Aiera

Solutions to Overworking Tracks

May 26, 2012 in Day to Day | Tags: Aiera, Music, Overwork, Solution, Trance | 1 comment

We’ve all been there. You work a track to complete death in hot pursuit of audio perfection. You slave away at the track for hours on end, making near-minute changes constantly, adjusting effects settings on the fly, and generally forcing more work into a piece of music than you would into your normal eight hour work day. But alas, as your ears quickly fatigue, your eyes start to see things, and all the terms and changes blend into a huge mess. Fire up the project the next day, and your hard work soon turns into frustration, as you realize a lot of the work was indeed in vain.

I talk of course, of overworking tracks. So what’s the best way to combat this? It’s no secret that ear fatigue is a killer, but ideas can flow thick and fast, and putting them in place can lead long into the late hours of the night. How do we keep the rhythm of inspiration, when too much of a good thing can lead to mistakes and a poor outcome?

One of the best ways to help keep the momentum going actually exists on all Windows computers. Best of all, it’s free as well!

Notepad: The Original Ideas Saver!

It might seem like sarcasm, but Notepad, or any good jotter pad for that matter, is absolutely perfect for when you just need a break. Write down your new ideas, your changes, your insights, anything really, and leave it on your desktop for later review. Give your ears the break they really deserve, and have a good idea of what to do next when you return. Too many times I’ve walked away from a project, only to try and come back five minutes later and try to force more into it. Don’t do this! Rests are actually one of the best things for your overworked tracks, and it’s little time-savers like these that can really aid workflow later.

The project above in the Notepad document is one I’ve only just started to work hard on, but already, after a long morning of other project work, I can tell I’m not hearing what I need to. I can sense problems arising, so I render what I’ve got, close the DAW (FL in this case), play the track back and close my eyes.

Closing your eyes while listening is a great method for trialling your track for the real world. Without distraction, and without seeing what makes up the sound, your mind is free to analyse the track with a lot more ease. With eyes closed, I listen. I hear things that need changing, that I’ve missed along the way. Best of all though, I can envision how the track will sound to others. Does it sound like it was made by a machine? Or does it flow with message and emotion? Closed eyes can see what the open eye cannot!

Another method for a incredible final mix, is to rest the project. Close it up, and don’t listen to it for at least two days. Get to the point where you could almost forget it exists. You’ll find, nine times out of ten, the next listen after that break is going to be a lot different to when you are over-analysing every little element in production. Your ears adjust, and the worst thing is, they adjust quickly. Work on the same thing for hours and your ears will eventually tell you things you aren’t really hearing! Treble, for example, is one of the first frequency areas to start becoming dull after long periods. If you find yourself constantly boosting this area, you might be overworking the sound! Take a breather, grab a coffee or something, and come back to it. Your track will thank you!

In short (or a TL;DR if you will), resting those ears and jotting down the ideas for later will do a world of good for the stressed. Take it easy, and don’t rush it out. Slow and steady can indeed win races!

An Old Friend

May 20, 2012 in Day to Day | Tags: Aiera, Music, New, Trance | 1 comment

Working in a field such as dance music production can get repetitive. After all, the music is based around repetition! From the 4/4 kick to the big climax, it can start getting samey for some.

I try to get away from repetition by trying new things every now and then. Even though it has no influence on the sound, switching instruments, effects and even DAWs can really bring out the creativity. I opened FL Studio 10 for the first time in what felt like ages. Completely different interface to Ableton, a unique workflow, and a multitude of different tools and samples. What could go wrong?

Apparently (at least in my positive experience), nothing can! They say when you try something new, you sometimes have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. After laying down a simple riff, ideas began to flow. Samples got laid down, sounds were crafted, and the track began to form. It was a matter of hours, not days, until the track was at a stage where I could call it complete.

