r/mixingmastering

I've been watching videos of engineers mixing and mastering a track and notice how important a clipper is on a track with very dynamic transients. You basically use the clipper to even out the waveform, which allows the limiter to push the evened out signal even louder.

My question is why can't I just use a compressor to "clip" the transients? I can't really find a good reason to use a dedicated clipper vst when it sounds like a clipper is just a compressor with an infinite or almost infinite ratio. My understanding of a limiter is also similar, just a compressor with an infinite ratio for a hard cut off. Obviously they're all different for different reasons, I'm just trying to understand the distinctions.

Also, I use ableton and the best stock clipper is the saturator vst on digital clip mode, where you decrease the gain by the same amount you increase the drive. Easy to use and very useful, but how on earth does the saturator end up working like a clipper, which is basically a compressors?

I get how to use all these devices, I just really want to understand the science behind them. Also what are some of your go to clippers?

Edit: Thanks a lot for all the replies. I spent a while really all your comments and I helped a ton. I'm still reading up on the details, but I totally understand the differences at a base level now.

Basically, what I’m asking is: do you put all < 100hz info in the center, or only the bass instruments like kicks, bass guitar, synths?

I always hear people recommend to keep the lows in mono and I already do this with kick and bass guitar, but the thought just occurred to me that you might can center the low end of other instruments as well.

Does this make the sides clearer or make the stereo image wider?

EDIT - Ok it seems like many of you weren't aware of muso. It was credit tracking/organizing website that was actually hugely helpful for having accurate, up to date credits all in one place. It wasn't an ai music generation app like suno.

Thought it would be worth posting as I know a lot of people on here use muso and some pay a monthly or annual subscription.

For about 2 months stream counts have not been updating, milestone awards have stopped generating, and newly submitted credits sit in "in verification" forever.

All support has been replaced with ai chatbots that have no real answers and tell you your issue has been flagged and a team member will reach out, which never actually happens. I have not been able to get in touch with a real person in months, which is frustrating because they used to have excellent support.

Looks like they've completely abandoned it and are just running out the clock until people notice and start cancelling. Which I'll be doing today and initiating chargebacks for the last few renewal fees.

As I listen to really great tracks from mixing and mastering engineers who have been doing it for decades, am I not setting myself up for failure if I use that as a reference track?

Maybe a bad analogy but it does feel a bit like going for the gym but take Arnold as the reference how I would like to look at (or pick your favorite sport :))

Got myself a FIIO K11. Good headphone amp bit of course not top line. I know you can 300, 400 but also thousands of euro on such a device.

For somebody doing this job part time, working from home, what would be the price point of a headphone amps where you would say: no more.

Or is that already the case with the FIIO which costed me only 139 euro.

I just listened to Baby Keem's Ca$ino album, and I noticed that the low end was really punchy and hard hitting, despite it not being as sub-heavy as, say, songs mixed by engineers like Neal Pogue.

Is this a decision made during the mixing process, or is it during mastering?

Another thing that comes to my mind is, was it done through a high pass filter or a low shelf?

Sorry if it seems basic or obvious, I'm trying to study as much as I can from these mixes as I really love how the transients sound on this album.

This has come up a few times in my life recently. Most recently when I went to someone’s very, very expensive and geared-out home studio, fit with NS-10s and a whole host of vintage and modern gear.

They had the NS-10’s wired backwards (each speaker recieving an opposite polarity signal due to the wires being +—+, not +-+-), and you could tell when sitting at the board you were getting massive phase cancellation. I was in disbelief. This person, who regularly records artists out of this studio (which was extremely well built, the electrical and routing and sound treating, and probably cost a half a mil) had his main monitors wired out of phase.

Do some people just not hear phase cancellation? Or do they just not know what it is? I felt like I had my tinfoil hat on when I was trying to explain this to others in the studio. Drove me batty.

Hi. Its a little bit long yes but please read and share. You might be like me and have never considered mono spatial effects

Iv been mixing professionally for 12 years but iv never learnt it at school per se. I was never taught properly. I learnt on the job. I read some 50 + books on music production and mixing in my teenage years and then later got more of an education from Mix With The Masters, Pure Mix, and sheer trial and error.

Having said that, iv had a glaring blindspot for years: reverb.

Iv read over and over about it, used different techniques, learnt all about pre delay, etc. i thought i understood reverbs.

However iv never considered to use mono reverbs on mono sources until this year. Is it just me or are they vastly more useful for … that “pro” tight sound that iv heard on a million records than stereo reverbs and ping pong delays?

