I seen one of these topics a while ago and it really helped me and others out (from what i gathered) so thought it might be interesting to see what comes of one now. Just tips you have picked up that work for you and may help other people out, ill start

1. Sample EVERYTHING, when mixing everything can benefit from either ADSR or being pitched up or down a semi tone or 2 (even hi hats etc - you'll be surprised)

2. You don't need as much reverb as you think, don't focus on getting the reverb perfect for your high hats and stuff then come on to the vocal, spend your time mastering the reverb on your synths and vocals first, then worry about the shitty drums that don't do much afterwards

Ive just been reading CM special on Mixing and a good tip for the reverb:

"keep your reverbs bright and short at the front(rooms) and your reverb dark and long at the back(Halls)", with your middle area somewhere in between. Adds to the illusion of 3 dimensions. A bit obvious really, but not if you dont know, so if you dont know there you go.
Last edited by Trakstar on Thu Jul 05, 2012 3:28 am; edited 1 time in total

Why should I sample a synth when I want to be flexible with ADSR automation? Why should I sample hihats when I already play sampled hihats?

I probably wasn't as clear as i should have been,

i meant everything that you haven't already got ADSR over, a lot of people use drums which are not in a sampler, they just copy and paste the audio file, or the synth shots they may have got out of a sample pack or whatever,

Anything that isn't in a sampler is worth putting in to one to experiment with ADSR and pitching, i used to sit there for hours trying to find the right sounds but it turns out you can take a sound that might not sound right, EQ/ Compress it, stick it in a sampler and play with the pitch/ ADSR and you have the perfect sound, may sound like hassle at first but once you get in to the routine of it it only takes a second (especially with logics 'convert to new sampler track' feature)

I just know that since doing this my productions have improved a lot, may not work for you though

Mike

Ah ok. There's a cool function in Ableton Live for this calles "slice to midi". It slices a wave file and puts the snippets directly into a sampler where you can do all the dirty stuff to them.

Volume fader is king.

Ever tried no reverbs at all!

Try using delays instead that are locked into the tempo on just a few instrument.

Of course it doesn't suit every style of music, but try it out. Then if you do add some reverb to a pad it will sound huge as it is all relative.

But the stuff in the front will be very clear and dancing to the rythmn.

Normalize

Why?

best tip I can think of:

don't mix; arrange!

I think that's called "tuning the drums". Yeah, that's actually very important. You go a little bit further by putting an ADSR to them, which is great, yeah, but tuning/pitching them is quite important.

What?

Excellent tip, Ducter. Delay is the most important FX of them all. It's a god of FX. ;P First try delay, and only then try reverb. Of course, it depends on what the production is supposed to sound like.

Tip: keep the gain low. Lower than you think it should be. That is on the plugin output, especially if you're using lots of distortion plugins.
Last edited by DuX on Wed Jul 04, 2012 11:25 am; edited 1 time in total

Yes

I used to never use reverb at all, because I wanted everyone to hear every last drum edit and cymbal hit. It turned out, even people who didn't know what reverb was were asking me to put it in. I think it can really help music out, the thing is, it doesn't have to overtly sound like "reverb" all the time, just a trace to "thicken" a part and give it dimension works wonders.

If you normalize the audio of a sample thats low in gain, it saves you keep having to boost the fader or apply massive amounts of gain through distortion or compression plugins. When I used to sample with an ASR10 the first golden rule of sampling I was told to Normalize, Normalize, Normalize. Just saves messing about getting your levels up, and helps maximize your dynamic range.
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