I don’t know if I will go back to FL Studio completely, although it certainly shaved time off my workflow. I love working in Ableton for tracks, but every now and then, breaking the routine is a great way to go. The myth about FL Studio not sounding up to par with other DAWs is truly false. Had the result been created in Ableton, it would sound no different in the end.

The final result has been recorded and uploaded to YouTube, so you can see some of the process behind the track. Feel free to check it out!

ProTip #003 – Better Mixes

May 20, 2012 in Tutorials | Tags: Mixing, Music, Professional, Tips, Trance | 2 comments

After a lengthy absence, it’s time for another ProTip!

Followers of my old electrodia site will remember I had about ten or so tips up for grabs regarding mixing and how to get a better sound out of your mix. I’m going to go into more detail about those tips today, and walk you through my workflow to achieve a great mix in the end.

Remember, mixing has nothing to do with mastering in terms of process. Your master channel should be kept clear of effects at all times to ensure you are not compensating for a poor mix! In short, your mix should sound great without anything on the master.

Step One: The Levels

When I start a track from the beginning, I am keeping everything in volume relative to the loudest part of the track: the Kick. In fact, the louder you make the kick, the louder everything else is going to have to be, resulting in a lack of headroom (space) later on. Start the kick at around -8db to -12db. Even if this is sounding too quiet, don’t panic! It is much easier to bring volumes up later on than down, and you always have a volume control on your speakers, so use that!

If you are starting from the break, don’t be afraid to have a kick present all the way through just to check volumes. It’s a little hard to work the kick in after you’ve made everything else, so keep a sample ready for volume comparison. After all, it can be easily removed later when you don’t need it.

Step Two: Mix As You Go

It’s a bit of a divided topic, but my best work comes when I have everything sounding great from the start. As you are adding sounds, be sure to do some basic mixing of them for best results. It can be as simple as a few minor EQ changes, a little compression, or some panning (mentioned below). My best route is to remove the bottom end of sounds that don’t necessarily need them, and to make minor cuts in the sound where I think things will clash. As you add more and more layers of sonic delight, you can keep coming back to old sounds and adjusting them to suit. It’s a little harder to stay inspired when everything is a big mess, especially when adding new sounds that start to blend together. Keep it clean!

Step Three: Panning is Important!

I cannot stress this one enough. Too often in the past, I neglected the stereo field, making my tracks too central and narrow. People often reach for stereo wideners at this stage. Don’t do this! You’ll find clever panning of instruments will do a lot more wonders to your track than simply widening the sound. For example, I have a melody that contains three layers of sound. Your most powerful layer in the low end should stay fairly central, but what about the others? If they don’t contain too much low end, you can start to spread them out. Pan one a bit to the left and the other to the right. Play around and see what happens. You’ll often be surprised how even little adjustments can make a huge difference in ease of mixing!

Step Four: The Low End

It’s one of the biggest pains in dance music. Getting the low end right is a right challenge, and thankfully there are ways to make it easier. First, make sure the kick isn’t playing at the same time as any basses with a similar bass frequency. If some are, be sure to either sidechain them or make space with EQ. EQ space is done by taking away frequencies from the bass of either sound until one is more dominant in one region than the other. As I often do in my blog, I have to also suggest getting the freeware effect Tone Projects Basslane. This will mono all frequencies under a certain threshold, giving the low end more punch and a centralized sound. After all, wide bass in the low end will virtually disappear on a mono sound system!

Step Five: Harmony

I don’t mean notes here. What I mean is when several instruments work well together. Not just applicable to layered sounds, EQ can make a huge difference when you make space for other instruments in the same frequency range. If you have a battle of sonic proportions, find the part with a better sounding area of frequency you want, then apply a cut in that exact region on the competing sounds.

Step Six: FX Sends

It’s easier to use Sends or Returns for common effects like delay and reverb. By setting them to 100% Wet, you will only get the effected signal, while preserving the original sound. This way, you can use an EQ to cut away the bottom end on delays and reverbs. You’ll discover a lot of room can be made in the lower end when you have no bottom on reverbs and delays. Cuts up to around 600hz are normal, and you can even go as far as adding more high end for a bit more sheen.

