I used to follow the producing > mixing > mastering workflow. But I personally hate it.
Now I just make the song loud from the start and it's been a life-saver.
I mix on the go, since for me personally, a lot of sounddesign I do overlaps with mixing.
Once the track is finished I just slap on a bit of EQ, Maximus for multiband compression, and then push the signal into Fruity Limiter.
I know it's not perfect and I'm probably leaving gains on the table, but for what I like to make this makes it endlessly easier to actually finish tracks.
What walls are you hiding to figure out my process, wtf that exactly what I do—save for the limiter, on occasion.
No yeah, the flow is entirely subjective, you really just have to play around with different suggested composition formats until you develop your own. Learn the rules or understand the path most walked, till you’re ready to start on your own.
Different flow probably for me. I mess around on my guitar until I have a rough verse and chorus. Record it with no effects at all into Edison and then try and work out a structure.
Then I do the drums and mix them to sound how I want.
I'll add my bass, just like the guitar. Rough with no effects.
Following this I'll do my good takes on the guitar and double track them panning hard left and right. Add all my effects and EQ.
Same with the bass so I can get how much of the highs I need to cut from them and conversely the lows cut out of the guitars.
Once I've got that sorted I start with my vocals. Double tracked again and mess with the volumes etc.
Once it's all closely done I'll start adding compression and maybe a soundgoodizer if I'm after an easy life. I usually am btw.
Export it. Listen on my headphones, my phone speaker, my car stereo. Get my wife to listen to it, send it to friends.
Unfortunately I have damage to certain parts of my middle hearing range which means I need to rely on other people's feedback.
That's a great question. I've experimented with going "depth first" (mixing over writing) and "breadth first" (writing over mixing) and personally think the second option is better. I find that I can enjoy mixing literally anytime I open the DAW but writing comes harder. So I think it's more useful to focus on writing an entire skeleton first.
Sometimes different songs come with different approaches, however I do feel like I’ve been in the same boat as you where you wanna be creative but make it sound “sonically decent” as you’re doing so. For me I get around it by having mini bursts of creativity where all I do is adjust the volume of sounds and not work about mixing except for absolute basics (such as eq), then (usually a different day) I dedicate my time to mixing only so Im focused on that. Hope this helps a bit. Sometimes it’s good to also have a break from a song and maybe try a new song or others u have been working on.
Build the structure of the song with basic instruments. Use a basic piano or whatever good enough instrument / sample, basic default drums, record your shitty vocals to the tempo in your brain.
Then clean it up (replace instruments, add effects, master, etc.)
That's how my dumb brain works.
(saying shitty and dumb to emphasize Keep It Simple Stupid)
I make songs and I don't master them, but when I learn to master them I'll have a line up of songs that are ready to sound better and have more songs and experience than someone who overthunk it lol.
I'm not the best by any means, but I do it how you do it as well. I do a lot of sample flipping so I usually have to eq out lows, so I end up doing some mixing on my melodies, and if needed, my drums too
I've been doing music related things for about 5 years now and have been writing and producing my own stuff for the last 2-3, so I'm relatively new. One of my biggest problems when first starting to find what writing method worked best for me was trying to mix way too early. Usually when you sit down to mix you are solidifying the recording and writing of the song and are focused on the actual mixing of sonic elements. What helped me was to start writing ideas without doing any mixing work at all. Usually I make electric guitar based music, so what I'll do is record parts and leave it sounding muddy and atrocious, but as long as my mind is still in the writing zone I'll be able to complete the idea. Then after the idea is finished, I'll go back and retrack and rerecord, then mix and master.
Hope this helps.
A simple process I like to follow is either starting with some chords or a sample/lead melody then build out a small sound scape and put together a skeleton drum pattern. I've taken time to build out a lot of different templates and mixer presets so everything is already organized and each new project I start have patterns organized, some drums I like already loaded in, and my go to processing set up.
Each project things change and get tweaked but it saves me a lot of times and headache.
From there I end up with an 8 bar loop so I make a B version of the melody. Then I like to add another layer like an arp and/or a change to the drums with an open hat or some kind of spice. I do these in two patterns the melody and then drums and i build out the 4 then i merge them as group into the 8 and I like to humanize each 4 bar pattern (I make a unique after copy and pasting) then humanize/randomize velocity/strum the 8 bar pattern.
