Mixing Mistakes

Currently : 12

1. High pass madness

High passing every instrument and leaving the lows only on the kick and bass. This
makes the end result of the mix sound harsh and weak. The low energy affects how we
perceive the mid and high register.
This applies to the practice of highpassing by default on everything.
Dont cut it out, you need the low information, just attenuate it.
Every time you make a move with your eq, you change the phase of your track. You
change the correlation so a phase shift occurs. This especially becomes a problem,
when you have multi-mic recorded elements, dont eq them separately, you have to eq
them toghether. You will screw the phase of the two mics. Linear phase eq can be a
solution, because it wont shift the phase of the track. (use linear phase eq when you
have to eq one element of a multi-mic recording)
Also, whether or not the graph of the eq is showing, there will be a bump of the curve of
the eq. So the best way is to eq on different frequencies, so the bumps do not
accumulate at the end result of the mix.
This mistake leads to a messed up low end. (highpassing the low end of every element)

2. Bad timing of recorded

materials
Timing correction isn't about quantising everything to your sequencer's
barsandbeats grid. It's more about tightening up disagreements between the
available parts in your arrangement.
As such, your drum waveforms are usually abetter visual guide for editing purposes than
software bar/beat lines. Fully automatic pitchcorrection will almost never achieve an
acceptable combination of tuning accuracy and musicality, so be prepared to spend some
time manually finessing the action of any pitchcorrection utilities you choose to employ.
For timing purposes, the endpoint of anote can be almost important as where it begins,
especially when you're dealing with basslines. Whether you're adjusting timing or tuning,
avoid the powerful temptation to trust your eyes over your ears. Although looking at
software waveforms and pitch displays can help speed up corrective editing, it's not at all
uncommon for them to show some notes as 'correct' even when they're still audibly awry,
and vice versa.
It's particularly easy to lose perspective while editing timing and tuning, so take frequent
breaks and make sure to listen to the track at least once all the way through (preferably
without looking at your computer screen) before signing off your edits.

3. Mix tonality misjudgements

It's rarely sensible to endow your own production with an overall tonality
that makes it feel out of place alongside comparable commercial tracks. As
such, it's as well to do at least some comparative checks against stylistically
similar releases during the mixing stage to avoid any obvious tonal
mismatch.
Don't compare the overall tonality of different mixes at just one volume level.
Give that monitor level control some exercise to get amore informed
perspective.
Fixing abroad tonal imbalance in your mix can be as simple as inserting
ahighquality EQ plugin on your master channel. However, if you find
yourself using more than three or four EQ bands, applying more than 34dB
of gain per band, or using narrow filters (Q>1), it's more than likely that your
perchannel EQ settings need some reassessment too.

4. Phase misalignment
If you use more than one mic to record any instrument, there's always the danger that
minute timedelays between the recorded signals will cause atype of frequency
cancellation called combfiltering when the mics are combined at mixdown.
Similar difficulties can also arise when combining mics with DI signals; when summing
stereo mic pairs or send effects to mono; and when triggering samples alongside live parts.
However, there are now so many ways to address phase issuesin atypical MIDI + Audio
sequencer fine delays, audio editing, polarity inversion, allpass filtering, phase rotation.
Listening to your mix in mono is aquick way to check if any stereo signal in your mix
harbours phase problems. Although summing the left and right stereo channels of amix
will always cause acertain degree of tonal change, you need to be on the lookout for any
dramatic alterations that stand to make anonsense of your mix balance.
Be careful when layering several bass parts or low drum sounds within asingle
arrangement. Allowing such layers to slip in and out of phase with each other is arecipe for
frustration, because it'll cause the combined tone to change sporadically throughout the
timeline in away that's almost impossible to fix with normal mix processing.

5. Mix mud
The widespread use of closemiking techniques is partly to blame for this common
problem, because of the artificial bass boost (called the 'proximity effect') that
most directional microphones impose under such circumstances. However, many
synthetic sounds and samples often contain much more LF than is actually
required in amix, too, so programmed arrangements are no safer from this pitfall
than live recordings.
When setting filter frequencies, make sure to listen within the context of the mix.
You might be surprised by how far up the spectrum you can go before the sound
starts to lose warmth in context. Be carefulwith percussive sounds, though, as
these canlose subjective punch well before overall tone seems to change.
Be wary of delay or reverb effects that take ages to decay at the low end,
because they can quickly make an unpalatably thick soup of your sonics. In
typical pop, rock and electronica work, you can usually afford to highpass filter
most effect returns well above 100Hz, as well as applying additional LF shelving
or peaking cuts in the couple of octaves above that.

6. Unhelpful arrangement
The roots of many amix problem can be traced back to the
musical arrangement.
Unless you create some sense of buildup in the arrangement itself, it's
unlikely that you'll hold the listener's attention all the way to your final
chorus.
Having instruments fight for the same frequency register.
Try to avoid simply replicating the same arrangement for any similar
sections of your track.
If you're having trouble disentangling parts in your mix, try altering MIDI
parts to different chord inversions or pitchshifting audio parts to different
octave registers, to give each abit of clear space in the frequency
spectrum. Alternatively, put one part's notes in the timegaps left
between the another part's notes.

