Help with Mixing

illsmallz

I really need help with mixing music. I've tried and tried but I jus cant get my head around it. The music is Hip-Hop & R&B and would greatly appreciate some help.

Kind Regards

splinters69

Any particular aspect; tracking, sound creation, EQing, effects, vocals...coming up with a decent idea in the first place?

Jules

Mixing or creating?

The gadget show once did an episode where the presenters were challenged to use technology to produce music.   Unlike pretty much every other challenge, they weren't able to complete the task and had to call in the experts.  I guess this just point to music production being a pretty complex hobby and is not for the faint of heart (or the shallow pocketed ! lol).

Assuming you are comfortable with the musical side, the technical artistry of mixing a track IMO comes from years of doing, comparing and learning.

However, a good start is to think of your mixed track in 3 dimensions.... frequency, amplitude (volume) and position (width and depth).
Spread out your component sounds in these 3 areas so as not to overload any one area, being particularly careful not overload frequencies below 100Hz... here things build up very quickly and muddy your sound.
My advice... EQ all bass out of any sound that isn't a dedicated bass instrument or kick drum.


Controlling frequencies is at a basic level achieved through judicious use of EQ.
Controlling amplitude is achieved through volume automation and compressors.
Controlling the position of sounds is achieved through stereo panning (width) and reverb (depth).

Of course there are hundreds of other ways to manipulate and mix sounds, but starting off with EQ, compression, stereo panning and reverb will give you a feel for what does and does't work.

illsmallz

appreciate the replies guys but decided to go old school and pick up a book lol Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio

7ofnine

I've recently had some very good results using Ardour - a professional quality DAW which costs nothing. Actually it's so good I had to donate some money towards the project. It's perfect for recording and mixing tracks, and has endless plugin effects to play around with the sound.
However you're right in saying it's a very complex area, but you can get very good results with a bit of reading up on the subject.