There are a myriad of other techniques involved, but these are the most common and will solve a lot of your mixing issues. Remember, keep the volumes low and clear, only turning up if you have to (a mastering engineer or software can bring it back up with a limiter later), and preferably mix as you go. I hope you start to get some clearer results soon!

A Taste of Things to Come

May 16, 2012 in General | Tags: Aiera, Dawn, Music, Sample, Trance | Leave a comment

It’s been a while since new material was posted, and with all the teasing I’ve unintentionally done with the Insights, it’s time to unveil the sound of the Dawn & Aiera collab!

In this clip you can hear the bass drop after the ambient intro, the body of the track before the break, the break itself with Dawn’s lovely piano, and then the build to climax with my melody. It’s short (and I apologize for this) but hopefully very sweet.

The track has been an absolute joy to work on so far, and Dawn’s help with ideas and melodies has transformed it into a real stormer.

It’s expected to be completed and showcased to a few record labels by the end of this week. Fingers crossed!

Insight – Dawn & Aiera Collaboration – Bassline & Break

May 13, 2012 in Day to Day | Tags: Aiera, Bass, Dawn, Music, Trance | Leave a comment

Wow! Another week gone, another post to put up! I’m trying my hardest to keep it to at least Sundays, so you get some sort of update. Would be boring if it went to silence again, wouldn’t it?

Anyways, I’ve been working on the collab for just over a week now. It’s coming along brilliantly, even if it’s a huge unlabelled mess of MIDI and audio samples. I guess I’m one of those people who work by my own system, sense to me, Greek to others. The track is structured up to the climax, and to a point where I can say I’m pretty happy with the mix. The bassline has changed from the standard rolling bass, to a more modern pattern similar to the complextro-style influences in trance today. Rest assured, it’s still over 132BPM!

The bassline is comprised of many elements, so there are several things to consider. One of course is phase cancellation. There are only so many frequencies to play with down in the bass region, and careful care is taken so not to make it a big muddy bass-less mess. The bassline is sort of split up into frequency groups, with a sub, a higher end, a low mid, stuff like that. The EQ was the hardest part, but a lot of that is made easier with careful sound design and selection. Waves Renaissance Bass is used on the sub to give it a richer weight, and a generous helping of TP Basslane helps to keep everything thumping and mono.

The bass patterns need to fit around each other.

Another factor actually exists outside the bass, and that’s the percussion. Not many realize how important your groove is for the bassline, and a good synchronization of the two will work wonders. I’m using samples such as toms and white noise to add a bit more rhythm, and to fill in the gaps where the bass takes a break.

Pay attention to the bass tail, and if a bass sound is close to the tail of the kick, be sure to sidechain it. In fact, sidechain even if you’re not sure, it helps to keep a solid drive in your low end. I speak of the bass tail for the same reason; running over each other will cause headaches when mixing. Of course, you can sidechain bass with other basses. The possibilities are quite endless in the digital realm!

The break makes great use of white noise and band-passed delay to give it a real atmosphere. The samples bounce around as well as blend with the pads in the break for a rich, full sound. Vocal samples are cut, stretched and filtered to add a more organic feel. You can literally go crazy here, adding all sorts of interesting effects to create tension and emotion. Just don’t overdo it; keeping it simple is often easier!

The main melody is an altered arpeggio, with the root note following the bass but the higher notes playing unique notes within the scale to sound, well, melodic. In Aiera trademark, the end of the sequence goes an octave higher, before cascading down the scale back to the root chord. It’s a self-made patch like most of my stuff, with Sylenth1 playing both layers of saw and supersaw mix. It’s not generic, but certainly traditional.

Sylenth1 plays the main riff.

Whoa, another lengthy Day to Day post! Hope you enjoyed this insight, and stay tuned for more on the development of our track!

