14 December 2021
Newsdesk
Mixing and mastering are one of the main stages in creating music. In order to get a high-quality sound composition at the final stage, music engineers do a lot of work, from information to translating the project into the final result. However, every music engineer has his own tips and life hacks for creating a future hit.
The first piece of advice that can be given to a novice music engineer is an understanding of what a person is doing. You can't do online mixing and mastering just by connecting music tracks or arranging effects as he wants. A professional in his field, even when he hears the initial version, already understands approximately how the track should sound and what the final version should be. Just don't think that mixing will do everything for you. If your recording was originally made poorly, then the end result will be bad, so before you start mixing, you need to make sure that it sounds exactly as you intended.
An important piece of advice for a novice master will be the ability to work with volume balance. The perception and the sensations received from listening to a track can change dramatically depending on the lack or, conversely, an overabundance of certain frequencies. Tonal balance is an important tool with which we can regulate the listener's perception of the mix. It may depend on the selection of instruments, sounds at the stage of arrangement. The track should be well balanced, but not sound boring and monotonous. A very useful moment when balancing the mix is to use the ON/OFF button on each little responsible instrument on its mixer track, turning it on and off in the mix. This is done in order to test its suitability throughout the mix. If there are no changes when such elements are turned off, then they should be removed from the mix, since an element that does not give a result in sound only makes it worse and eats up activity on the frequency spectrum. It should be understood that different genres require different methods of information and before you start to reduce, it is advisable to read / listen to how others reduce, otherwise there is a risk of getting the final version, which will disappoint you.
The third tip to pay attention to is the use of treatments, or rather to reduce their use to a minimum: Standard compressor, equalizer, reverb, delay. Initially, it may seem that this is a very meager set, but for online mixing and mastering these devices will be enough to make a high-quality track worthy of all popular awards in the field of music. Of the effects, it is worth adding only those that emphasize or change the sound of the instrument, such as flanger, chorus, and all kinds of distortions. A popular problem of novice engineers is that they begin to use extremely much processing when conservatism, accuracy and quality are valued in this work.
The next piece of advice for fresh masters will be to master two programs perfectly: a compressor and an equalizer. Why these programs? The answer is simple: Almost everything depends on them. Professional music engineers who are related to online mixing and mastering, like no one else, are well versed in attack, recovery, compression value and trigger threshold, in which the compressor helps the engineer. The equalizer regulates the sound, namely, it helps with the addition or absence of bass, makes the sound zone in the track quieter or louder. This program does not welcome an incalculable number of bands, it is also quite conservative.
An important piece of advice that you should definitely listen to is working at a low volume. Aspiring music engineers often tune the speakers to the maximum volume, which can negatively affect their entire work. Hearing impairment, loss of perception. A professional music engineer engaged in online mixing and mastering will never work on speakers with maximum volume. The optimal speaker volume should not exceed 70 dB SPL (i.e. Sound Pressure Level). Simply put, it is the volume of people's conversation.
A small, but nevertheless useful life hack, which is used by professional music engineers, is listening to the finished track on all devices. Mobile phones, computers, cars, portable speakers. This is necessary in order to understand how the finished version will sound on a particular device.
The last thing that is also worth noting is the order and accuracy in the sound engineering program. All empty spaces must be cut out, the tracks must be signed and highlighted with certain colors. Such neatness is self-discipline for a music engineer working in online mixing and mastering. Also to this advice, it is worth mentioning reverberation and delay. They are best used as send/aux channels, as this allows you to significantly save CPU and computer resources, and speeds up the work of the engineer.
Of course, specially trained people, professionals in their field, sound engineers are engaged in online mixing and mastering, however, it will be useful for every person who is engaged in music to learn tips on programs for mixes, their specifics and features that help make their track pleasant to listen to.
