Rest your ears!! Then come back to it. This helped me big time!!

1:40 1. "Don’t EQ or compress by more than a few dB." 5:40 2. "In a 'good mix' you can hear every element clearly all the time." 8:20 3. "The Myth of a Thousand Little Choices." 9:38 4. "Here is the 'right way' to EQ or compress this instrument." 12:00 5. "Hi-Pass everything except for bass and kick drum." 15:23 6. "Don’t use EQ to boost. ...only cut!!" 17:29 7. "Don’t EQ in parallel [because of phase shift]!" 21:26 8. "Sweep your EQs!" 24:19 9. "You can’t mix on headphones!" 27:25 10. "You need a better 'X' to get good sounds." You’re welcome :D

I once heard some advice, it was: don't learn what to do, learn how to do. In other words, learn how to use each tool in and of it's self. Learn how to sculpt and process each element to the desired direction. It's an unavoidable fact that, every song/artist/album is to some extent or another, different, and there is no "surefire preset formula" for most of the mixing process. Just learn your tools and attack each task within the context of the project you are working on. Things change. Demands change. Trends change. If you know your tools well, you can do what ever is needed regardless and you wont get locked into a "style" of mixing that might not always serve well.

One of the most helpful things I’ve learned in my short time recording/mixing is that not every track needs processing. I used to be guilty of thinking I needed EQ, comp, etc on everything.

Ear training is everything! This is a game of good ears, creative thinking and colab work! Learn and work with new people! Experience is based on trying new stuff for new sounds!

So glad to hear you talk about overdoing High Pass filtering and mid range roll outs. It's SO overdone, and why so many mixes just end up sounding thin. It's really one of the worst "internets" tropes.

I've been mixing about 5 years now and number 1 has been a hurdle with me up until recently. I never had the confidence to be heavy on sources with a limiter. Once I got over this my drum sound got way better. Also when you have a cheap, nasty setup like mine, phase meters, frequency analysers and LUFS meters are a god send. They give you the re-assurance that your ears aren't lying to you. I'd like to see more of these episodes. I find 'what advice to be wary of' is essential knowledge in the age of anyone being able to upload information. I have a decent B.S meter and watch audio channels that give me good advice such as yourself, Produce Like a Pro, SMG but there are some rotten channels out there which could catch you out if you weren't careful, with amateurs like myself posing as experienced mixers/ mastering engineers. I'm defo voting that you make this a series. Cheers.

EQ is a side-effect of phase shift, not the other way around. I'm glad you tackled this!

Bad advice is "Stock plugins are always worse than third-party ones". Or "paid plugins sound much better, than free ones". Many great mixers use free/stock plugins a lot!

sat through and listened to the whole thing and have re-evaluated a lot of stuff I've heard over the years and affirmed a lot of stuff that I've learned was BS throughout the years, great vid, so much good advice packed in here

Eq is just changing phase? OMG! 🤯

This is absolutely amazing. Thanks for the weekly update

Pure gold, we need to hear this! You can argue the same goes for arrangements

Thanks man. Another great video. Keep them coming!

Top notch information, as always. 👍🏼👍🏼

Just so great. Thank you for your talent and experience and then the ability to communicate it all so superbly. You mentioned mixing darker than you should and that is what I'm working on.Going back and making sounds brighter.The reference songs I choose are vital now.

Yeah. Some of the earliest advice i got was "never to EQ more than 4db... I never liked that advice... I didn't actually hear that it necessarily broke the sound at all! Depends on what you're going for. As far the tiny little changes adding up... For me that approach works really, really well for adding analog warmth and depth.... Unless it's like parallel processing, I do like it where you barely hear changes when you're analoging All your tracks. That totally works for me. As far as EQ and compression there's no rules like that in my opinion... Yeah, boost sweeps to see what sounds bad is for when you're actually hearing something that sounds bad before boosting! And you're just trying to locate it exactly.... (If that's even a good way of working for you.) I like Planar headphones for bass... And EQ'ing to harmon... Because that works for me. It just sounds right.... And mixing into an EQ curve that sounds right, helps me.

Some great points here, especially #2... Thank you.

I sometimes like to use an automated eq sweep as a weird filter effect, but did find that trying to identify the bad or good spot usually made me lose sight of the bigger image. This is a great channel…honest, unpredictable in a good way, and not one bit patronizing. Thank you, this stuff is fantastic food for thought. Oh, and I love sharing the mixing duties between headphones and monitors, good point about learning what your stuff does.

RE Stereo bass frequencies - great to finally hear someone confirm something iv observed listening to sides only on great recordings - I'd recommend everyone listen to Blue Jeans by Lana Del Rey on Metric A/B (or similar) set to sides only to confirm Justin's point here - yet many of the most highly regarded repeat this 'always make low end mono' line. The stereo low end on the first chorus of that song is what makes it, one of the most stunning things iv heard

excellent well spoken advice. helps keep some perspective around.

