Mix Mistakes
Mix Mistakes
Mix Mistakes
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In this article...
Mix Mistakes Introduction
1: Dodgy Timing/Tuning
Feature 2: Mix Tonality Misjudgements
Mixing / Production 3: Phase Misalignment
By Mike Senior 4: Mix Mud
5: Unhelpful Arrangement
We explore some of the most common causes of mix failure we've tackled in 6: The Wrong Reverb
our monthly Mix Rescue column. Banish these demons and you're most of the 7: Harshness
way to a devilishly good mix! 8: Buried Details
9: Weak Payoffs
Over the years, I've listened to piles and piles of amateur 10: Inappropriate Processing On The Mix Bus
mixes from home studios, including thousands of productions One Song, 100 Mixes!
submitted by SOS readers to Mix Rescue, Studio SOS, Demo Monitoring
Doctor (the predecessor of the current Playback column), and Mix Referencing
the My Sound Files section of the SOS forum. On top of that Further Reading
lot, I've heard almost as many mixes again from students and
teachers working in small college studios. What I've learnt SOS Competitions
from all these mixes is that some problems crop up much
more often than others. Win! JZ Microphones Black Hole
Win! Lauten Audio Atlantis FC‑387 FET
What really crystalised this opinion for me recently was microphone
listening to over 100 mixes of the same raw multitrack files in
order to adjudicate a recent 'mix‑off' contest. Because
everyone had worked from identical source material, the
submissions clearly demonstrated that the same issues were
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undermining people's final results time and time again.
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The purpose of this article, then, is to reveal the most common
of these recurring mix nightmares — and thereby help you to avoid them in your own projects.
There's only so much that text can tell you about mixing, though, so to make things clearer I'm On the same subject
going to refer to the aforementioned competition mixes by way of real‑world audio illustration
Remote Music Production
— see the 'One Song, 100 Mixes!' box for details of where you can listen to them. I've actually
Warren 'Oak' Felder: Recording & Producing Demi
just completed my own mix of that track, which will appear as a forthcoming Mix Rescue Lovato's 'Sorry Not Sorry'
feature — so watch this space if you're keen to know how I approached the track myself! I've April 2020
also trawled through various articles in the SOS archives at www.soundonsound.com to create The Psychology Of Mixing
an on-line list of useful further reading, including several past Mix Rescues, which offer copious April 2020
example files, as well as links to useful software resources. See the 'Further Reading' box for Inside Track: Selena Gomez 'Rare'
details. But now, without further ado, let's reveal and rectify the most common rookie April 2020
mistakes... Mix Rescue: Andy Zuk
April 2020
Now, I realise that some people take a pretty strong stance against the use of corrective
measures like these, and probably the most frequent complaint is that such tactics kill the Universal Audio LUNA - First Look
emotion in the music. My response is that good corrective processing shouldn't do that, as it 1 week 2 days ago.
will only target the inaccuracies that undermine the music, while leaving alone those that
support it. To put it another way: just because a few nutters go round stabbing people, it
doesn't mean we should ban knives entirely! Clearly, you need to be careful not to push your
corrective mix procedures too far, but my own experience suggests that the vast majority of
home‑brew productions are in absolutely no danger of straying over that line. Here are some
tips and tricks to help you get things right:
Example Mixes: Although a majority of the contest submissions leave tuning pretty much
untouched, there are nonetheless some mixes (17, 20 and 39, for instance) that make a pretty
respectable job of it. None of the mixes quite tightens the timing enough for me, though, which
underlines how few small‑studio mix engineers realise the importance of this, for rock
productions in particular.
Example Mixes: There is a huge tonal range to the competition mixes, despite the band having
provided a detailed list of commercial reference productions. Compare the HF crispiness of mix
43 with the stifled highs of mixes 35 or 58, for example, or line up the powerful low end of mix
32 with the slimline low frequencies in mixes 23 and 29. Mixes such as 19 and 43 have over-
prominent mid-range, while others, such as 12 and 48, are recessed in that region. All that said,
it's worth pointing out that even the mixes that feel most successful to me in this respect
(mixes 04, 20, 31, 61 and 63, for instance) there is still a good degree of tonal variation — every
mix doesn't have to sound exactly the same to tick this particular box, and there's certainly
some room for personal preference.
3: Phase Misalignment
If you use more than one mic to record any
instrument, there's always the danger that
minute time‑delays between the recorded
signals will cause a type of frequency
cancellation called comb‑filtering 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. Most
home‑studio folk underestimate the
importance of dealing with phase mismatches,
leading to mixes with hollowed‑out sounds and
poor mono compatibility. However, there are now so many ways to address phase issues in
a typical MIDI + Audio sequencer — fine delays, audio editing, polarity inversion, all‑pass
filtering, phase rotation — that there's really no need for comb‑filtering to rain on your parade.
