#175: What's the Secret to Mixing Without Muddiness? Achieving Clarity and Dynamics in a Mix

Episode Transcript
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John B (00:00):
Hi, mark, I was just looking at your video about
mastering vocal compression 164.
Really good stuff.
I really enjoyed that and it'sreally nice to hear a sample
where I can actually hear thecompression being applied.
Normally when people aretalking about compressors it's
so subtle the compression that Ican never really quite hear it,

(00:21):
but this time I could actuallyhear the reduction and leveling
in volume as you were applyingit.
So great work on that piece.
Um, I actually used Logic Promyself and I was just looking
that um, the equivalent to the1176 Rev-E anyway, in um, logic
Pro would be the Studio FETcompressor.

(00:42):
That's a stock compressorplug-in in Logic and the Vintage
Opto is the LA-2A.
So I might try some of thiswith the stock plug-ins rather
than going out buying plug-insto try this.
I've got so many plug-ins atthis point that I get confused
between them all.

Marc Matthews (01:03):
So again, thanks very much and um and good luck
cheers and gain staging is aword that I find is thrown
around a lot online a lot, andsometimes it's misrepresented.
Now I mean my understanding.
The way I see gain staging isis having the, the audio, at the
optimum level going into theplug-in.

(01:24):
If it's a plug-in or whateverit is in your chain, it's at the
optimum level going into it andalso coming out of it into the
next sort of step in the chain.

Philipp K (01:35):
You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with
your host, Mark Matthews.

Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast.
I'm Mark Matthews, your host,musician, producer and mix and
mastering engineer.
You've come to the Inside theMix podcast.
I'm Mark Matthews, your host,musician, producer and mix and
mastering engineer.
You've come to the right placeif you want to know more about
your favourite synth musicartists, music engineering and
production, songwriting and themusic industry.
I've been writing, producing,mixing and mastering music for
over 15 years and I want toshare what I've learnt with you.

(02:01):
Hello, folks, and welcome tothe Inside the Mix podcast and
welcome back to the returninglisteners as well.
This episode is a relativelyfestive episode.
So we're past Christmas now.
Well, we're not at the point ofrecording this, but when this
goes live we will be.
So this is going to drop on the31st of January and we're going
to be celebrating the wins thelistener wins of 2024.

(02:24):
When I say we because I'm notalone on this one, I've got my
co-host here I'm going to sayco-host.
We didn't agree this off air,but that's what I'm going to say
now.
Aisle 9, welcome buddy.
How are we?

Aisle9 (02:35):
I'm good thanks.
Thanks for having us.

No, my pleasure, my pleasure.
You've been on the podcastbefore, but I think it's
probably been well over a year,if not more.

Aisle9 (02:44):
Yeah, yeah, I haven't been on for a while.
Yeah, time does fly.
How do you cope without me?
Well, this is it.

I struggled to the end clawing my way to the
end of the year.
And then, yeah, here we are now.
So in this episode, folks, I'vegot I think it's about eight
audio clips submitted by youguys, the listeners, detailing
your musical wins of 2024, and aquestion for us as well that

(03:12):
we're going to answer in thisepisode.
So I'm going to preface thiswith a big thank you to
everybody who submitted audiofor this and, of course, you
give yourself a shout out aswell.
So, without further ado, let'sdive into the first one.
I hope this is going to work.
We did try it off air and itworked fine.
So this is submitted by Philipfrom the outfit Year of the Fall

(03:35):
.
So here we go.

Philipp K (03:37):
Hi, this is Philip from Year of the Fall.
My biggest music win of 2024was definitely recording our new
single Disappearing Time withmy bandmate Dan in the same room
.
Since we live 5,000 miles apart, we usually record remotely,
but meeting in California toproduce it made a huge creative
difference for us.
So here's my question to Markwhat's your top tip for creating

(04:00):
depth and space in a mixwithout making it muddy?