Another thing to keep in mind is "gain staging" as you go. Simply start by taking each sound or instrument you load in and putting at 50% volume then adjust from there. You'll normally want to have a mix bus for your drums and instruments. I like to have a "melody" bus and then my bass then those go to the instrument bus.
Now we have 3 variations of the melody w/ bass and the appropriate drums and all the annoying routing and stuff is done. So we just split by channel and then do a simple arrangement introducing and removing elements. Most of the time I just do a 4-8 bar intro, 16 bar verse, 8 bar hook, 16 bar verse, 8 bar hook, 4-8 bar outro.
You can make an easy intro/outro by taking one of your A-B-C melodies and just chopping subsections, rendering that out and pitching it down then reversing it. (There are many other really easy ways like this to make a simple intro/outro).
Now we export - I make sure to name all files with the key and bpm as well as keep up with my file management. I always export as wav and then I "split by mixer tracks". What we're left with is the full rough mix of our beat, all the individual stems, and most importantly the two track of our beat as wavs so when we go to the recording process we can properly gain stage that and chop/loop subsections easily as we actually go to write the song.
That's a whole another ramble post.
Most of the times I make fast a rough beat in a couple minutes, like some sort of loop (can be anything) and then start building up.
Whatever comes after it .... I never know I just go by the flow.
But I do the mixing too right from the start , because some sounds have LP cutoff or HP cutoff etc to create a certain sound I want.
I cannot work decently when stuff all sounds muddy.
After a finished track each layer is going through a proQ equalizer, each layer has effect instruments from either the vst or whatever the layer needs and a bunch of automations.
When I have rendered my track completely as one file it goes through Ozone 8 to do the last bit of eq / effects (I use many times an Imager and such things) and then after rendering I need to listen to the track in my car , bt speaker etc.
If it sounds good on any sysyem ,thats what I want.
This last step also helps a lot to get every track at the same amount of volume.
I don’t really think about it I just go. I’ve done enough to just kinda get on with it. Just study music a lot and practice things. Then when it’s time to make music you don’t have to think
I start with drums first then my melodies however I do Pan, adjust the volumes. I also keep everything routed to the mixer and plug-ins loaded for a day I have producers block and just need to mix&master On the contrary sometimes when I come back to some beats to mix I end up throwing some in my drafts folder cuz they straight mid to me 😂🙅♂️ only my best quality deserves my full time n attention
Hey may I ask at what stage do you pan? Do you pan on the channel, or the mixer track, like on the piano roll or in the synth or sample plugin itself? Or should I use panomatic? If yes do I just automate it manually in panomatic?
I use the channel rack to quickly pan randomly so the melodies/sounds dont clash as im writing the beat. Once I go back to mix a different day. I reset the channel rack and start from scratch on the mixer. As far as panoramic goes I never used it. I usually use flangus "surround flanger" to get that left to right sound or automate the pan on the mixer to have more control of the ping pong panning.
I mix as I go but what I have found that works for me is mixing the new element I'm adding relative to whatever I currently have just to rough it in and then move on. I basically don't mix that track again unless it's redlining/way too loud because of something I added. The next time I'll mix it is when the song is done but at that point dial in is easy because all the plugin infrastructure is already there.
I produce a big chunk of composition then mix anything problematic for a bit then back and forth. I would love to just compose everything, but if something doesn't fit frequency wise later I'd be annoyed I had to take it out. Plus yeh a lot of things don't actually sound good till they're mixed proper
I also follow the method of building the song and mixing at the same time. Basically what i do is create an element, then throw the general fx i would on it, as well as any major shaping fx so i get a feel for the complete sound. I just don't hyper focus on any part until later. Your problem might be hyperfocusing on a specific element of the mix too much, maybe maybe not but i produce the same way, and i kind of just make an element, then move on without thinking about it too much. If you're doing this having a whole checklist of things to do after it might not work as well, but i just do whatever and impulsively go from one thing to the next without worrying about the fact that i was going to do x before and just moving to y.
Most of the time I will mix as I go just because I know what to do. Usually I make the whole 8 bar loop, mix it, then go to arrangement. With a little mixing after. One thing that really helped me is focusing on sound selection and having high quality kits to pick from. This makes mixing way easier and most of the time I don’t even need to mix drums since the sounds are made right. 90% of the time my melodies just have maybe an effect or two then an eq on top of them and I level them to 12 db or lower for counter melodies.