Insight – Dawn & Aiera Collaboration – Intro and Kick

May 8, 2012 in Day to Day | Tags: Aiera, Collab, Dawn, Kick, Music, Trance, Tutorial | Leave a comment

Hey everyone, sorry about the lack of update over the last week. It’s been a pretty good one for the most part, exempting the fact I had no time to post here!

I thought for a new Day to Day I could give you all a bit of an insight to some of the production techniques I employ often in my tracks, as well as a sneak peek at a brand-new track coming, produced in collaboration with the talented Dawn (otherwise known as Dreamy).

This collaboration kicks off in an unusual stance as the majority of the production will occur in Ableton Live 8, my current go-to DAW. This means Dawn unfortunately has less control over the technical side of things as we normally work in FL Studio 10. The reason for this is because the track was already started by myself, and although it could easily be recreated in FL, we are a little lazy this time =)

The Ableton decision means we will work with MIDIs mostly, where we send samples back and forth to make sure we’re on the right track in both eyes. Skype is wonderful for this. Once we are happy with melodies and such, I work my magic away and lay down the ideas we have.

The track begins to take shape.

There will be two mixes of this track due to it’s ambient beginning: an Intro Mix and a more DJ-friendly Original Mix. For now, we work on the Intro Mix. A supersaw sound rises and falls, with an LFO set to give it a pumping, side-chain sound. A sine-saw wave arpeggio slowly comes in with the supersaw sound, both filtered to slowly evolve as the track progresses. Many elements join these fundamentals, before the track rises into a solid kick and bass combination.

The kick is processed in several ways to fit into the track.

With the kick, I begin with a fairly decent sample from Vengeance-Sound. The kick has a boomy tail, which I tame with the Release envelope function in Simpler. After that, I remove the inaudible sub bass from the kick that’s going to be too physical on speakers. A small reduction in the low mids relives some of the boomy sound the kick still has. Waves Renaissance Compressor comes straight after, controlling the attack and release of the sample. Fairly standard affair, 4:1 radio and a threshold about -8 below the peak. The attack time is generous to preserve the click of the attack.

After that, another Pro-Q gets added, and the real sculpting begins. The kick has some more high sub added, but not much. We need to make room for the basslines, so cuts at around 100hz and a little higher are made. Additional high end is added to make the kick a little crisper. A freebie is added after this process, Tone Projects Basslane. This makes the bass end of the kick Mono, leaving the top end stereo. Why do this? Most sampled kicks are layered with a snare or cymbal, and this can sound strange once in mono. With TP Basslane, we can make just the bass mono, leaving the higher end more sparkly and clear-cutting in the mix.

As I work, I am EQ’ing along with adding new sounds. This allows me to work the sounds in from the get-go, so I can hear how they will sit in the mix. Volumes are low as well, and will be boosted later if headroom allows.

There will be more on this track in a few days as work progresses, including some audio samples and more screenshots. I hope you all find the insight today useful! Take care, for now!

A Return to Form

April 29, 2012 in Day to Day | Tags: Aiera, Music, Trance | Leave a comment

You can have all the tools in the world, as much hardware for music as you want (or can afford), a behemoth of a PC to run everything and the best DAW at your disposal. Yet without solid ideas or inspiration, even the best synthesizer can become useless, as you struggle to lay down that next hit.

It’s a position I find myself in quite often. Days, week, even months can pass without having produced something I am 100% satisfied with. A perfectionist at heart, and my own worst critic, it can be painful to try and draw ideas from nothing but thin air, and even more difficult to continue working on it. If I were to count the amount of projects started but never finished, it would easily reach to the thousands.

Yet something, a compelling passion perhaps, or maybe just slight insanity, keeps me working hard. Even in dire times, as demonstrated over the last month, a project might not be started, but the mind is always ticking over new ideas, new inspirations, to keep the fire fueled.