I had a bunch of bad advice in mind, but you covered them all. Good job. Something I wish I could have avoided is the idea that making your mix "warmer", "deeper" and "more analog" was always something to strive for. Sometimes I get warmer sounds through processing and it just makes the mix worse as a whole, and extra depth can be very distracting as well.

This approach of bad advice from the internet can and ought to be applied to the actual songwriting as well...write what you feel and what you want to project or say, get it right at the source, and don't let anyone tell you you're "doing it wrong". Your (anti-)advice is great here...

Always great information!

Thank you!! Amazing podcast👍👍👍

Finally see this person talking bless up king man

I heavily resent ever having believed it when people said "high pass everything but the kick and drum". This led to so much wasted time but here i am. What astonished me the most as i got better was how i rarely high pass anything except the kick itself. Get a sub woofer and high pass your kicks up to 70hz and youll be stunned at how much "low end" is still pumping out.

You say it all really appreciate it with this I know where I'm at I need to test my skills

This is incredible. Just subbed.

Brilliant, yes. Thank you.

Great Topic! Thank you. ☺️

I like to understand how equipment works, or what certain pieces do and to spend some time playing with them on various sources to understand what the knobs and switched on each piece does. It did take me a while to understand what compressors do, it took me a long time to hear low end and low mids properly and those are some of the main things that can quickly make or break a section or even a whole song, or album.

excellent piece! I mix with headphones. I don't have the room or money ... good to hear that's just fine !

Great video!

I also believed the myth about mono low end until I heard MixedbyAli beautifully apply an auto-pan on an 808.

Superb content, thank you. I have the HD600 and 650 headphones, personally I prefer the 600, I find the 650 a little bass heavy, but both are amazing for the money. With regards to sweeping the eq, I still use the technique occasionally, but in reverse, - I instead reduce the gain, and then listen for where the signal sounds best as I sweep. - still, I ain't no professional, just a long time hobbyist. love to ALL, feel no hate

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Well Presented Material🎼🕊️

Great content! My room is less than optimal for mixing so headphones are essential for my projects.

I think this video should be called 10 great pieces of mixing advice that shouldn’t be followed blindly!

'Don't fix it in the mix' -- This originally meant 'don't rely on mixing to hide sloppy playing: do another retake.' But its repetition has elevated it to platitude status, and it seems to have made a comeback in recent years. Yes, don't rely on post-production to fix sloppy playing. But a lot of things can validly be addressed in the mixing stage. Heck, mixing *is* fixing sound.

Haha great stuff brother. It's funny cause with creativity.. there is no "wrong" way... and people tend to want a roadmap when the way to get somewhere is always gonna be different depending on who's driving lol. Sure we can have waze tell us every turn to make but at the end of the day it's better to learn our way around on the road and make wrong turns to find the best route but as you said... it starts with having a direction and a destination to aim for... for me, I don't always intellectualize the direction or destination but I intuitively go off a feeling and each decision either feels right or feels wrong.

Number 1, is so true lol, don't compress more than 3db, I hear that all the time. In the BBC studios I worked at it was standard practice to have the ssl level meter staying consistently right up the centre for a certain stay level type sound, also don't be afraid to use high ratios on open material, but that's another whole thing.

Hey Justin super valuable video as always. What do you think about frequency sweeping by soloing an EQ band, rather than boosting?

Great stuff! I learned a while ago, all these "best practices" usually only fit specific scenarios. What really counts is your ears! Does it sound right or not? All the rest can be tossed out the window. Now, for beginners, many of these pieces of advice are initially helpful to get them on the right track....... but (as you are saying) don't lock into them, USE YOUR EARS!!!! (Regarding headphones, there is a plugin that corrects a lot of the headphones out there, so they sound like good monitors in a good room. (I won't mention them as I'm not advertising for them, but a quick search will find the company.)

Awesome vid! thanks for the wisdom. Timestamps for those who need it 1: 1:34 2: 5:34 3: 8:19 4: 9:37 5: 12:00 6: 15:22 7: 17:31 8: 21:26 9: 24:18 10: 27:30 Bonus: 31:05

re. #2: Steely Dan often comes up when people discuss good mixes, and they do sound that way: super transparent, like the jigsaw thing. I never liked them. To my ears, they sound analytical and lack that extra bit of mojo, the connecting "sauce" that makes music actually fun listening to. The funk, the smack, the gravy. They always sounded somewhat like "diet music" to me. I always find it interesting and evocative when different sounds merge into something else that's less definable, into something new (like in orchestral music). Not happening if one is avoiding even the tiniest bit of masking like the plague and mixes bone dry as SD does.