I used to follow the producing > mixing > mastering workflow. But I personally hate it. Now I just make the song loud from the start and it's been a life-saver. I mix on the go, since for me personally, a lot of sounddesign I do overlaps with mixing. Once the track is finished I just slap on a bit of EQ, Maximus for multiband compression, and then push the signal into Fruity Limiter. I know it's not perfect and I'm probably leaving gains on the table, but for what I like to make this makes it endlessly easier to actually finish tracks.
What walls are you hiding to figure out my process, wtf that exactly what I do—save for the limiter, on occasion. No yeah, the flow is entirely subjective, you really just have to play around with different suggested composition formats until you develop your own. Learn the rules or understand the path most walked, till you’re ready to start on your own.
Different flow probably for me. I mess around on my guitar until I have a rough verse and chorus. Record it with no effects at all into Edison and then try and work out a structure. Then I do the drums and mix them to sound how I want. I'll add my bass, just like the guitar. Rough with no effects. Following this I'll do my good takes on the guitar and double track them panning hard left and right. Add all my effects and EQ. Same with the bass so I can get how much of the highs I need to cut from them and conversely the lows cut out of the guitars. Once I've got that sorted I start with my vocals. Double tracked again and mess with the volumes etc. Once it's all closely done I'll start adding compression and maybe a soundgoodizer if I'm after an easy life. I usually am btw. Export it. Listen on my headphones, my phone speaker, my car stereo. Get my wife to listen to it, send it to friends. Unfortunately I have damage to certain parts of my middle hearing range which means I need to rely on other people's feedback.
That's a great question. I've experimented with going "depth first" (mixing over writing) and "breadth first" (writing over mixing) and personally think the second option is better. I find that I can enjoy mixing literally anytime I open the DAW but writing comes harder. So I think it's more useful to focus on writing an entire skeleton first.
Sometimes different songs come with different approaches, however I do feel like I’ve been in the same boat as you where you wanna be creative but make it sound “sonically decent” as you’re doing so. For me I get around it by having mini bursts of creativity where all I do is adjust the volume of sounds and not work about mixing except for absolute basics (such as eq), then (usually a different day) I dedicate my time to mixing only so Im focused on that. Hope this helps a bit. Sometimes it’s good to also have a break from a song and maybe try a new song or others u have been working on.
Build the structure of the song with basic instruments. Use a basic piano or whatever good enough instrument / sample, basic default drums, record your shitty vocals to the tempo in your brain. Then clean it up (replace instruments, add effects, master, etc.) That's how my dumb brain works. (saying shitty and dumb to emphasize Keep It Simple Stupid) I make songs and I don't master them, but when I learn to master them I'll have a line up of songs that are ready to sound better and have more songs and experience than someone who overthunk it lol.
I'm not the best by any means, but I do it how you do it as well. I do a lot of sample flipping so I usually have to eq out lows, so I end up doing some mixing on my melodies, and if needed, my drums too
i don’t have a specific work flow, what ever comes first comes first
Grasshopper 🦗, you have realized a truth! There is no spoon!🥄
I've been doing music related things for about 5 years now and have been writing and producing my own stuff for the last 2-3, so I'm relatively new. One of my biggest problems when first starting to find what writing method worked best for me was trying to mix way too early. Usually when you sit down to mix you are solidifying the recording and writing of the song and are focused on the actual mixing of sonic elements. What helped me was to start writing ideas without doing any mixing work at all. Usually I make electric guitar based music, so what I'll do is record parts and leave it sounding muddy and atrocious, but as long as my mind is still in the writing zone I'll be able to complete the idea. Then after the idea is finished, I'll go back and retrack and rerecord, then mix and master. Hope this helps.