So it was an average Tuesday last week. I was listening to music, chatting to friends, and planning some things with my lovely wife Ina. A little while into the day, I fired up Ableton for the first time in a couple of days.

Loading up the standard foundations for another track, I threw down a few MIDI channels, some with Simpler and another with a Drum Rack for percussion. An instance of Sylenth1 as well, for good measure. I opened up a sample set and tossed in a kick that normally works well, but I misread the label and had another sample loaded instead.

Normally I would rectify the mistake, but I froze for a sec. “What if this sample were put with another I heard the other day?”. The kick was nice and subby, with a fairly good top end as well. It reminded me of a kick I’d heard in an Above & Beyond track, which, with a very different clap to standard tracks of that time, had stood right out from the crowd. I found the clap and stuck them together. The result was good. Simple, but effective. I slowed the BPM down to 132, and started to add some percussion. Things were really starting to flow!

An hour in, and with a bassline borrowed from another (unfinished) project, I had a stormer of a beat down. It was fast, powerful, yet elegant. A real uplifter, and only at 132 beats per minute! I reached the pinnacle, the break, where I normally struggle if I start from the track intro. Starting from the track’s break is my normal workflow, but then again, this was well outside my conventional routine. As I poured hours into the design, I began to feel better with the track, and myself. I stopped working on Thursday, and restarted on Saturday for the final touches and mixdown. It was done!

It’s a real accomplished feeling, coming from not being able to start a single trance track, to laying one down and completing it in a matter of days. I guess the valuable lesson I learned from this was to stop restricting myself. Let ideas flow, instead of reaching for the same sounds every time. Don’t, in the words of Armin, be a prisoner of your own style.

Aiera is back in business. And from what I’m working on, you guys are going to be happy!

Site Revival

April 28, 2012 in General | Tags: Aiera, Music, Trance | Leave a comment

As you can probably see from the lack of updates, this site has been left to sit for quite some time. I want to apologize, yet again, for the lengthy absence. Without going too far into it, my health hasn’t been stellar and my music and mood both took a dramatic hit. However, with an inability to work as much as I originally could, I have a lot more spare time on my hands, a lot of which I hope to devote to making aiera-music.com a well-kept and regularly maintained site once again!

Readers of my Facebook Page will know that things weren’t going so well for me, and that the music was suffering. While I haven’t made a complete decision regarding whether to continue, I know that stopping production would, at this stage, be a waste. I am happy to say I will continue as best as I can at this current point in time, and restart work on new material.

I want to apologize again for the confusion, but this is a trying time for me in reality, and I thank you all for your patience and continued support.

Now, onto the site improvements to come!

I’m going to start a bit of a blog-style adventure here by posting at least something every Wednesday and Sunday regarding how things are travelling with the Aiera sounds. I know I failed at this in the past, but with more time to devote, I think I can make a better effort to keep things up to date. Insights into my sound such as mixing, tracks, sounds, and daily dramas will be the main theme, though other features are on the cards.

I’ll also try to keep the Pro-Tips current as well, with updates for these coming around the end of the week.

I hope to see some traffic return to this site, and that the new content will keep you all entertained!

~Ryan

Mixing 101 – A Guide to Better Tracks p2

December 4, 2011 in Tutorials | 3 comments

First off, apologies for such a long delay between this and Part 1 of the Mixing series. Music and full-time work can be rather time consuming!

I thought for a beginning to Part 2 I would recap some of the techniques in Part 1 and summarise them a bit:

Mixing Basics: Remember to keep volumes low, and at least 3-4db of headroom on the Master Channel. Don’t reduce Master volume to reduce peaks, this won’t actually work. Work around the loudest elements of the mix (climax, kick) and try not to push all sounds too much, have some sit back while others work the front.

EQ: Your finest weapon in mixing will help to sculpt your sound but you need to take note of what areas you are cutting/boosting and how these affects areas alter the sound in the end. Be sure not to drasically boost or cut, and remember to make room for other instruments with small cuts and boosts in layers and similar sounds.

