The best ways to learn Mixing and Mastering

[Mohammadyarahmad]

Hello,
I recently watched some famous EDM producers' masterclasss, like Deadmau5, Armin van Buuren, etc. (FaderPro).
I got nothing
There was nothing special in them. IMO, they just published them for business.

What do you recommend for learning Mixing and Mastering?

Books, videos,...
From who?

My major problem is with frequency interference.
I don't think it's a good idea to cut and allocate every area of frequencies to sound clean. (for example, cut the area between 100-500 for the bass, 500-3000 hz for the lead, and so on.)

Thanks

[splitpen]

A couple of tips which love to share.
First I would not bother with mastering before knowing how to mix your track to sound balanced and clear.
Listen to music in the genre you're making but also other genres a lot and I mean a lot to know your system.
Find some tracks you like and think are well balanced.
Get a good analyzers like the free span, msed and correlation meter from voxengo and place them as last in the chain.
Place the balanced mix you like in your session or use a plugin to compare tracks and the balance. I mostly use mix the reference for this task..
For me this just works but there are a lot of other tools around.
Level match the output, and keep focusing on that that it stays matched. this is one of the most important things to make a good comparison.

Work around the midrange, (you can place a high pass and low pass to focus on the midrange) are sounds in the same region playing at the same time and do they mask eachother, fix it. Only one can be the most present, eq, reverb en delay are there to place things to the foreground and background. Sometimes placing notes in different range might also help. Hit that mono button on the MSED, is the midrange collapsing or does is stay clear? If you hear phasing or sounds got away that are important, you know something is wrong and need a fix. Sometimes I place a audio splitter inside a mix channel and feed a stereo pair to a mixer (channel 1) inside it. Than a single cable (left) to the second channel and right to the third. Mostly one of channel 2 or 3 will make the sound clearer, sometimes a bit of both with a bit of planning also works.

A lot of people tend to only cut the low end to make room but it's also important to cut the highs where you can. That high frequencies are mostly used for hihats and ambiance space. If you dont cut the highs your mix will mostly sound to bright and fatiguing in the end especially if you are using lots of sounds. And boosting the track on the mastering stage. If you are cutting away try to listen with the other instruments combined. Sometimes you can cut away way more then you think.

The low end is mostly one of the hardest to get right. First of all is sounds selection. If it doesn't sound good in the first kick and bass relation, it's mostly better to find a better kick/ bass. Loading a kick in a sampler like Kong, you can easily tune the pitch of the kick. Sometimes this would do the trick as well. Saturation, shapers, eqs are your friends to
decide which should be the most prominent, the kick or the bass? In techno, techhouse, trance etc the kick is mostly the most important, it's a short hit, 1/8 or less in length unless you are using a 808 and want long sustained kicks.
I you listen to the kick and bass together I mostly switch the phase invert on top of the mix channel with kick selection back and forth and listen if it fits better or not. Phase relation between these 2 elements is key. If not they could cause cancelation.. weaker (sub) bass.

My couple of tips for now good luck!

[DaveyG]

I've never been a great mixer but my mixing improved hugely when I started carving large chunks out of each track with EQ.
I do it with my ears and also with a spectrum analyser. You'll be surprised how much of each track you can get rid of without losing it's vibe. Sometimes they sound pretty weak when soloed but they sit much better in the mix. Synths tend to be the biggest culprit for swamping other things. Each genre tends to have a signature instrument or sound so you need to bring that out. Vocals, in particular, usually need breathing space. Another tip for vocals is to check the timing and the phrasing. If a vocal is even slightly out of the groove you'll never be happy with the mix.

The other tip is that, in most genres, less is more. You don't need as many tracks as you think. This is especially true of many modern EDM and dance styles. Fewer tracks means fewer things to balance and fewer clashing frequencies. Keep it simple.

But the best way to learn is to keep practicing. Post songs on here and elsewhere and ask for opinions.