7. The wrong reverb

Reverb can do so many things in amix: gelling sounds, changing timbres,
simulating an acoustic environment, lengthening note decay. As such, one of the
important tricks to using reverb successfully at mixdown is to concentrate on
preventing it from doing things you don't actually want.
Naturalsounding reverbs will tend to be better for blending sounds together and giving
them asense of space. Unnaturalsounding reverbs (such as plates, springs and quirky
algorithmic digital devices), on the other hand, will tend to offer more scope for creative
enhancement of instrument timbres.Bright effects usually sound more obvious at alower
level, so be prepared to roll off the high frequencies of effect returnsif you want your
reverbs to keep alower profile.The length and level settings of areverb are
interdependent. If you misjudge one of them, you'll struggle to find asatisfactory setting
for the other.When you're close to completing your mix, bypass each return for afew
seconds during playback. This can really help you to gauge whether each effect is set up
right, especially in terms of overall tone, level anddecay time.If you're looking for amore
up-front sound, using heavier compression or adding in things like synth pads can both
reduce theneed for reverbs in amix. Temposync'ed delay effects can also provide amore
transparent substitute for reverb in alot of cases.

8. Harshness
Any part of your mix that's rich in the 25kHz frequencies will normally sound closer to the
listener, not least because the human hearing system is most sensitive to information in that
region. However, it's not just frequency response that can make amix feel abrasive, because untamed
highfrequency transients can be another crucial factor too.
Try to avoid boosting in the 25kHz region, especially with CPUlight digital equalisers, which can
occasionally sound abit crunchy up top. If agiven instrument isn't coming through well in that spectral
area, apply some cuts to competing channels instead.
Avoid EQ'ing in solo, because most people instinctively try to give every track a'forward' sound if they
work like that.
If you want to move synth or electricguitar rhythm parts out of the harshness zone, try using
pitchshifting or distortion to move some frequencies into adifferent part of the audio spectrum.
Be careful with the Attack Time control if you're compressing percussive material heavily, because slower
settings can allow highlevel transients through the processing before the gain reduction has the chance
to take hold.
To tone down overly spiky piano or acousticguitar tracks, experiment with some of the dedicated
transient processors now available, such as SPL's Transient Designer, Stillwell Audio's Transient Monster,
Sonnox Transient Modulator and Voxengo's Transgainer. Because these don't rely on athreshold system
to work, they tend to deal with the problem more 'musically' than traditional dynamics units.

9. Buried details
Even in cases where the mix tone is free of muddiness and send effects have been applied
appropriately, musicians who mix at home rarely present their material in the best light,
simply because they don't actively direct the listener towards the music's most appealing
aspects from moment to moment.
Any and all parts can benefit from microlevel fader rides, but few tracks more so than lead
vocals, where riding up the details can mean the difference between the listener
understanding the lyrics and not.
Whether the main part in your mix is alead vocal, instrumental solo, or some other hook, it's
not unusual for it to have the odd lull acomparatively featureless sustained note, say, or
agap between phrases. Whenever you hear one of these, have aquick hunt amongst the
rest of the backing tracks to see if there's anything else that might briefly poke out of the
texture to provide some welcome diversion.
It's standard practice on aprofessional level to carefully automate lead vocals in order to
maximise the intelligibility of the lyrics, so don't forget to give that process the time it
needs. While you're at it, try fading up the ends of some of the note tails you'd be
surprised how often they contain characterful little bits of hidden phrasing that can really
make aperformance seem more emotional.

10. Weak payoffs

Choruses sound underwhelming compared with their verses or, to put it in more
general terms, that some section of the arrangement isn't delivering the required
emotional payoff.
Failing to pace the mix's buildup correctly, such that the sonics peak too early. In
this situation, the temptation is always to try to push the subjective 'size' of amix's
climaxes beyond the point where they sound their best, thereby introducing all sorts
of potentially unmusical processing and distortion sideeffects.
See if you can make the previous section smallersounding, in some way, than it
currently is.
Remember that different songs, and different mix sections within a song, may
demand different sounds from the same instrument.
Both the level and the timbre of your lead vocals will be critical to the perceived
power of the backing arrangement. In particular, if you fade the vocal too high up in
the balance, or give it too much lower mid-range, the chances are that it will start to
make the rest of the production sound small.

11. Inappropriate processing on

the mix bus
You can get into all sorts of difficulties if you effectively try to master your production while
you're still mixing it.
Try to get the overall balance of your track working before you start applying mixbus
compression. Although you may subsequently need to adjust some faders in response to
the bus dynamics, in my experience it's easier to do this than to have the compressor's
gainreduction action interfering with all your initial balancing decisions.
Steer clear of using multi-band dynamics processors or dedicated 'loudness
maximisers' over your main outputs during mixdown. Although these can be useful
as part of aseparate mastering stage, they do make it very difficult to judge what's going
on when judging level balances, channel processing, and effects settings.
If you're deliberately driving afullband compressor hard to generate obvious
gainpumping effects, consider using aprocessor with awet/dry mix control so that you
have the option to reduce any transientsmoothing sideeffects of such heavy treatment.
If you're in any way uncertain about the validity of themasterbus processing you've
applied, do make sure youbounce downaversion of your final mix without it, to hedge
your bets.