So depth and space in a mix without making it
muddy.
So depth and space in a mixwithout making it muddy.
Now I'm going to immediatelyjump on the bandwagon if I
always jump on with this, andthe first thing is is going to
be with regards to time-basedprocessing and buses and busing
it out, and I've bleated onabout this, on the podcast
before, and I think tim and Iregularly meet up for a coffee
and a beer.
We talk about this on thepodcast before, and I think tim

(04:24):
and I regularly meet up for acoffee and a beer.
We talk about this and it's theidea that you have buses for
your reverbs and your time-basedprocessing, your delays and
whatnot, and then you're busingto that from your tracks rather
than having individual reverbsfor each track itself.
I think that's a big one,because that if you're doing the
opposite, if you are havingreverbs and delays on each track

(04:47):
which there's no rule againstit, but the more you do that,
the more you build that up, themuddier and the denser it's
going to get with thatsoundscape as well.
So there's that, and I wouldalso add to that as well.
It's your choice of reverbs aswell.
What do you want to achieve withthe reverb?
Do you want the reverb to addpresence, let's say, to a vocal,

(05:09):
or do you want it just to blendit in?
So you can think about yourchoice.
Do you want to go with a plate?
Do you want to go with a hall,a spring reverb, depending on
what you want to do?
So that would be my big tip,there would be buses.
I'm a big fan, big fan of usingbuses, and I think that
probably comes from usingconsoles in the past, where
you're limited, aren't you?
And then I've sort of movedthat and transitioned that over

(05:30):
into the, the digital realm, soI'll fire it over to you now,
tim.
What are your thoughts?

Aisle9 (05:35):
yeah, I, I would, I would second that, in fact I'd,
I'd put down one of my thingswas like the top tip is like,
make sure that your reverbs anddelay returns from your buses
aren't too blooming, they arenot too full of bass and, you
know, muddy in themselves.
So you can.
You can often find, like whenyou've got quite a lot of reverb

(05:56):
going on, that you can maybesort of eq the returns from your
reverbs and take out some ofthe the mud or low end that you
don't really need in the returns.
So, um, that can help.
But like, actually mine was ingeneral an eq tip which was,
when you're eqing, bear in mindthat the low mids are often an

(06:17):
area where mud ends up and itsort of builds across your track
.
So you're going to have low midin your bass, low mid in your
keys parts, any sense um, guitarparts notorious for lots of low
end, uh mid, sort of low mid,150 to 300 kind of hertz, that
kind of region often.

(06:38):
Um, but uh, and you're going tohave it in your vocal, you're
going to have it in a kick drum,you're going to have it in a
snare, and it doesn't mean itneeds to come out of everything,
because it might really reallynice in your snare drums have a
lot of like low mid, but then ifyou've got a really sort of
dense low mid in your snare drum, you might need to cut it a bit
more out of your guitar or youryour keys part.

(07:00):
So yeah, so it's basically tosort of like eq, but a lot of
the time it's just a little bitof subtractive eq.
That kind of will will varyacross each individual
instrument, but will often thatlow mid part is is where mud
builds up and you know bass aswell.
Sometimes you don't need a lotof bass on some things you don't

(07:24):
need that bass end, but so youneed to sort of filter that out
a little bit.
But yeah, mine was mainly an eqthing and then perhaps like
working with the returns as wellof your, your reverbs and your
delays.
But yeah, I'm all for the buspass as well.
The bus is a good idea.
It's a bus pass.
I'm sure there's like a meme inthere somewhere isn't it right.

A t-shirt.
I might as well get somet-shirts made up for the podcast
with the constant sort ofthings that are mentioned on the
podcast, with the guys like buspasses and stuff That'd be
quite interesting, but no, eq isvery, very, very important.

(08:05):
It's active synthesis on on areverb, when you're sculpting
sounds.
It's, uh, really, reallyimportant stuff and often
overlooked.
Um, yeah, don't.
I think that generally, I thinkthe general gist is just just
don't hammer every track with adifferent form of time-based
processing, I suppose like froma creative perspective.
If it sounds all right, then Iguess it is, but I think in
general, as a rule of thumb, Ithink that's the way I work out
of interest.

(08:25):
Well, like numbers wise, I wasworking on a project earlier and
generally I sort of have sortof like some ambient space
reverbs, maybe a larger reverb,some plate reverbs, but I find
myself fluctuating between sortof like three to seven reverb
sends depending on what I'mdoing, and often, oftentimes, I
don't end up using all seven.
But they're there.
Um, yeah, what's your sort ofviewpoint on that?

