In this article, Grammy Award winning engineer and producer Dom Morley explores some of the most common myths about modern pop mixing and sets the record straight…
In discussions about mixing you often see a common set of ‘rules’ come up that many people feel are either necessary to deliver a track in that ‘style’, or are the secrets of the big mixers in that field. Fortunately, most of these ‘rules’ are myths. Let’s dive into some of the most popular ones in modern pop mixing.
Myth #1: Louder Is Always Better
I get it. You want your mix to jump out of the speakers whether it’s on the radio or coming via a streaming service. If you compress and limit the hell out of it then surely it’ll be louder than everything else, and so better than everything else? Well, no. Loudness comes with a cost – in both dynamics and clarity. All the effort made by the artist and producer to give some kind of emotional journey to a track, with intimate verses and explosive choruses, can be ruined by a mix engineer with fetish for squashing mixes. If every section of a song is exactly the same volume as every other, then the impact of the arrangement can be lost for the sake of that extra dB of volume. Couple this with the fact that distortion creeps in pretty quickly when tracks are heavily compressed, and all the effort you’ve made to create a beautiful recording and mix has become a flat, distorted disappointment. Plus, every streaming service is working very hard to stop ‘extreme limiting = louder’ working on their platform. So you’re way better off concentrating on having a lively and impactful mix than seeing just how high you can go on your LUFS meter.
Myth #2: You Need Expensive Equipment To Make A Good Mix
I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures of the mix rooms belonging to some of the big pop mixers. Often there’s a giant analogue desk and piles of tasty equipment. While these pictures certainly draw attention, there are plenty of people successfully mixing pop music in the box. I’ve talked about this before, but often the people that have a lot of analogue gear (and I’m kind of in this camp myself) have it for speed. I’ve used these boxes for years, even decades for some of them, and I know how they are going to react. It’s much quicker for me to get the result that I want when I use these bits of gear, so I do. If I found it much quicker to mix entirely in the box, then I’d do that. Although some people may use expensive equipment to get a good mix, if you’re not using a load of outboard already then you definitely don’t need it.
Myth #3: There's A One-Size-Fits-All Approach To Mixing Pop Music
There are a few subjects that can inspire a rant from me (Brexit, Waves pricing structure, and so on) and I’m afraid one of these is templates. I guess I’m maybe in the minority here, but the idea that I can use another mixer’s templates and then sound like them is bizarre to me. Firstly, why would you want to sound like someone else? There’s already one of them and they’re very good at being themselves. But also, this is a creative industry and mixing is a creative job, so be creative! Approach every project as a blank slate and do something different. Push yourself and find a new solution to an old problem. This is when the job of being a mixer gets really interesting, and pulling up templates (even your own) and fitting the track you’re working on into the same old mould is kind of sad to me. Nobody ever made a name for themselves by sounding the same as everyone else.
Myth #4: Compression Is The Best Way To Tame Dynamics
To me this is quite an old-fashioned viewpoint. I could dive deep into the history of compression to explain, but the bottom line is that although compressors were originally (like, 100 years ago) built to contain dynamics, they are not the best tool for that job anymore. Now we all use DAWs and can automate literally everything, it’s way better to control the dynamics with automation, and then use compressors to make things punchy (a by-product of their initial design, but now their most useful function).
Myth #5: You Should EQ Before Compression And Not After
Well that depends. The thing to keep in mind is how you want your compressor to react. As an example, say I want to compress an electric guitar part, and the sound I currently have is a bit muddy and not bright enough. I want to EQ in a dip of 3dB at 300Hz and add 3dB at 5kHz. If I EQ that dip at 300Hz before the compressor, then that’s great – those frequencies that I don’t want aren’t hitting the compressor’s sidechain and causing it to react to them. All good so far. But, if I EQ the boost at 5kHz in before the compressor as well, then it kind of works - in that the sound that I want is hitting the sidechain - but this also means that the boost is reduced in effect as it’s getting compressed. So, I end up dialling in more than I otherwise would have to, running the risk of my guitar sounding processed. If I try EQing that boost after the compression, then I can probably get more of a result with less knob-tweaking. This is a rough example, but it illustrates a scenario where you’ll get a better result from considered use of both pre-compression and post-compression EQ. The ultimate guide, as always, has to be your ears. If it sounds right, then you’ve nailed it.
More Recording Resources From Dom Morley
Dom is the founder of the Mix Consultancy, a zero risk (money back guarantee) way to get notes on your tracks to help improve the sound. Whether you're an artist who likes to mix all their own work, a composer putting together a pitch on a limited budget, or an engineer who wants a discreet second opinion before sending a mix off to a client - we're here to help.
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In addition to the one-to-one advice Dom has produced some excellent online courses;
Everything You Need To Know About Recording Vocals
Preproduction, DAW set-up, preparing the studio, psychology, equipment. Literally everything you need to know.This is a short, free, mini-course on the four things that you really need to know in order to get great mixes, and the four things that you really don't!
Top image by Benjamin Lehman