what technique/tool/software/equipment has improved your mixes the most..?

[multree]

for me it was ARC/Morphit (ARC even more than Morphit because Morphit only changes the sound for my cans slightly, but ARC finally gave me bass frequencies I can hear) so I can really hear what's going on. And a very simple thing, I have overlooked for years.. removing the low frequencies from guitar (and other) tracks. That really helped to get a more transparent sound imo (their most likely still shit, but better than before I think)...

[funky lime]

restraint

[whassup]

Learning to listen with my ears (not with the eyes, not with prejudices) and then to act solution oriented. This frees up for the creative fun.

[martiu]

puting bit crusher on the master for more crunch

[trmupstage]

Room treatment (OC703) and Sonarworks... then Arc Studio. You can't mix what you can't hear. Once I could actually hear what the music really sounded like, I got a lot faster with a lot less edits requested from mastering. It's not as sexy as a new mic or keyboard or whatever, but it made the most difference in my nearly 50 year career.

[audiouser720]

Paying for a professional mixer helped a lot

[rasmusklump]

Console one for sure. The whole workflow...

[Gordonjcp]

Technique for me - the thing that has most improved my mixes is learning not to be so bloody precious about Gordon Kann Das Schon Alleine, and just giving it to someone who knows how to mix.

Now if I can just learn to hand off the bit where I spend hours sucking at writing tunes to someone who knows what they're doing and just stick to building synthesizers for people who know how to play them, I'd be really making a difference!

[morphex]

2024 was the year that I finally made the investment in quality acoustic treatment. I knew that it would make a big difference, and I wasn’t wrong. I also replaced all low-quality cables with professional-grade cables and connectors, and I’m recording at a higher resolution through better AD/DA converters.

Since I live outside of the city, I occasionally have power outages and a little bit of hum in the signal. That’s all been taken care of by an upgraded power & line conditioner and a friendly visit by an electrician.

I have two sets of top-notch Beyerdynamic headphones, including closed-back for tracking and semi-open for checking mixes. I bought a proper chair to give me much better back support for those days when I’m in front of the computer for hours on end. And I force myself to take 15-20 minute breaks every 2-3 hours to let my ears and mind relax.

These are all tips that have proven to be a benefit. I put some of it off for way too long. But the hard work and patience is paying off. Now the next big step up will be my monitors. I’m currently looking at Focal, Adam Audio, Avantone, and Barefoot Sound.

Once I’ve made a choice and got them all calibrated, my ears will be treated like royalty, and I expect to enjoy an elevated listening experience after years of planning. “I love it when a plan comes together!”

[DJErmac]

Stop relying on any tool simply because I've been told it's made for that.

Now, when I need a very specific result, I think of every single tool that could get me there and use the exact one, may it be a FFT tool, an obscure plugin, a multiband envelope plugin, a multiband transient shaper, a highly resonant de-esser... no matter what as long as it makes simply exactly what I need. No more instant magic expected from whatever plugin in the world : I'll never buy ever again the "your sound needs a boost ? try this plugin". I fix each problem one per one.

And it works damn good !

[DNAudio]

Renoise has helped to make a very focused pattern-based workflow.

I'm not the most experienced with hardware but Schiit is the only brand I've bought from that isn't plagued with firmware issues. I feel like most brands put all R&D into the hardware itself and the firmware needs to have like 3 updates to function as it should.

As for technique? No visual curve editing, static gain compensation for EQ & stepped controls. At that point you aren't "equalizing", it's simply a frequency contour free of distractions or common traps like "more gain = better"

[billinder33]

Mixing/mastering is 1000 techniques that build over time to create a quality final product, so it's hard to just pick a few, but the ones that had the biggest impact for me:

- Being ultra-disciplined about HPF'ing all relevant signals in the chain from the track all the way to the 2-buss, including pre-processing, post processing, summing busses, FX auxes, etc. Basically making 100% sure that there is zero low frequency information clashing with the kick and bass. Most of us understand that this is a good idea, but it's easy to forget about all the reverbs, saturation, auxes, etc, producing unwanted low frequency information after doing the initial HPF cut on the track.
- Understanding how to properly use clipping to create punchy, loud mixes without creating a bunch of distortion or artifacts.
- Standardizing my base 'channel strip' to just one EQ (Pro-Q), one compressor (Impress3), one saturator (Spectre), and one clipper (Kclip)
- Using Trackspacer for ducking. It's not as precise as beat-aligned volume ducking, but it gets the job done pretty well, it's fast as hell, and works for pretty much all ducking use cases.
- Moving to Bitwig as my primary DAW (speed, workflow, plugin management)
- Made a huge investment of time early in 2024 into hammering out my mastering chain. Did extensive AB testing, which ultimately led me to dumping all my mastering/2-buss hardware. It wasn't delivering any value over digital and was just slowing things down. And I wasn't going to spend progressively more and more money chasing that elusive analog 'magic'.
- Mix Buss and Mastering Metering - Metric AB, Tonal Balance Control, ISOL8, dpMeter.

Someone upstream mentioned mixing more with their ears and less with their eyes. I've actually gone the other direction. Pretty much every tool I use these days provides some kind of visual feedback. My eyes and ears are working together to do tasks faster and more accurately.

[plexuss]

Ignoring you guys.

[Dirtgrain]

Mark my words: you'll regret it some day.

[morelia]

Time