6 Common Mixing Mistakes [Part 2]

The more mistakes you stop making, the better your mixes will be. Plain and simple. And we all make mistakes, it’s how you learn. In this series of posts I want to help you eliminate six of the most common mistakes I see young engineers making (and that I’ve made myself) in order for your mixes to improve. If you missed part 1, go check out the first two mistakes and then come back here.

Mistake #3 – Boosting With EQ

By way of preface, let me just say that there is nothing inherently “wrong” with boosting frequencies with an EQ. The point I’m trying to make rather, is that it is way smarter to train yourself to cut instead of boost. The reason is simple, when you boost an EQ frequency in order to shape a sound, you are only adding noise to the track and to your mix. If you could achieve the same sonic result by cutting other frequencies, then you would have less noise, more headroom, and more clarity in your mixes.
 
This was one of my mistakes for many years. If a kick drum needed more low end and more beater “click”, I would simply boost some lows and boost some highs. Turns out, you can get the same “effect” by simply scooping out some of the mids. What a concept! Same result, but only this time I took noise out of a track, instead of trying to boost what was there already. If you can approach using EQ this way on the whole, your mixes will be clearer and will come together faster. Trust me.

Mistake #4 – Not Riding The Vocal

If your mixes have vocal tracks (and most modern music does) then the lead vocal is generally the most important part of a song. It carries the melody and the lyrics (i.e. meaning of the song). Most people wouldn’t fight me on this. That being the case, many amateur mixes don’t seem to line up with that sentiment. The vocals are usually buried in the mix and it’s hard to make out what they are singing. If you think just because you compressed a vocal means that it is good to go, think again.

The final step in any good vocal mix is to do some simple volume automation and “ride” that vocal track so that every word and every syllable sits right on top of the other tracks, declaring it’s dominance over them (OK, maybe that’s a stretch). Every pro mixer will tell you that much attention is placed on the vocal to get it sitting just right. This takes time because vocals are a very dynamic thing, and they rarely work with one static volume setting. If you want that final polish on a mix, make sure you take the time to do a little vocal ride automation at the end, trust me.

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Click here for Part 3 of this series