Say we have a lead vocal. Sending it to a mono reverb and having it return in mono, panned underneath the source signal …… its just THAT SOUND. The wet vocal that isnt completely eating up the real estate.

Iv since experimented with mono slaps, mono 8th note delays, mono flanger, mono microshift … Its honestly opened up a whole world for me

That world being using effects in a way that creates more front to back depth, without completely demolishing the stereo field.

Iv always felt stereo 1 second room reverb on a mono vocal source felt a little wrong. It sounded great yes but in solo. In a mix its like why is my lead vocal everywhere? It smears things and takes awya from focus i feel.

Whereas a mono spring or room, very short, or a mono slap, just sounds so so good and so so contained. Its like i can finally BUILD my stereo image piece by piece instead of having crazy stereo delays and stereo verbs creating tons of clutter everywhere

Thoughts? Is it crazy that im just paying attention to this now? Perhaps back when gear was limited and things were mixed more on consoles this was obvious. But in a DAW it really isnt. I always opted for stereo

Would love to hear your thoughts

I really struggle to hear the effects of saturation from tape or console emulation plugins. The only time I can really hear it is when using it on my master-bus/mix-bus, and even then its mainly when I use a preset in the plugin. For context, Im using the UAD Ampex tape and UAD API channel strip plugins. I usually put the API channel strip on all my tracks because I like to EQ from a console style. I like this workflow and the way the EQ sounds. However Ive read and heard from others that another benefit to these channel strips are the harmonics they add just by being on. However... I cant hear it? If I throw a tape or channel strip plugin on a track, unless Im driving the preamp really hard, I dont really hear any added effect. No magic harmonics or enhancement of the track.

Is this normal because its so subtle or are my ears just not picking up the nuances?

What's Good r/mixingmastering

Working on this with a friend, Dark atmospheric electronic dance? (if you guys can genre this it would be great) Sounds lik somewhere between Nicolas Jaar, Atoms for Peace Auto-tune Era Kanye, Cinematic rock. Sung/crooned lead vocal as the focal point.

Specific things I want ears on:

Vocal placement: does the lead sit forward and intimate while harmonies wrap around it spatially rather than competing?

Dark tonal balance: intentionally warm and weighted in the low-mids, controlled top end. Does it feel purposefully dark or just dull?

Space and depth: heavy reverb architecture on the vocal. Does it breathe with the performance or wash over it?

Hows the low end? Bass and Kick sounding full?

Vocaroo: https://vocaroo.com/1fsZII1Y5jb3 WHYP: https://whyp.it/tracks/345700/shine-mix36?token=NakAq

What signals an amateur AND how can said amateur not make that mistake?

I just read another post where someone asks about what signals an amateur, and a lot of the comments mentioned things that I understand, but wouldn’t know how to avoid yet. Like some type of drum kick that “sounds like an 808.” What makes something sound like the 808 and how can an amateur not do that? Someone else mentioned too much bass, yet the typical amateur is unlikely to have the type of speakers that are going to ensure that she could actually hear it. So how can an amateur avoid too much bass? Things of that nature.

Is it matters, I usually Ableton and ProTools (depends on what I am doing), have LogicPro though I’ve never clicked with it, and do you have things like Melodyne Editor (trying to decide if I should upgrade to Studio), etc. This is definitely something I am willing to put some money into if that can help avoid amateur mistakes.

Vocals are a yes. Pretty good midi keyboard. My speakers suck, though I hope to upgrade soon. Planning to get a Push 3 soonish. Computer runs on Intel and I was going to replace it in the next few months, but then I found out about the MacBook Ultra. So for now, I’m kind of limited to what was the top of the line back in 2019. (I swear, how fast does this stuff advances…) So I’m not sure if Kontact can run at the same time as something else. Not sure what else might be relevant.

All my life I wished that there were tools that did exactly what these things do, so was thrilled out of my mind to find out last fall that they’ve existed all my life. I’ve pretty much been living in music production land since then. I’m in for the long haul.

So what can I—Ms. Amateur—do to avoid amateur mistakes? Thank you!

Tried to look for this but could not really get a good response on this question previously answered on this subreddit.

So I have watched plenty of videos on YouTube and cannot really understand what is the right way of taming harshness on amp sim guitars. The amp sim I am using is IK multimedia amplitube. I usually use low pass filter and try to cut all the fizz above 8K but there is still this ringing frequency at or around 2K and 4K that bothers a lot specially when listening in mono. I try to notch it out statically and then bring back the brightness through high shelf after tape saturation. It works but I hear people say that instead of static use dynamic eq to cut notches. Is this really the way to go?