With that done, let’s start on compression!

Compression is, by far, the most useful tool in your DAW for increasing dynamic range and overall loudness of your sound. Compressors work by reducing peaks and increasing quiet parts in a sound to boost it’s overall range. It’s a useful tool for both controlling loud parts of a sound and boosting overall volume of a weaker part.

Compressors work in many ways. The most common type of compressor will feature several controls that you need to familiarize yourself with, before diving into the different feedback and circuitry models and emulations.

Threshold: This will tell the compressor where to start working. If a sound is averaging at -6db and your compressor Threshold is set to -8db, you will hear a difference every time the sound goes over the threshold. Set thesholds low for sounds that require a lot of compression (kicks) and high for subtle changes (glueing, pads).

Ratio: For every decibel over the Threshold, the Ratio will compress the sound by however many decibels its set to. A standard compression of 4:1 will compress 4 decibels of sound for every 1 decibel over the Threshold. Set this ratio high for heavy compression and low for gentle control.

Attack & Release: Compression type depends on how fast you want the compressor to both react and control your peaks and sounds. Fast attacks will slam the sound without letting initial peaks through, whereas fast releases will let the sound back through the compressor sooner. For a sound like a kick, you want the compressor to leave the initial transients untouched if your kick needs it’s attack. Adjusting a compressor’s attack on a kick will yield noticeable results; fast attacks will ‘dull’ the kick whereas slow attacks preserve the kick’s vibrancy.

Gain/Makeup: When sound is compressed the volume will lower depending on the strength of compression. Makeup or Gain will allow you to boost the Output of the compressor, Makeup normally doing this automatically. This will allow the sound to come through much louder than what it actually after compression.

Hopefully that’s all I need to cover. Now how and when do you use compression?

Compression should be used on sounds to ‘tighten’, ‘boost’ and ‘gel’. These terms refer to the nature of a compressor to reduce peak and boost dynamic. Quieter parts of a sound rich in harmonic will be increased creating a much more full sound. This can also tame unwanted high harmonics to overall make the sound more flat, therefore tight and level. If you are layering two sounds or more, chances are a lot of the harmonic content is being missed or unheard. Compression can increase these and lower others to gel the sound, or glue it together.

Compression should not be used to simply make a sound louder. If this is the case in your mix then you need to rethink your levels and possibly the sound itself! Compression can be quite destructive, especially if overdone or overpowering. Used on the wrong sources, it can dull the sound and even create distortion from boosting too much harmonic, or clip from too high a volume.

Use compression only if you believe a sound needs it!

Now onto a short but useful, and often overlooked, part of mixing, the stereo field.

Stereo sound is a wonderful thing. Being able to bounce sounds around the panorama (left, right, and centre) of perceived sound can create spacious effects in your music. But panning is often neglected in the mix, despite the fact it can really make more difference sometimes than other effects combined!

Spacing out sounds in a mix will create not only a richer, more spacious sound, but also help to separate any clashes from too many sounds sitting in the one area of the panorama. For example, pesky pads that are masking your lead can be panned out to make room for your centre sound. Kicks that are all over the place can be put into Mono (dead centre, no left or right information) to make room and width.

There is a wonderful freeware tool out on the net I whole-heartedly recommend to every producer, called Tone Projects Basslane. Formerly known as OtiumBasslaneFX, this great VST can convert all sound under a set frequency to Mono. If you have a huge bass sound that is very wide, but too wide in the bass (remember, mono for bass!) Basslane can convert the bass half of the sound to Mono while retaining the top half and its width. Dead useful for buzzy, big, powerful basslines, that still thump the hell out of your bass end!

Thanks for reading! I really do hope I’ve covered all I wanted to cover, and didn’t leave you all confused. Next part will cover more useful techniques for mixing sounds, including layering and filtering. Check it out in a few week’s time!