For better results, try these tools and techniques:
Listening to your mix in mono is a quick way to check if any stereo signal in your mix
harbours phase problems. Although summing the left and right stereo channels of a mix will
always cause a certain degree of tonal change, you need to be on the lookout for any
dramatic alterations that stand to make a nonsense of your mix balance. If you do find
phase gremlins, try applying phase‑adjustment techniques to one side of the offending
stereo channel to improve the situation.
There are a number of dedicated phase‑adjustment plug‑ins worth investigating, including
commercial products such as Audiocation's Phase, Voxengo's PHA‑979 or Littlelabs' IBP
Workstation (for the UAD2 platform), as well as freeware such as Betabugs' Phasebug and
Variety Of Sound's new preFIX.
Be careful when layering several bass parts
or low drum sounds within a single
arrangement. Allowing such layers to slip in
and out of phase with each other is a recipe
for frustration, because it'll cause the
combined tone to change sporadically
throughout the timeline in a way that's
almost impossible to fix with normal mix
processing.
Example Mixes: The multi‑miked guitar parts in the competition multitracks caught out a lot of
contestants, who chose to pan the individual mic signals across the stereo field without
phase‑aligning them first — compare mixes 36, 43, 58 and 59 in stereo and mono, for example,
to hear what I mean. Phase cancellation between the left and right overhead mics caused
mono‑compatibility problems too, as in mixes 33, 56 and 61.
4: Mix Mud
The lower half of the mix is frequently
something of a battle zone. Pretty much any
track can contribute low‑end energy, but unless
you're careful about which tracks you allow
through in this range, it's very easy to end up
with a gloopy‑sounding mess that blurs the
definition of your bass parts. The widespread
use of close‑miking 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 a mix, too, so programmed arrangements There are several great plug-ins for adjusting phase
are no safer from this pitfall than live relationships, so there's really no excuse for letting
comb filtering wreck your sonics
recordings. Try some of these tricks and see if
things improve:
Example Mixes: Although mix muddiness tends to be associated with a mix tonality that's
heavy in the low-mid range, as in contest submissions 09, 54 and 58, say, brighter mixes such
as 21, 22 and 36 are by no means immune to the same kind of clarity problem. Compare these
to mixes such as 20, 31, 51 and 63, which handle this area of the spectrum much more
effectively.
5: Unhelpful Arrangement
The roots of many a mix problem can be traced back to the musical arrangement, and this
simple fact renders many of the budget productions I hear effectively unmixable. If your song's
verse has more guitar or percussion layers than its chorus, you're likely to face an uphill
struggle if you want the chorus to arrive with a bang. Likewise, there's no sense in having
different guitar and keyboard sounds competing in the same pitch register if you want to keep
any separation between them in the mix. And unless you create some sense of build‑up in the
arrangement itself, it's unlikely that you'll hold the listener's attention all the way to your final
chorus. Here are some quick ways to make improvements:
Try to avoid simply replicating the same arrangement for any similar sections of your track.
Dropping a couple of parts from the first verse, for example, can help make the second
verse feel a lot fresher and more engaging when it arrives.
If you're having trouble disentangling parts in your mix, try altering MIDI parts to different
chord inversions or pitch‑shifting audio parts to different octave registers, to give each a bit
of clear space in the frequency spectrum. Alternatively, put one part's notes in the time‑gaps
left between the another part's notes.
Sometimes adding surreptitious overdubs
or samples at the mixdown stage (or even
editing out whole sections of the song!) is
the best way to remedy an arrangement
problem, so don't rule out this kind of tactic
at the mixdown stage.
Example Mixes
Although a lot of people did stick within the parameters of the multitracks provided, there were
many instances where contestants applied creative rearrangement techniques to tackle the
mixing challenges presented by the supplied multitracks. Some mixers (most notably 03, 22, 27,
39 and 42) wielded the razor blade to increase the overall pace of development and to bring in
the vocals earlier. Mixes 18 and 52 wheel out a variety of more extrovert mix effects as ear
candy, while mixes 03, 18, 56, 59 and 61 make use of additional synth/sample textures to fill
out the chorus texture or add extra atmosphere during the verses. Vocals were frequently
flown around to other parts of the mix and treated with pitch‑shifting to generate synthetic
harmony parts, as you can hear in mixes 05, 26 and 40, for instance, plus there are some
interesting larger‑scale arrangement 'drops' showcased in mixes 27, 28 and 56. The most
successful combination of all these different approaches for me, though, can be heard in mix
20 — a version that only just missed winning the contest outright.
7: Harshness
Any part of your mix that's rich in the 2‑5kHz frequencies
will normally sound closer to the listener, not least because
the human hearing system is most sensitive to information
in that region. Little surprise, then, that so many home
recordists pile masses of 2‑5kHz on everything — vocals,
guitars, drums, cymbals — with the result that the mix as
a whole ends up sounding harsh. However, it's not just
frequency response that can make a mix feel abrasive,
because untamed high‑frequency transients can be another
crucial factor too. Here are some easy ways to avoid
harshness in your mix:
Example Mixes: Given that the competition multitrack combined thrashy drums and heavily
overdriven electric guitars, it's little surprise that many of the submitted mixes suffer from
harshness problems. Take mixes such as 13, 27 and 54, for instance: despite the considerable
variance in their overall mix tonalities, they all share the kind of upper mid-range emphasis that
quickly becomes a bit grating on the ear, especially when the extra guitar layers hit during the
middle section. Overly sharp snare transients are also a bit hard on the ear in mixes such as 24,
34 and 56.
