Any advice for mixing and mastering?

[THEMOD]

I've never tried to mix and master my song....
So i tried to study those things, but I totally can't get where to start.
I tried to start with eqing but 8band eq makes me so dizzy(since i don't know about it)
I am watching youtube tutorial...Is there any good youtube channel for mixing tutorial using ableton?
How did you guys start mixing and mastering?

[eddiex]

not trying to steal his fire or anything...but there is a member here TAREKITH, he has an excellent guide for this on his website.
http://tarekith.com/assets/mixdowns.html
http://tarekith.com/assets/mastering.html
i also use groove3 tutorials
http://www.groove3.com/str/
they have great videos....you have to pay, but for 35 bucks for the all access pass. you get tons of videos, including some production video's on ableton
other than that...dude, just youtube. there is a lot of good free stuff out there.

[foetus666]

Watch Pensados Place and check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-xMOHKFWjI
Whilst this is not my genre of music it really shows the process of balance, what parts have the focus, depth in the mix with reverb etc.

Maybe start simple. Add a tool to your kit 1 at a time. Learning each one thoroughly and completely before moving on.
1. Do a mix with just balances and any fader moves captured
2. Add panning
3. Add any eq you think is required - maybe the bass needs thinning to make way for the kik, maybe the vocals are muddy and need some cuts in the low mids and boosting in the upper mids and highs to get sheen. There could be a track that has sub bass rumble in it that is eating up your headroom and needs a high pass filter.
4. Add a short reverb, long reverb, delay and chorus returns and start incorporating that (Pensado's place has a good into the lair about reverb in relation to depth created by various reverb parameters)
5. If happy with the above maybe learn to use a compressor on indidual tracks that need it.
6. If you are competent with all the above then try 2-4db of compression on the master bus followed by a limiter.

Hope this helps. Remember everyone does it different. These are just suggestions.

Edit. Your mix should sound like a master. I will never forget being over on gearslutz where a pro engineer posted his unmastered mix along with the mastered one. His (Eric Valentines) unmastered mix sounded as good as the master. The mastering only added about 3% of gloss to the finished thing. I always thought mastering was the magic thing until I saw this.

[THEMOD]

not trying to steal his fire or anything...but there is a member here TAREKITH, he has an excellent guide for this on his website.
http://tarekith.com/assets/mixdowns.html
http://tarekith.com/assets/mastering.html
i also use groove3 tutorials
http://www.groove3.com/str/
they have great videos....you have to pay, but for 35 bucks for the all access pass. you get tons of videos, including some production video's on ableton
other than that...dude, just youtube. there is a lot of good free stuff out there.

Thanks man! Appreciate your words!

[THEMOD]

Watch Pensados Place and check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-xMOHKFWjI
Whilst this is not my genre of music it really shows the process of balance, what parts have the focus, depth in the mix with reverb etc.

Maybe start simple. Add a tool to your kit 1 at a time. Learning each one thoroughly and completely before moving on.
1. Do a mix with just balances and any fader moves captured
2. Add panning
3. Add any eq you think is required - maybe the bass needs thinning to make way for the kik, maybe the vocals are muddy and need some cuts in the low mids and boosting in the upper mids and highs to get sheen. There could be a track that has sub bass rumble in it that is eating up your headroom and needs a high pass filter.
4. Add a short reverb, long reverb, delay and chorus returns and start incorporating that (Pensado's place has a good into the lair about reverb in relation to depth created by various reverb parameters)
5. If happy with the above maybe learn to use a compressor on indidual tracks that need it.
6. If you are competent with all the above then try 2-4db of compression on the master bus followed by a limiter.

Hope this helps. Remember everyone does it different. These are just suggestions.

Edit. Your mix should sound like a master. I will never forget being over on gearslutz where a pro engineer posted his unmastered mix along with the mastered one. His (Eric Valentines) unmastered mix sounded as good as the master. The mastering only added about 3% of gloss to the finished thing. I always thought mastering was the magic thing until I saw this.

Wow thanks for such a detailed advice, I've watched a few videos from pensados place, but I think it's quite difficult for starter such as me..
Anyway Thanks!