Mixing 101 – A Guide to Better Tracks p1

September 20, 2011 in Tutorials | 12 comments

If there’s one question directed at me that could win an award for “Most Times Asked”, it would have to be why upcoming producers’ tracks are not as clear, punchy, pleasant and pristine as mine and others. Is it their sound choice? Their technique? Their master? It can be hard when you are new to a subject, especially one as difficult as music production, when there are some clear misconceptions that are very easy to make. The all-too familiar “what’s wrong with my mastering?” occurs quite often, despite the fact that the issue is not really an issue with a master!

Before we begin, let’s have a quick recap:

WHAT IS MIXING?

Mixing is the process of getting every individual element in a track to work together in harmony before the track is rendered down for a master. Mixing can range from compression, equalization, stereo positioning, and many more techniques to ultimately make your track sound ready and label-friendly. What are you aiming to achieve with a mix is a state of perfection, a point where you can say a track is complete and ready to be released, without the final sparkle and levels that a master can provide.

Before we continue, the misconceptions:

Mixing has nothing much in relation to mastering. Mastering is a completely separate process that normally only requires a rendered copy (usually a 16-bit WAV), for adding that final commercial sheen to the finished product. Put simply, a bad mix will result in a bad master. You cannot polish a turd!

With that said, let’s get started!

MIXING BASICS

What we are aiming for in a decent mix is a harmony of sound. No sounds should be competing for space, nor should they be fighting to be the top dog in the track. With that, make sure you are mixing with decent levels. A good starting point is to start with the kick drum, and lower it so the maximum output is below -6db. As your reference point (as the kick is normally the loudest element in the mix), make sure that sounds are audible, but not dominant, when the kick is playing. As a general rule the Master fader (volume) shouldn’t be touched, especially not lowered if the mix is peaking or clipping (going Red). Considering that, no sound in the mix should be going past the 0.0db point.

When you are using synthesizers, software or hardware, make sure the output of the synth is not clipping. Clips will cause digital distortion, not often noticeable on its own but disasterous once the mixing process starts. Healthy sound output is a great beginning; remember, you can always bring it back up a little later!

EQUALIZATION

This is a topic so important on it’s own it would take several posts to completely cover, though there are some fundamentals to know that can be summarized.

Rolling off the Lows: In nearly all sounds, bass can exist in the form of sound or noise (rumble), even if it’s not noticeable. Checking hi-hats and airy leads with a spectral analyzer can show any unwanted bass frequencies in the sound that may cause trouble when mixing later on. These bass sounds can clash with your real bass, and make the mix “thick” or “muddy”. Rolling off, or cutting away bass frequencies with a high-cut or high-shelf EQ on these sounds, will make a mix much cleaner and clearer.

Making Space: If you have two similar sounds in a mix with a certain frequency area clearly dominant on both sounds, it’s a good idea to choose a sound to lead and have the other follow. By this, I mean to boost one sound and cut the other. Say you have two basses. Both are very powerful in the 90hz region. If you were to boost one of them at this point by 2db, it would be more than ideal to cut the other at the exact same area by 2db as well. What this does is creates a balance between the two sounds. This is essential for helping the kick fit with the bass as well, where you can make space for the kick’s bass end without compromising the bass synth as well.

Keep it Small: Boosting by huge amounts (more than 5db or so) can be very risky. As louder sounds are perceived as better sounds by the human ear, most boosts are pleasant sounding. However, this can be doing a lot of damage to the mix and the sound itself. High boosts in the bass can distort the sound or make it too boomy, whereas high boosts in the highs will make a sound more shrill and hissy. Boosts of about 3db are more than enough; if you are finding yourself boosting more than this, there may be a clash in the mix that must be remedied, or the sound itself is not right for the mix to start with!

That pretty much wraps this part up. Part 2 of this Guide, which will include compression and stereo positioning, will be posted in a week or so from this date.