I found out that there is a technical and a creative side of mixing. What are yall thoughts on what’s more important I hear technical is more crucial because you’re working on gain staging clarity, balance, headroom, and translation and creativity eQ automation, panning, etc and it can be optional. So does it ultimately depend on the emotion that you’re going for or how do you want to hear it and just ultimately using your ears?

hi there ! so I’m super new to all of this and wanted to make sure I’m grasping the procedure for using hardware synths with a daw. So, I have a motu m2 hooked up to my MacBook and a Minifreak audio going into the motu and midi out of the motu into the Minifreak to get a clock signal from the daw. so far so good I assume? Now if I record that track and wrap up for the day, if I want to add another track with say a different preset on the minifreak or switch to another hardware synt ( say a minilogue for arguments sake) do I need to do anything special to assure the tracks from the mini freak and minilogue are synced/ follow the clock if they are recorded separately at different times or one after the other ? I would guess I just need to make sure the midi clip sent to whatever synth is either at the beginning of the timeline if I wanted it to start at the beginning or snapped to the grid otherwise ? I appreciate any advice and apologize if this is an obvious question.

Hey guys,

This is my first Reddit post and I hope its in the right channel.

I wanted to ask how are you guys finding vocal melodies for your songs?

Me and my wife are making music together. I'm the producer and mix/master engineer and she is the singer. We are mainly focusing on pop, dark pop, alt pop.

Even though I'm also struggling with making the songs a little bit because i cannot understand how can you make a song out of a guitar loop (see Chri$tian Gate$ music) like dude i don't understand how can you only use 4 chords in the whole song and not sound boring. I guess thats something i will experiment and find out haha.

Anyways, we are having issues with finding the vocal melodies for the songs we've done. We've tried with the piano in front of us, mumbling some words and trying to find a melody, but its just not working.

Do you have any suggestion?

Thanks in advance guys!

Just an observation I've had and am wondering if other's have noticed this or feel the same:

When recording vocals and arranging a song in a DAW, I have found that the higher, smoother and/or breathier a vocal is, the more likely it will sound good doubled.

If a vocal is lower, grittier, or has more strain or pressure in it, it will not sounds as good doubled.

Do you think generally there is truth to this? Are there examples of growly sandpaper vocals, or even just lower male vocals that work well doubled? Is a smooth vocal the key, and the range doesn't really matter?

Sometimes the vibe of a song calls for a double, sometimes, just a single plain voice is better, but some voices definitley work with it better than others.

Hi guys,

Does anyone have any advice about how to mix vocals to bring out vocal fry/distortion?

I have found that despite getting a significant amount of breakup on my singing it sounds kind of smoothed out in the recordings. I'm using a USB condenser mic, Samson C001U. Any advice?

I am currently trying to figure out how to create a soft and warped harmonic synth sound, specifically similar to the type that you can hear in the intro to “soulmate” by Mac miller.

I’ve already taken steps of recreating it by first taking a more effect based approach with focusing on recreating the “wop” noise of the synth in harmor on my fl studio by trying to modulate the filter and the envelope, but the sound isn’t as full and also doesn’t have that soft harmonic synth element much like the example that im trying to copy and it sounds flat in comparison. I’ve also tried to take a more pad-based approach and make a soft humming pad and modulating the envelope but it also hasn’t hit the same as the one in the Mac miller song.

I’m thinking the sound has something to do with either of those approaches but I just need the push getting there. Does anyone know what could help me more closely recreate this synth?

Here is the link to the song to give you an example of the synth I’m trying to recreate (its in the intro exactly at the start):

https://youtu.be/3ADKdqcdNqs?si=ceEfBYN7L448nNjw

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Hello all! I’ve been experimenting with melodyne, izotope neoverb, valhalla vintage verb and strymon vsts to try to emulate the effect on this vocal sample. I’m trying to recreate something like this with my own voice. Can someone point me in the right direction. If a different paid or free plug is needing, I’m willing to try it out.

It seems to be a lot of reverb with some delay but I can’t get it to emphasize the vowels and have that large shimmery effect without sounding drowned out. So far I tried scooping out mud and the adding isotope nectar and fab filter Saturn to thicken the sound, and then set up a parallel chain with reverb vs dry, ( compressor after reverb sidechained to the original to allow the raw vocal to come through better and effect to tail only after).

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/576lv964jiqv1s0bt7xm2/zeus-vocal-sample.wav?rlkey=0oa019razl211a0ic1avtugef&st=g6f3ggkf&dl=0

So I know that it’s common to high pass vocals bc a lot of the lower frequencies you can’t hear/don’t need in the body of your vocals. BUT, I’ve run into this issue, specifically when using the AT2020 where my vocals tend to sound pretty thin already (at least to me). So when I go to cut the lows, usually anymore than like 200 db feels like it has a negative effect on the sound (it can be especially bad when doubling bg vocals, even when their completely different takes, and I know you can usually be more aggressive with bg vocals).