If you don’t mind, opinion of grado rs-1 and ps-1000 headphones for mixing Adding: have you listened to Autechre. This is with regard to stereo bass near the end of this vid. In many instances they go WIDE with bass. Would you say to free that bass they make higher freq tracks mono? I liked this vid a lot 👍🏿 [subscribed]

just comment for suport. your content is amazing !

That not boosting more than 5db is a really bad habit to the point I have realised I sometimes use 2 or 3 EQs on the same instrument with max 5 db boots of the same frequency range to trick my brain that I'm not overdoing it. Insane!

My favorite thing I do on synth is high pass aggressively, then I roll back to an sweet spot. Then I eq all the harshness. Then I compress. Its just me. Then If I think the synth sounded good on my studio headphones, I do not mix it at all.

I would just put it a different: those advices mentioned are very good as thumb-rules for getting something to "work" or some foundation to start your work in the first place (but probably it will become a typical boring sound), at least if you are beginner, knowing how to create a starting point before making it sound magic is preferable for many

Thank you for this, just watched it all. One question though, I know EQ’ing in parallel can cause phase shift, but I always wondered if parallel compression in itself causes phase shift? Solely compression?

For me sweeping works well in both live and studio environments, but it took many years of learning and failing to get there.

You must use a compressor before an eq. You must use a limiter on the master bus. You need to listen in low volume to make better decisions. You must mix in mono. The list goes on.

I total agree, but the funny thing is that all these wrong advice was good in a starnge way because it let me focus on an aspect of mixing. and the reason why i belived it in the bginning was i had no good Monitors and dident trust my ears. now my monitors are better but my ears are old. but i stangly think thats not bad its a good thing because the things i cant not hear any more are not important for a good mix.

Great episode ✨ I was wondering, when it comes to good/bad mixing advice, what do you think about top down mixing? 🤔 is it a useful mixing mindset?

#4 Is so real... I should try something different on bass, other than LA-2A heh.

I think maybe the claim that: you can’t fix it in the mix. I’ve head songs before mixing that I hated, pure garbage. Then, after mixed, it sounds beautiful, the melody comes to life and grooves.

I usually over push the boost or cut and come back on it until i get the good sound.

I’ll play devils advocate and say I really don’t like most stock plugins in my particular workflow except for stock EQ and certain modulation fx. But that’s only because I’ve spent years experimenting and learning to master specific tools I’ve acquired that work well/fast for my needs.

Another one would be: increase the reverb until you just notice it and then take a little less than that. I guess a lot of those recommendations come from the time when DAW plugins sounded much worse than analog hardware.

Something I find tricky is to know how the low end will sound in big loudspeakers. I only have tiny monitors and am experimenting with how much I can boost the low end to the point of it almost sounding too much in headphones. Deadmau5 said that if there is too much low end it will just sound like a horrible roaring rumble on big loudspeakers.

First video of yours I'm watching and... to be quite honest... I was expecting to hear about "#5 hi-pass everything except for bass and bass" and I love the way you've put it when you say to cut when there's not musical information there. To give you a bit of context I do cinematic/hybrid kind of music and in courses, every one says to low cut instruments to create room and remove sample libraries rubble. From my experience that is actually terrible advice. What people end up doing is setting up default EQs to cut low end by some threshold. While this removes rumble it also removes relevant audio from the instruments or, if not high enough, preserves rubble. I personally do a low cut per instrument per project since different instruments in different projects are playing in different registers. This removes the rubble while preserving the full body of the instrument and EQ after, if necessary. Thank you for the video, really nice content and I will watch more videos of yours moving forward.

what up ? You are the best teacher! Love your stuff. You got great videos dude!! And you have great students! Do you have a mixing academy? Anyways, I do music and film. do any of you guys want to be part of it? i got lucky. Maybe 50% of all my music and comedy get on tv as a ghost writer.. sometimes the simple backing track , like the theme to Seinfeld makes millions. That is kind of rare, but it happens!!

"Don't EQ or compress more than 5db" *Chris Lord-Alge laughs*

Needs time stamps plss

Regarding the dark mixes / masters you claim to sometimes make; have you ever thought that the solution might be to get one or more of the known bright sounding headphones..? So you can accurately hear all that's going on up there..? 5 out of the 14 headphones that I own help me get the top end right, and I wouldn't want to be without any of them: M50x Mackie MC-450 Shure SRH940 Hifiman Sundara Beyer Dynamic DT1990

The worst advice is where you are asking for help on a forum or something and somebody is telling you you should re-record. If that was an option I wouldnt be on the internet asking for help. Also: all advice that starts with ALWAYS is bad.