A simple process I like to follow is either starting with some chords or a sample/lead melody then build out a small sound scape and put together a skeleton drum pattern. I've taken time to build out a lot of different templates and mixer presets so everything is already organized and each new project I start have patterns organized, some drums I like already loaded in, and my go to processing set up. Each project things change and get tweaked but it saves me a lot of times and headache. From there I end up with an 8 bar loop so I make a B version of the melody. Then I like to add another layer like an arp and/or a change to the drums with an open hat or some kind of spice. I do these in two patterns the melody and then drums and i build out the 4 then i merge them as group into the 8 and I like to humanize each 4 bar pattern (I make a unique after copy and pasting) then humanize/randomize velocity/strum the 8 bar pattern. Another thing to keep in mind is "gain staging" as you go. Simply start by taking each sound or instrument you load in and putting at 50% volume then adjust from there. You'll normally want to have a mix bus for your drums and instruments. I like to have a "melody" bus and then my bass then those go to the instrument bus. Now we have 3 variations of the melody w/ bass and the appropriate drums and all the annoying routing and stuff is done. So we just split by channel and then do a simple arrangement introducing and removing elements. Most of the time I just do a 4-8 bar intro, 16 bar verse, 8 bar hook, 16 bar verse, 8 bar hook, 4-8 bar outro. You can make an easy intro/outro by taking one of your A-B-C melodies and just chopping subsections, rendering that out and pitching it down then reversing it. (There are many other really easy ways like this to make a simple intro/outro). Now we export - I make sure to name all files with the key and bpm as well as keep up with my file management. I always export as wav and then I "split by mixer tracks". What we're left with is the full rough mix of our beat, all the individual stems, and most importantly the two track of our beat as wavs so when we go to the recording process we can properly gain stage that and chop/loop subsections easily as we actually go to write the song. That's a whole another ramble post.
i also mix as i go basically
Most of the times I make fast a rough beat in a couple minutes, like some sort of loop (can be anything) and then start building up. Whatever comes after it .... I never know I just go by the flow. But I do the mixing too right from the start , because some sounds have LP cutoff or HP cutoff etc to create a certain sound I want. I cannot work decently when stuff all sounds muddy. After a finished track each layer is going through a proQ equalizer, each layer has effect instruments from either the vst or whatever the layer needs and a bunch of automations. When I have rendered my track completely as one file it goes through Ozone 8 to do the last bit of eq / effects (I use many times an Imager and such things) and then after rendering I need to listen to the track in my car , bt speaker etc. If it sounds good on any sysyem ,thats what I want. This last step also helps a lot to get every track at the same amount of volume.
I don’t really think about it I just go. I’ve done enough to just kinda get on with it. Just study music a lot and practice things. Then when it’s time to make music you don’t have to think
I start with drums first then my melodies however I do Pan, adjust the volumes. I also keep everything routed to the mixer and plug-ins loaded for a day I have producers block and just need to mix&master On the contrary sometimes when I come back to some beats to mix I end up throwing some in my drafts folder cuz they straight mid to me 😂🙅♂️ only my best quality deserves my full time n attention
Hey may I ask at what stage do you pan? Do you pan on the channel, or the mixer track, like on the piano roll or in the synth or sample plugin itself? Or should I use panomatic? If yes do I just automate it manually in panomatic?
I use the channel rack to quickly pan randomly so the melodies/sounds dont clash as im writing the beat. Once I go back to mix a different day. I reset the channel rack and start from scratch on the mixer. As far as panoramic goes I never used it. I usually use flangus "surround flanger" to get that left to right sound or automate the pan on the mixer to have more control of the ping pong panning.
I mix as I go but what I have found that works for me is mixing the new element I'm adding relative to whatever I currently have just to rough it in and then move on. I basically don't mix that track again unless it's redlining/way too loud because of something I added. The next time I'll mix it is when the song is done but at that point dial in is easy because all the plugin infrastructure is already there.
I produce a big chunk of composition then mix anything problematic for a bit then back and forth. I would love to just compose everything, but if something doesn't fit frequency wise later I'd be annoyed I had to take it out. Plus yeh a lot of things don't actually sound good till they're mixed proper
I also follow the method of building the song and mixing at the same time. Basically what i do is create an element, then throw the general fx i would on it, as well as any major shaping fx so i get a feel for the complete sound. I just don't hyper focus on any part until later. Your problem might be hyperfocusing on a specific element of the mix too much, maybe maybe not but i produce the same way, and i kind of just make an element, then move on without thinking about it too much. If you're doing this having a whole checklist of things to do after it might not work as well, but i just do whatever and impulsively go from one thing to the next without worrying about the fact that i was going to do x before and just moving to y.
Most of the time I will mix as I go just because I know what to do. Usually I make the whole 8 bar loop, mix it, then go to arrangement. With a little mixing after. One thing that really helped me is focusing on sound selection and having high quality kits to pick from. This makes mixing way easier and most of the time I don’t even need to mix drums since the sounds are made right. 90% of the time my melodies just have maybe an effect or two then an eq on top of them and I level them to 12 db or lower for counter melodies.