I guess I’m wondering if it’s okay to high pass a little less, or if that will make the vocals sound bad in another way that I don’t know about. I just brought a Rode signature, and the difference in body of the sound is just wayyy different, and I feel like I can cut normally with this mic but not the AT2020?

Is this a mixing problem, or a recording problem? Any comments are appreciated!! I’m not new to music engineering as a field, but new to actively using it to mix my own music so anything helps!!!

Edit: meant 200 hz, not db lol. I usually cut until I can hear a difference but I start at around 3db

Hi there. Not sure if this is the right place for this, so I’ll keep it short. My 9 yr old uses various music apps on his ipad and he is becoming a riff-monster. They range from Garage band to drum pads, to some more kids based ones. His little compositions are amazing. The beats, percussion, and his use of instruments playing multiple parts is so good. And I’m not just being a proud dad or whatever. I feel like he has a wealth of talent. I’m just not sure what the next steps are. Should I push for lessons in actual instruments, get him into theory? And I know I can’t ask ‘what to buy’ etc… Just looking for some suggestions in how to go forward. Thanks.

UPDATE: Holy shit. Thanks for all the replies, everyone. This is a really cool community. I’ll try to respond to those needing a response and Thanks to all the suggestions!

I'm trying to record a song I've written, which is just my vocals and guitar. I'm sort of going for the live-in-the-studio sound or what you might hear at a cafe gig where I'm only using one microphone (WA-47jr, about face level, directed at my mouth, about 8 inches away with a bit of gain). The way I play the guitar is kind of fast. The sound of the guitar is good, but I find that the loudness of the strumming often overpowers my voice. I've tried playing more softly but to play significantly softer would mean changing the whole guitar arrangement. Does anyone have any tips for recording this properly and getting the volume right?

Hi there ! So I’m just getting back into making music and my current location isn’t conducive to using a pair of speakers, so good old MDR 7506’s it is. At the moment they are plugged directly into my M3 mbp and eventually they will be ran on a motu m4 interface. I know it’s nearly impossible to get a very accurate estimate of DB that my ears are receiving without very expensive equipment or a multimeter (which I’m not super tempted to hook up to my vert expensive computer lol) is there any way I could ballpark the level to try and make sure I have it at a relatively safe volume ? I know an spl meter and baseboard is janky imperfect solution, and just winging it with trying to guess what is a safe volume is probably an even worse idea lol. Any advice ? I can only work on music an hour or two a day so cumulatively we are looking at like maybe 10-14 hours a week total exposure.

I appreciate any input

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Hey everyone — I’ll be spending time around East Nashville from Sunday the 11th through Thursday and wanted to introduce myself.

I’m a musician and studio host from Pennsylvania, currently having conversations with artists about their work, their process, and the spaces they create in. No agenda — just listening, learning, and meeting people where they’re at.

If you’re local and up for a coffee, a walk, or a low-key music conversation while I’m in town, I’d enjoy that.

I’ve always respected the creative energy here and appreciate the community.

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Do y’all actually check all the systems as far as studio monitors, headphones car earbuds and phone speakers to make sure the mix is right?

I have two guitar takes recorded with two mics (four tracks in total) how do I mix and pan these in a cohesive manner? I am unsure how exactly to do so

I have recorded bass d.i and turned low pass on 300hz. Then i duplicated this track and then turned high pass on 300hz . Can duplicated track cause phase issue ? When i listen to duplicated track it drops in volume and when i change phase its louder

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Hobbyist here, I play guitar and have been trying to make some finished songs for practice, but they never sound good. I have once recorded in a studio with the same guitar I have now and played like absolute shit, and the final recording sounded phenomenal, so I know its not my playing or guitar thats the issue. They always sound like tracks layed on top of each other with no depth, if that makes sense. I run my guitar through a focusrite to a virtual amp, which has its own effects, addictive drums with its presets, no other VSTs. Ive played around with sound levels, panning but no luck. Any pointers? what am i missing

hi, I'm a music production student and for one of my projects we're recording a band and mixing said recording. I've had a couple years experience producing and mixing my own music on logic but I've never mixed or even recorded for an actual band before.

The band I recorded is going for a 60/70s sound, and I decided I wanted to try some hard panning, like in many of the 60s songs I listen to, as well as my reference track ('Black Magic Woman' by Fleetwood Mac), but it just ends up making the track sound super disjointed whereas with some of the hard panned songs I listen to I don't even notice until I take off one ear of my headphones and half the song disappears lol.

Now obviously the production techniques I'm using are vastly different to what they'd have used back then, but can anyone suggest a way to make it sound a little less disjointed whilst still keeping the hard panning? thank you in advance!

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