Space and mix

Everything is playing at once and it sounds like mud. Here’s how to fix that.

You now have: a lot of parts competing for the same space.

This lesson is being written. The outline below is what it will cover.

Planned outline

  • Level first. Nothing else in a mix matters until the relative volumes are right. Start with everything down, bring the kick up to comfortable, then add each part until you can just hear it.
  • Pan — you have two ears; use them. Hats slightly off-centre, percussion opposite, kick and bass dead centre where they belong.
  • Filter on the track mixer: rolling the low end off everything that isn’t the kick or bass is the single biggest clean-up move available.
  • The two send effects, on their own tracks:
    • FX1 — Delay. Time, Sync, Fdbk, Freeze. Synced delay for rhythm, free-running for texture, Freeze for a performance move.
    • FX2 — Reverb. Time, Damp, Diffuse, HP. The HP control matters more than it looks — it keeps reverb out of the low end, which is where mud comes from.
  • Sends versus insert effects: why one reverb shared by everything sounds more like a room than five separate ones.
  • Mixer groups — four groups with their own mute and their own level, pan and FX offsets. Put all the drums in G1 and you can duck the entire kit with one control.
  • Master — output volume, and a compressor (Thresh, Ratio, Attack, Release, MakeUp, Mix) to glue the whole thing. The Hot master preset is a louder starting point.
  • When not to reach for effects: usually the answer is that two parts are playing in the same register and one of them should move.

The finished exercise will start with an intentionally muddy four-part mix and let the learner improve level, pan, filtering, and send effects while it loops.

Next: 14 · Arrange and perform · Previous: 12 · Samples

Reference: Mixer & effects · Signal flow · Track mixer