Ableton Forum

Just curious, when you are working on a tune, do you mix the elements while your working on them or do you save it for last?

These days I usually mix as I go since I've gotten more comfortable with being sure I know how things are really sounding. When I first started I would often do one or two mixdown attempts and play those on various other audio devices before I got a result I was happy with. I know a lot of people who do both, there's really no right or wrong way to approach it.

Tarekith wrote:These days I usually mix as I go since I've gotten more comfortable with being sure I know how things are really sounding. When I first started I would often do one or two mixdown attempts and play those on various other audio devices before I got a result I was happy with. I know a lot of people who do both, there's really no right or wrong way to approach it.

Do you mix with various effect such as reverb or a resonator or do you mix then add effects? Im kinda unsure on how I wanna go about that.

I add effects as I go personally.

Tarekith wrote:I add effects as I go personally.

Ive got another question regarding mixing. So im using Audio Technica monitor headphones, now when I mix, and upload it to say, soundcloud, it sounds different on my speakers, is this normal?
Disregarding my shitty speakers, will other people with better speakers hear the mixing better than I?

Yes that's completely normal, and there in lies the skill in mixing and mastering, making it sound good everywhere. If you have crappy speakers, the only thing you can do is play the mixdown on as many other systems as possible and keep tweaking it until it sounds as decent as possible on all of them. Your mix will sound different for everyone in every kind of playback scenario. So if it sounds bad on your speakers, it doesn't mean it will sound better on better speakers. If anything, it might sound even worse!

Here's a few articles I wrote that might help:

http://innerportalstudio.com/articles/Mixdowns.pdf

http://innerportalstudio.com/articles/Mastering.pdf

Personally I like to separate composing and arranging from Mixing. This way I don't get distracted with eqing, compression and so on and instead focus on finishing the music.

Thank you guys!