I have been cross thinking myself and perhaps after getting good IR in amp sim I am thinking of using post EQ in amp sim and then shaping eq in mixing. This sounds like a better mindset if fixing at the source. Looking to hear back from all of the pros here for any tips and tricks

Hello, looking for some feedback/advice on the mix for this track. The song has two pretty distinct halves, and I’m mainly trying to improve the clarity in the second half without overdoing it or losing the emotional buildup.

That section has two mic’d electric guitars, layered DI bass, strings/synths, light drums, and lead + backing vocals. Once everything comes in, some of the instruments start to feel a little masked or blurred together to me, though I still want it to stay cohesive and slightly dreamy rather than super clean or polished.

I’m less concerned about the lead vocal sitting on top, and more focused on improving the separation/definition of the instrumental layers. Would love any thoughts on arrangement density, stereo placement, EQ masking, or whether anything feels unnecessary. Thanks heaps.

Hello, r/mixingmastering community! I am new here and slightly more than novice in regard to my mixing skills. I am working on an ambient track and I noticed after bouncing and comparing to a reference track that my track is quiet, muddled, and distorted. If I try to louden the track to a reasonable level, the distortion gets way worse. I find it very hard to find a balance between too loud and too quiet. I often have this sort of distortion or feedback issue with mid to low range pads or sounds. But the song as whole seems to be wrapped in this awful distortion and slight muddiness though being terribly quiet. What can I do to get my track to have less distortion, more clarity, and to sound smoother, and clean while having the right loudness? I really appreciate any constructive feedback, thanks!

Vocaroo link:

https://vocaroo.com/1iIjmNXhWgyn

I've been working on this track for a while now and I think I'm getting close to finishing it. I haven't gotten that much feedback on my mixes, but I hope I'm doing something right. Would love your thoughts on what I've done right and what could be improved upon.

The track is called "Static Bliss".

Thanks!

https://voca.ro/1lNgHjF5aOyY

EDIT 1: I've done some tweaking after reading the comments, hope I'm on the right track and haven't made things worse https://voca.ro/18OOSrUQGLUW

EDIT 2: I can't thank you all enough, all the feedback I've gotten has been a goldmine! I've done some tweaking. I've added some more saturation to the drum bus, I've added a dynamic EQ with high Q at around 11,6KHz on the vocals and lessened the cuts at around 400-500Hz. I also boosted alot at around 1000Hz on the bass and did some cuts at the same frequency on the guitar. I also boosted around 1db between 200-2000Hz in the mastering chain. On the first upload I had a 1176 compressor into an LA-2A, but I removed the 1176 to keep the transients. I also made the toms less boomy. Hope it sounds better, heres a new link 😄 https://voca.ro/14tLABvXUSPr

The problem I'm having is that it feels like the mid range is masked at times and I can't seem to place elements in their own area for better separation. If I'm allowed to post a Google drive link I'd be happy to. If not, I'd love to hear others input on depth in a large mix.

The stylization is heavily influenced by artists like Devin Townsend, Boards of Canada, Kyros. So it's a lot going on and my attempted sound design might be missing something like i need a reality check of some sort...

So i make and record my own music and mix it. I tend to use busses because its how im more comfortable (using ableton btw). Whenever i send anything to a bus for reverb, i find its not compelling enough. Should i be just putting the reverb on the audio track instead of a bus? Ive noticed even with the reverb up at 100% wet, it isnt the same db level as the track even when its set to 0 db. Its been really bothering me and i want to find an answer

I've been mixing my own stuff for about 10 years but never really dabbled with gain staging, kinda late to that. But I've decided to try it out.

I have a guitar track with Guitar Rig 7 on it. After that I added the Plugin Alliance SSL 4000E and tried gain staging. I increased the gain so that the VU meter sits at around 0.

Then I tried adding mvMeter2 since I heared that's a good VU meter, and there it shows the VU meter getting completely crushed almost always sitting at +3.

I'm really confused on what to look at here. Should I trust the VU meter inside the SSL or mvMeter2?

I am very happy with the Kali but finished some projects that pay good and now want to go 1 tier higher from beginner tier to mid, or maybe low high tier.

Budget is around 2000 for the pair but i can go a little bit higher, or if it is a huge difference can even push 3000 for pair.

Now i have a relatively small room but next year i am mpving to a 45 m2 studio. I want to be able to use them there also.

When you’re mixing a full track with stems, you can shape the mixbus with EQ, compression, subtle stereo widening, saturation, clipping, limiting, etc.

How does your approach change when you’re working with a 2-track (e.g., a YouTube mp3) plus vocals?

I know stems are always ideal, but in this situation do you make the same kinds of moves more subtly, or do you approach it in a completely different way?