8: 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. Yes, the
bass part might be dull as ditchwater most of
the time, but that doesn't mean you can't push
up the fader for its one little fill if there's
nothing else more thrilling happening at that
time. Any and all parts can benefit from micro‑level fader rides like this, 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. Here are some useful tricks to focus on all those lovely little
details:
Whether the main part in your mix is a lead vocal, instrumental solo, or some other hook,
it's not unusual for it to have the odd lull — a comparatively featureless sustained note, say,
or a gap between phrases. Whenever you hear one of these, have a quick 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.
Turning down a couple of backing parts underneath a lead vocal line can help reveal more
of the singer's subtle vocal inflections without recourse to nuclear‑grade vocal compression.
It's standard practice on a professional 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
a performance seem more emotional.
Example Mixes: When someone's using detailed automation carefully, it's usually tricky to hear
what's going on in absolute terms — in other words, you shouldn't get an active sense of faders
being waggled about if the engineer knows what they're doing! What you should get, though, is
a sense of the music being easier to follow and more engaging from moment to moment,
something which is most apparent in mixes 20, 31 and 63, all of which made my own shortlist.
However, to be honest, none of the competition entries really shone in this area, which only
serves to highlight how commonly the importance of micro‑level automation is
underestimated.
9: Weak Payo s
Anyone who's ever mixed a song will at some
time have come up against the problem that
their 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. There can be lots of reasons
for this kind of 'long‑term dynamics' problem,
but the most fundamental one is failing to pace
the mix's build‑up correctly, such that the
sonics peak too early. In this situation, the
temptation is always to try to push the These two screens show the level of detail that goes
subjective 'size' of a mix's climaxes beyond the into vocal automation on today's commercial chart
point where they sound their best, thereby productions. The lower, right-hand screen is from
introducing all sorts of potentially unmusical Fraser T Smith's mix of Tynchy Stryder's 'Number
One', and the upper one from Greg Kurstin's mix of
processing and distortion side‑effects. Here are
Lily Allen's 'The Fear'. That's what you're up against!
some ideas to help you achieve the impact you
want from a tune:
Try to get the overall balance of your track It's tempting to try to improve your sound by
working before you start applying mix‑bus applying mastering‑style processes, such as multi-
compression. Although you may band dynamics or loudness maximisation, to your
subsequently need to adjust some faders in output bus during mixdown, but it's seldom a good
idea in practice! This kind of processing usually
response to the bus dynamics, in my
confuses most mix decisions completely, and you
experience it's easier to do this than to have end up chasing your tail — so while they're useful
the compressor's gain‑reduction action tools, it's better to leave them alone until you've
interfering with all your initial balancing finished the mix!
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 a separate 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 a full‑band
compressor hard to generate obvious
gain‑pumping effects, consider using
a processor with a wet/dry mix control so
that you have the option to reduce any
transient‑smoothing side‑effects of such
heavy treatment.
www.cambridge-mt.com/YoungGriffoCompetition.htm.
Monitoring
Monitoring is a big issue when it comes
to mixing, which is fair enough — you
can only really mix what you can hear.
That said, it's perfectly possible to create
decent‑quality mixes on comparatively
modest equipment if you play your cards
right. First of all, whatever you plan to
spend on monitor speakers, I think you
should try to plough the same amount of
money into acoustic treatment to make
the investment worthwhile. If you need
A specialised single‑driver mixing speaker, such as
suggestions for acoustic treatment, Pyramid's Triple‑P shown here, is one of the best
check out the web site archive of Studio equipment investments you can make if you're
SOS columns, which offer dozens of mixing at home or in a small college studio.
real‑world examples of affordable
speaker and acoustics setups.
Mix Referencing
One of the best mixing aids is probably already sitting on your shelf: your own record
collection. About the cheapest way to improve your mixing is to take the time to line up
your favourite commercial productions against your own work (matching the loudness if
necessary, to enable a reasonable comparison). What amazes me, though, is how few
home mixers take the time to do this in anything more than a cursory manner.
I dedicated a whole article to this subject back in SOS September 2008
(/sos/sep08/articles/referencecd.htm), but the most important thing to remember is just
to take your time selecting suitable reference tracks, so that you set yourself the most
challenging goal. Although the reality of continually struggling to reach such a high
benchmark may feel a bit depressing at times, there's nothing to beat it when it comes to
ensuring that you always achieve a solid quality level.
Further Reading
There's only so much I can cram into an article like this, so on the SOS web site I've
placed a list of useful SOS articles that go into much more detail about how to tackle the
10 'mistakes' described here. This includes a number of Mix Rescue features, complete
with audio examples.
/sos/sep11/articles/mixmistakesreadinglist.htm