Brief notes on MS stuff

[Another one from an email. I have edited my reply just a little for clarity] “Do you do Mid/Side type processing when you master? Like, compress it separately maybe?” ….. it depends. It all always depends. MS is The Big Thing atm, like sidechaining has been, MB compression before that… it will pass. Just another […]

Why I’d rather add than cut bass in mastering

Right from the word go, I’d like to stress one thing very heavily; I’d rather receive stuff that sounds right, and doesn’t need me to do anything. I’d rather there wasn’t any doubt about how the artist wanted it to sound. If I don’t have to do anything then that’s a bonus – at least […]

Sidechaining: In brief

Sidechaining: I could write a book here, and I’ve got a HUGE sidechaining article that needs a lot of tidying up. I’ve spent years thinking about it, how best to explain it, and I’ve got a few ways of thinking of and explaining it. But I’ll boil it down. There are two things I can […]

Yet more on sidechaining

[Snipped from an email response to someone from whom I requested a revised mix with less compression] Ok so, it isn’t always easy to say what’s causing what from this end. Trying to do detective work like CSI or something, figuring out what happened after the fact. But really it’s pretty simple. The track […] sounds like […]

On transients/RMS/peak/impact/punch/fullness

One question I have in mind is about impact/punch/transient/fullness. You wrote: “Impact is a tricky thing to define. Think of drums. Skinny little drums have punch or snap (make you blink), but no BEEF. Having everything mashed into a limiter has beef but no impact. The optimum balance of punch/transients and RMS/fullness is where impact, […]

Mixing by peak numbers

It’s impossible to mix by numbers. Reading your message and taking it to a ‘logical’ (ish) conclusion, one could hypothetically mix by turning off the speakers, setting the numbers so they read the right values and calling it finished. Obviously this is daft – it’s way way way way way way (you get the idea) […]

Mixing into buss processing (or, ‘More about the Cake’)

[…..] The cake is just an analogy to get people thinking about why and how they are doing what they are doing. I hear about a lot of illogical, suboptimal, inefficient, bad-sounding approaches that this simple analogy remedies. So it’s not a perfect description of all things related to sound 😉 Having said that, the […]

How to prepare a mixdown: Shortest version ever

‘Looking at the song I have to send, the RMS is about -17db  and there are a handful of peaks that go above -2db. Some reach -1.3dB. Should I have everything lower than -6db before sending to you?’ No need to overthink it. There are only two questions to ask; – Does it sound how […]

Important things

Here’s a list of things I consider important when building a mix, divided into ‘tiers’. I might add to/fiddle with this over time, but I’ll put it up now as it’s been saved in draft for a year or something. I wanted to get this up so I can refer to it in future articles. Gold level: – Sound selection […]

Same point as always

[part of an email response written to someone mixing into the dreaded PSP vintage warmer] Personally I wouldn’t chase new comps/fx etc, until you really know WHY you need a certain different kind of eq/comp. Get to know the stuff you have. Obligatory Bruce Lee quote: ‘I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 […]