Share your best mixing tips and tricks!

What’s up! I haven’t had any activity here in awhile because I’ve been busy with some other junk. I have some new AJ stuff on the way though. In fact, one AJ track is nearly done. If only I can get off my lazy butt and finish it.

For now I’m wanting to share something that I just finished typing up. In a lame attempt to attract more traffic to my personal web site I’ve started doing articles about stuff. I’ve done two of them so far. My first one was about the music business and piracy, and this new one is about the most useful tricks I’ve learned as a mixer. I’m talking about those rare bits of mixing knowledge that had a major impact on the sound of my music. The ones that I’ve used in nearly every mix since I discovered them.

Here’s the article

It is geared a bit more towards novices so a lot of you AJ veterans might not find much here that you’re not already familiar with.

Now, let’s use this thread to share more mixing tips! What are some of you’re favorite mixing / recording techniques?

Good article Jonah! There’s some good tips in there that I think I’ll be able to use in my projects. I like your analogy of pan being horizontal, EQ being vertical, and reverb being the depth. Good way to think of it.

The tip I’ll share isn’t even mine. I’ve seen on a dubstep producer that he actually cut the low frequencies on the bass “wobbles”, pan those to the sides or make huge stereo spread, and after that he double the bass line with a sub bass synth, mostly just a simple sine.

Hi Jonah. That’s a good list of tips! I just tweeted your article to the Audiotuts+ audience.

Nice article Jonah! Even veteran mixers can use a good refresher from times to times as they get stuck in their habits (no pun intended)...

P.S. Sorry, if its misunderstandable

avoid instrument’s frequency masking over one another..

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback, and thanks Adriantry for the tweet. I’m liking the tips you guys are sharing

My beginner Tips about Reverb: Very important for using reverb is not only the length and amount of the reverb, but also the question, if a instrument shall sound like close or far away from the listener. By increasing the predelay time the instruments using this reverb appear closer to you while they go further back when you use no or just a very short predelay (0-8ms). This is just a very simple description, but if you practice around with that, you’ll get the feeling what you neded to do. Hope i could explain it clear enough – if not, write me back in this thread

My tip on mixing is to avoid the loudness war. Instead of turning up a track in a mix to make it stand out, bring some levels down. Check your rms meter to help you get a good idea where your at and if you want to hear it louder turn up the speakers.