What I think is very bad advice, you have to watch, track per track, so soloing everything, you will miss everything, look at the whole mix. Now I'm lucky to get well recorded multitracks, made by studio musicians, that makes everything a lot simpler. Although sometimes vocals are way too dynamic, this is where a compressor comes in. And sometimes with a lot of compression. It depends. On the material. And listen to the whole mix when using this. So you can hear immediately what it does. And a good goal, listen the mix on different gear, referencing.

I think the "first do no harm" idea is good in Mastering, but in production, writing, engineering, and mixing, not as much

Music and mixing are arts. Panning and volume for me...............

3:30 This is a rule of thumb though, and as a rule of thumb, its accurate, generally speaking 3-4 Db comp is a good area to aim for with many different types of sound source. Not really bad advice if its presented as a guideline/rule of thumb, it's only a bad advice when people say "NEVER exceed 4 Db gain reduction..." At the end of the day, the ears and what they are telling are what matters, but when you are new and literally no F*ck all, and just want to know where to start? its actually brilliant advice. If you are an intermediate and want to get to that next level, it might not be the best advice, and if you are a Pro mixer you think " why am I even listening to this fool" LMAO. I can promise you , had I known this 3/4Db guideline on my first EP I made myself? it would have been a hell of a lot better, of this I have no doubt. I dd not even know what a limiter was then. I think its easy to forget how little some people know when they start.I forget myself, and I am only just an Intermediate level mixer, and I forget when talking to musicians, that they really dont know half the terms I am using and what they mean. Making mistakes is a good point for learning, but again, its not the only way to learn, getting a boundary and learning how far you can push that is another (I would say better ) way, rather than having no idea the boundary and therefore learning what is a mistake over a much longer time period through trial and error alone

Yeah, I'm not a fan of defaulting to low end or high end filtering unless there is some kind of problematic room hum. A lot of mixers don't understand the concept of harmonics. Take for example a vocal track. If you solo a vocal and boost your low end say anywhere between 55 and 70hz, buy 1 or 2 db you may not notice much going on in the sound itself around those frequencies. However, in many cases those sub harmonics are effecting other frequencies much higher up in the way they resonate. Depending on the instrumentation the frequency and amount may vary. I get so many tracks that have been eq'd by the tracking engineer and they have rolled off everything sometimes up to 6 or 7 hundred hz in the name of clarity. They lost all of the what I like to call "earth tones". Clarity can be achieved by notching other low mid to mid frequencies with out sacrificing the body and soul of the vocalist. This can be true of all of the instrumentation. How is the eq effecting resonations within the track as a whole? How many of you have heard a vocal harmony that was never recorded. This is what I'm talking about. You solo everything , its not there. You drop in the full mix and suddenly its there. That's instrumentation resonating harmonics. They are real and magnificently magic. Sorry for the long comment, just something I see to often with

Im sure the video is great. But at 38 Minutes Lenght you could at least make some timestamps. Im not gonna watch 38 Min if I dont know at all what this will be about. Its ok for short Videos, but like with books, you dont read a book without having at least a look at a table of contents & a summary. Sorry. Hope this is being received as constructive help.

11. "Analog gear is unequivocally better than plugins" - This is probably the most preposterous rhetoric being thrown around the community. It's wrong on so many levels - analog gear sounds different and has advantages over plugins, but nobody who works completely in the box and knows their stuff ever makes the case that plugin emulations sound the same as hardware, because it doesn't matter. What matters are the great results that BOTH can yield. There are plugins out there that do things NO analog unit can get even close to. So, save it for the mindless gear collectors. Rant over! xD

one of the bad advices are u can make great recordings with digital preamps, nope!! preamps are just as important as high end mics especially for vocals because to make them up front u have to boost the highs and it makes it harsh if the recording is not done with analogue preamps

Watching "how to get more stereo width in mixes" and you asked about ideas for podcast / videos. This might seem weird, I'm not sure, but it's something I've been messing with lately. Tuning my parametric EQ to the KEY the music is composed in. Or, using music key to bring out a deeper musicality through harmonic tuning of parametric EQ. Do you have a video that covers that currently? If you do, please point me to it! this is an example I made (fist half tuned, second half not tuned - kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gd6gY7Jo1bOdmaM.html&ab_channel=hellcat5 it's just a simple proof of concept. Would love one of you mixing / mastering guys to cover this on your channels! Not sure who'll get to it first.

The terrible advice of not letting 808s hit over 220hz when the distortion should absolutely be allowed to breath and blend with the meat of the mix... So many say absolutely not 🚫 and cut it above 220 and I think that is terrible advice and the fastest way to get a boxy and square mix