5 Common Mixing Mistakes To Avoid

There are many common mistakes made when mixing & mastering, and a lot of it comes from simply not knowing what is being done incorrectly or how to avoid those issues.

Things like overcompensating the bass, misusing EQ or compressors, & blasting the volume of your channels, are all things that bring big problems to your mix.

1. The Low End is Too Loud in Volume - The sub frequencies should usually be felt rather than heard. You can still make your bass heard using parallel effects; however, the sub-frequencies themselves are better at a lower volume. Sub-frequencies can eat up a lot of headroom fast & they clash with many other instruments, especially when the volume is too loud.

2. Boosting First instead of Cutting with The EQ - You'll usually find you can get closer to desired results if you start by cutting bad frequencies out first. Cutting out muddy or boxy areas will make the instruments appear brighter or knock more because the bad frequencies are no longer masking the good frequencies.

3. The Bus Compressors are Squashing the Mix - This is a common mistake & one that will ruin a mix quick. You want to make sure that you have a slow attack time on your bus compressor to keep the transients in place. Aim for a gain reduction of 2-3dB as well. Too much compression on your busses will take the energy away.

4. The levels are unbalanced - A lot of problems within a mix can be solved by adjusting the volumes & balancing the faders instead of EQ, compression, etc. EQ may still be needed afterwards & maybe even compression, but you will find that you will probably need less of each or even use them differently with the volumes perfectly balanced.

5. Not Enough Headroom - Look at your master channel & make sure you have enough headroom going into your mix. You want to make sure your individual channels & your master channel are not clipping or "in the red" A lot of mixes can be instantly fix by simply turning all the tracks down a little bit, so there is enough headroom & no clipping going on. You will be surprised how much this can clean up a mix, reduce muddiness, & fix clashes instantly! We suggest having about -6dB of headroom coming out of your master channel.

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Realistic Production - Engineer

Realistic is a Producer/Engineer located in Atlanta, GA specializing in Hip-Hop, R&B & Pop music. Realistic has been involved in the music industry for over 15 years. He has worked on projects for Talib Kweli, Just Blaze, Musiq Soulchild, Pharoahe Monch, NBA 2k, Skyzoo, BJ The Chicago Kid, Madlib, Ayo-N-Keyz, Billboard Hitmakers, Atmosphere, Brother Ali, Rhymesayers, Hamburger Helper, & LoveOfPharaoh.

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