My mixes suck. How can I fix this?

[estevan carlos benson]

I have to say, the most difficult challenge I've had musically is that my mixes suck. I think I create interesting pieces of music. I often work outside popular styles so much so that I'm never sure what music to reference, mix-wise. My mixes suck and it's limiting my potential.

I've been trying to learn the hard way, toiling on my own for years but this just isn't working. Can anyone, please, recommend any straight-forward documents, tutorial, books on how to properly mix and how to mix for slightly experimental or unusual music. I may not understand as much of the principles as I need to as well.

[Tarekith]

Try this:

http://tarekith.com/assets/mixdowns.html

[estevan carlos benson]

Try this:

http://tarekith.com/assets/mixdowns.html

Thanks for that.

[memes_33]

do they sound good in your studio and shitty everywhere else? if so, acoustical treatment is your friend.

for experimental music, i think you have a little more leeway.

mixing is like playing an instrument- it takes practice and there's always room for improvement. i had trouble mixing for years- it would take me months to mix a track to a point where i found it acceptable, and even then, i was never happy. i've gotten better, but it is still my biggest hurdle in music making.

one thing that helped me immensely (and this might not work well for the music you make) was ill gate's idea of starting out with sounds that work well with one another. if you have an organized library of sounds and can quickly audition different combinations to see if they fit together well, mixing is that much easier. i used to make music that was 90% sample-based, so i was constantly battling with using samples from, say, 6 different records and trying to make them fit sonically with one-another. i'm making my own drum patterns a lot more now, so making things fit initially is much easier.

what is your process and is there a way you can organize things so you can audition sounds against one another quickly? if you are the type of producer who starts a track by fiddling with sounds, the above method is not going to work. if you can build your tracks so that they sound good initially and ditch the attitude that you will "fix it in the mix", that mixing process becomes so much easier and less time-consuming.

just my $0.02

[jonathan harker]

the tips from tarekith are great!!! i can only say that it takes time to get more experience. just practice as much as you can and you will get better over time. there is also a really great book i can highly recommend: you can order it here: http://www.mixingwithyourmind.com/ have fun, alex

[willdahbe]

I blame my shitty mixes on my shitty monitors.

[estevan carlos benson]

I blame my shitty mixes on my shitty monitors.

Yeah that's one of my many problems.

[estevan carlos benson]

For example: This song.

I'm not confident with this current mix at all. It contains a collection of unique sounds and varies throughout the sections. Maybe this comes off as an easier task for others but not me. The point made about finding sounds that compliment each other... I suppose I should do that. Although I feel in a certain way these sounds do compliment each other but are still tricky to wrangle.

[Tarekith]

There's no audio in that video.

[estevan carlos benson]

There's no audio in that video.

Are you sure?

[matthews]

There's no audio in that video.

skip ahead in it a bit.....20 seconds in or so

[estevan carlos benson]

Going by what I'm hearing on my headphones (which are a bit bass heavy), I don't think your mix sounds that bad. What do you think it's missing? How do you think your mixes are bad? Do sounds seem to clash? Does it seem too busy? Distortion? (I didn't hear any of these things in the track you posted, though again this could just be my headphones playing tricks on me)

There's no audio in that video.

There's definitely audio in the video.

It certainly ended up being bass heavy. My previous mix had little bass. I had trouble finding the right balance. I overcompensated. The bassline became drowned out because of the kick. I was trying to make it breath but I didn't quite get that effect. The ending part with the bass line becomes unintentionally louder. Although I know it's because of how the kick is.

[Tarekith]

Hmm, weird, no matter what I can't get any audio to play. Oh well...

[estevan carlos benson]

Hmm, weird, no matter what I can't get any audio to play. Oh well...

Do you get an error? Is the volume deactivated or some other issue?

Here's the soundcloud link: http://soundcloud.com/thehandsomestdrow ... submission

[estevan carlos benson]

Yeah, I tried to use a sidechain compression but I was a bit hacky. I'll definitely read the article.