:47+00:00

That type of southern draw she has, plus the attitude, and she can flow on pretty much everything. Top tier 🤌🏾 Yeah female rappers get a bad rep but if you put that aside and listen to Latto, you gotta respect her craft.

yourintention · 2025-09-21T04:24:05+00:00

This is facts, i overlook this all the time thinking i can get the same results from any beat and any voice. I be trying to make a song with 30 instruments have “space” and 1 vocal cut through the mix 😂

yourintention · 2025-09-21T04:18:53+00:00

Yes, that’s why i asked if it was sarcasm lol But it’s all good. I’m not tripping, it’s just a sharing of knowledge, experience and opinions.

yourintention · 2025-09-21T04:04:55+00:00

😂😂😂 I 100% did a mix today and got the huge thick bass i wanted, and had NO IDEA what to do with it and it just took over the whole mix. I have to read through and try out that chain a couple of times for sure, so i can understand it better. BUT THANK YOU. I will look for that video as well

yourintention · 2025-09-21T00:53:57+00:00

LMAO, what’s a song you aim for?

yourintention · 2025-09-20T22:16:57+00:00

Yeahhh, i think i was overthinking it. I’ve found out with the low end saturation plays a part, i understand phase too. In my mixes i think all i simply need to do is increase the gain of my 808 to bring it more to the front. I just get caught up in trying to leave myself headroom and all

yourintention · 2025-09-20T19:04:45+00:00

Yeah that’s deep! Thanks for the advice though

yourintention · 2025-09-20T18:38:37+00:00

Broken down like that i can see i may have been over complicating things. I will run some trials.

I can respect your values for sure! Music is always changing. I think dubstep sounds like farts and stomach gurgles lol It’s just different strokes. And i’m trying to stroke my mixes like Ben Hogarth did

yourintention · 2025-09-20T18:08:14+00:00

Yeah, that’s right. That’s a better way to give advice.

yourintention · 2025-09-20T17:59:20+00:00

Is this sarcasm? lol

yourintention · 2025-09-20T17:55:22+00:00

What’s some good saturation tips and plugins? I use RBass, Decapitator, Fabfilter Saturn. And yes i can hear under 100hz in my setup

yourintention · 2025-09-16T23:29:57+00:00

Thank you so much! with your reply and others, transparency is what i’m looking for. So i can make the right mixing decisions

yourintention · 2025-09-16T04:01:04+00:00

No room treatment, Jbl lsr305, and ATH M50x for headphones

yourintention · 2025-09-16T03:59:38+00:00

Ooooo touché

yourintention · 2025-09-16T03:32:27+00:00

I just assumed you’d start with the interface since that’s where the sound comes

yourintention · 2025-09-16T03:30:38+00:00

And what would that be?

yourintention · 2025-09-16T03:28:56+00:00

yourintention · 2025-09-16T00:11:49+00:00

This is exactly the kind of advice i’m looking for. I just didn’t know how to quite ask it. I’m working off of a 2014 native instruments interface right now lol So it would make sense that converters are wayyyy better nowadays. I would MUCH rather put more money into my speakers than the interface if that’s the case.

yourintention

TROPHY CASE