[robussc]

I couldn't get the hang of mixing until I finally decided to take a dedicated online course. I bought the mixing and mastering course here: https://www.recordingrevolution.com/ - the guy who created it has since sold it to some other guy, but I imagine the original course is still available? Anyway, the guy who presents it (Graham) is super engaging and breaks it all down into a very approachable process. The big win is you get original stems to work with and so can mix along side him and hear exactly the same things he's hearing (and fixing).

For EDM specifically, http://www.youtube.com/@OscarUnderdog on YouTube is excellent, and he has a number of videos on mixing specifically: https://www.youtube.com/@OscarUnderdog/search?query=mix

Finally I highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/@inthemix this guy is a very calm very informative presenter and has absolutely boatloads of videos all about in the ins and outs of mixing.

[Mohammadyarahmad]

Thanks all for your honest answers <3 <3 <3
Any other recommendation will be appreciated as well.

[Mohammadyarahmad]

I couldn't get the hang of mixing until I finally decided to take a dedicated online course. I bought the mixing and mastering course here: https://www.recordingrevolution.com/ - the guy who created it has since sold it to some other guy, but I imagine the original course is still available? Anyway, the guy who presents it (Graham) is super engaging and breaks it all down into a very approachable process. The big win is you get original stems to work with and so can mix along side him and hear exactly the same things he's hearing (and fixing).

For EDM specifically, http://www.youtube.com/@OscarUnderdog on YouTube is excellent, and he has a number of videos on mixing specifically: https://www.youtube.com/@OscarUnderdog/search?query=mix

Finally I highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/@inthemix this guy is a very calm very informative presenter and has absolutely boatloads of videos all about in the ins and outs of mixing.

I agree with buying some online courses if they're valuable.
Most courses these days are created just for money.
I don't think we can find effective videos on YouTube. 99% of them are built for higher views. Therefore, nothing special...

Did anyone watch other helpful courses and benefit from them?

[Morris B.]

Here are my recommendations:

I just finished two courses by Bernardo Schwanka on Udemy that were excellent, both dealing specifically with electronic music. The first one is a really comprehensive course with around 27 (!) hours of videos. I think I took around 60 pages of handwritten notes during the course and it might be all you need to keep you busy and learning for a while:

https://www.udemy.com/course/mixing-and ... EPLEARNING

It's important to point out that the audio is in Portuguese though, but there are English subtitles, and for me it wasn't a problem to follow. I learned more from that course than from 10+ years of watching random YouTube tutorials. I can highly recommend this one. I even picked up some basic Portuguese on the way.

Having finished this one, I also took his recently published new course on mixing and mastering with Plugin Alliance plugins (this time in English, not Portuguese), but that's of course more specific, I just happened to have a lot of their plugins already so it was worth it for me, but that might be different for you:

https://www.udemy.com/course/mixing-and ... EPLEARNING

If you're a new user on Udemy, there will most likely be huge discounts, so I got each course for around 15€, which is a steal considering the value they give. They also have those kinds of sales pretty regularly after registering from what I can tell.

Another course I enjoyed is the masterclass by Hannes Bieger on Aulart, but while giving excellent tips and ideas, it's nowhere near as comprehensive as the first course mentioned above that I would recommend most out of these three. Here's the link:

https://www.aulart.com/masterclass/arra ... lub-sound/

Hope this helps.

Best wishes!

[Mohammadyarahmad]

Here are my recommendations:

I just finished two courses by Bernardo Schwanka on Udemy that were excellent, both dealing specifically with electronic music. The first one is a really comprehensive course with around 27 (!) hours of videos. I think I took around 60 pages of handwritten notes during the course and it might be all you need to keep you busy and learning for a while:

https://www.udemy.com/course/mixing-and ... EPLEARNING

It's important to point out that the audio is in Portuguese though, but there are English subtitles, and for me it wasn't a problem to follow. I learned more from that course than from 10+ years of watching random YouTube tutorials. I can highly recommend this one. I even picked up some basic Portuguese on the way.

Having finished this one, I also took his recently published new course on mixing and mastering with Plugin Alliance plugins (this time in English, not Portuguese), but that's of course more specific, I just happened to have a lot of their plugins already so it was worth it for me, but that might be different for you:

https://www.udemy.com/course/mixing-and ... EPLEARNING

If you're a new user on Udemy, there will most likely be huge discounts, so I got each course for around 15€, which is a steal considering the value they give. They also have those kinds of sales pretty regularly after registering from what I can tell.

Another course I enjoyed is the masterclass by Hannes Bieger on Aulart, but while giving excellent tips and ideas, it's nowhere near as comprehensive as the first course mentioned above that I would recommend most out of these three. Here's the link:

https://www.aulart.com/masterclass/arra ... lub-sound/

Hope this helps.

Best wishes!

The first one is a complete mixing course. Thanks

[selig]

It depends on how you learn. I tried the traditional recording school approach, but dropped out after a semester due to poor quality teaching. I read the textbook cover to cover before the beginning of classes, which was helpful for me to see what the teachers were missing…

After I dropped out I pestered folks and got super lucky to land an assistant engineer gig for a working engineer. I learned more in my first week of assisting than in the entire semester of recording school.

Bottom line: I learned better from a more traditional apprenticeship approach than books/school. Videos would have been as useful as books/school, as I didn’t learn as much from ‘prepared presentations” as from watching someone actually work. There are things to learn from watching the entire process multiple times that never come up in any books/videos/school IMO.

But we all learn differently, so it depends not only on the quality of the material (the first issue to address) as it does the way it is presented. And while you don’t have to start in the genre you’re interested in learning since there are basics that apply across the board, at some point you want to seek out folks that do what you want to do and learn from them (either in person if you were so lucky, or by reading their books or watching their videos).

In regards to the quality of the typical youtube video for learning audio techniques, it could be said GIGO applies here as it does in other places. “Garbage In/Garbage Out” means the quality of the result is directly related to the quality of the source material, which not only applies to audio quality of your source material but also the quality of your educational materials.

[Mohammadyarahmad]

It depends on how you learn. I tried the traditional recording school approach, but dropped out after a semester due to poor quality teaching. I read the textbook cover to cover before the beginning of classes, which was helpful for me to see what the teachers were missing…

After I dropped out I pestered folks and got super lucky to land an assistant engineer gig for a working engineer. I learned more in my first week of assisting than in the entire semester of recording school.

Bottom line: I learned better from a more traditional apprenticeship approach than books/school. Videos would have been as useful as books/school, as I didn’t learn as much from ‘prepared presentations” as from watching someone actually work. There are things to learn from watching the entire process multiple times that never come up in any books/videos/school IMO.

But we all learn differently, so it depends not only on the quality of the material (the first issue to address) as it does the way it is presented. And while you don’t have to start in the genre you’re interested in learning since there are basics that apply across the board, at some point you want to seek out folks that do what you want to do and learn from them (either in person if you were so lucky, or by reading their books or watching their videos).

In regards to the quality of the typical youtube video for learning audio techniques, it could be said GIGO applies here as it does in other places. “Garbage In/Garbage Out” means the quality of the result is directly related to the quality of the source material, which not only applies to audio quality of your source material but also the quality of your educational materials.

Thanks, Selig
Lots of useful experience <3
I agree with all the terms

[tomusurp]

I learned most of everything on YouTube and articles through Google. Some of it is my own intuition and studying certain songs that I think are mixed and mastered well. Also studying certain engineers who have tutorial content on social media like Luca Pretolesi, one of the best engineers IMO. I learned a crazy vocal mixing trick from him that I still use to this day every time I mix a client or my own vocals.

Keep in mind that most of it is about mixing. Mastering is really just cherry on top. If your track is mixed well, most of the time just some gain, saturation, clipping, bit of compression, some resonance suppression if you like and then a limiter will suffice. There's a lot of stuff to learn but it's not rocket science. Maybe I would have gone to school for audio engineering but I didn't have the money after high school and didn't want to go into debt so I worked on my music production on the side while working a regular job.

If this was 1970 or if schools were affordable here in USA I'm sure more people would go, not that the information is not attainable elsewhere but for networking and collaborating in person with people. It's what humans are really meant to do. BUT the internet has all the information and MORE about music production and audio engineering, so if you push yourself to learn, its up to you how much