(08:48):
Have you got a number?
That's usually yeah, I mean Isort of reverb wise.

Aisle9 (08:53):
I often wouldn't have more than maybe about four and
uh, like I actually find someonegave me this tip like a long
time ago that delay.
You can often use delay a lotmore in tracks without getting
such a sort of, you know, sortof smearing, the kind of uh sort
of stereo and getting too dense, a sort of reverberation too

(09:16):
long.
Obviously you were saying aboutlengths of reverbs as well, but
like, um, so I tend to usedelay quite a bit, like you know
, maybe a little slap back onsomething very small, maybe on a
vocal or something, to justgive it a bit of sort of I don't
know a bit of body, a bit ofwidth to it, perhaps like, and
then use a long, longer reverbs,a longer delays, rather, um.

(09:40):
So you know, but again, you,maybe you don't want huge
amounts of feedback on them andthat sort of stuff, you don't
want them to get in the way toomuch, you don't even notice them
that much, but um, but they canreally help create a sense of
space on things withouthopefully overtaking your mix
and muddying it.
So, yeah, but, but I use sortof maybe two or three delays and

(10:04):
then sort of four reverbs,maybe something like that.
So yeah, it's probably aboutthe same, about seven, and again
, I don't use them all always,but you know, yeah, I wouldn't
have more than that very often.

Yeah, exactly the same, and I think what you said
there about delays is important.
The project that I was workingon earlier and I was finding
that the reverb I was busting itout of reverbs and I was like,
oh, it's just sounding a bit too.
Um, it wasn't sounding muddy,but it wasn't quite where I
wanted and I just stripped backthe reverb and I just used delay
.
In the end I just had a delaythe quarter note on the left and
the and an eighth note on theright and just increased that a

(10:40):
little bit and it achievedexactly what I wanted and it got
rid of that sort of I don'twant to say it was muddy, but it
just got rid of that build-upand I think it really did help.
So I may I don't know if thereis a misconception that you have
to stick reverb, then you haveto have reverb.
I think there are othertime-based processing that you
can use.

Aisle9 (10:57):
Uh but yeah, you, yeah, yeah you and I mean sometimes as
well like short, really shortreverbs, like ambience and stuff
, can be really really useful onsome things.
Sometimes, like a guitar partdoesn't really need much reverb
on it at all, it's a rhythm partand it's going to sound quite
smeary with a big reverb on it.

(11:17):
But like, just a really shortambience can give it a bit of
life and in the mix just a smallamount of that is all it needs,
or it needs, or it needs a veryshort delay on it or something.
But like, yeah, it's funny.
Um, yeah, definitely sort ofthat kind of oh, I'm gonna stick
massive hall reverb oneverything is is a bit of a
recipe for disaster.
But but then if you leaveenough space so that maybe an

(11:42):
element like your main vocal,maybe you do want quite a big
reverb on it, but if you haveleft space and not put that on
too many other elements, thenyou can maybe make a feature of
that and it works.
You know, but yeah, but if it'son everything, it becomes a
problem yes, indeed, uh, I, Ithink we're with these.

You could do a whole episode on this.
I think you could go down arabbit hole of genres of music
where reverb is used quiteextensively and a lot.

Aisle9 (12:11):
Well, yeah, yeah, I mean , it does vary, doesn't it?
Genre to genre.
How much is the right thing?

Yeah, yeah, most definitely.

Aisle9 (12:21):
Some genres just seem to be about reverb entirely.
Nothing else.
Yeah, that's what I wasalluding to yeah, we won't go
down there.

Yeah yeah, indeed , indeed, we'll move on to the
next question.
Thank you, philip.
So this is from Bending Grid,whose album is an absolute
belter of an album.

Aisle9 (12:42):
Yeah, it's great, isn't it I?

love the tunes he's put out this year Fantastic
work, ethic, an all-round nicebloke.
So here we go.

Jessie K (12:51):
Hey, this is Bending Grid, and my win for 2024 is
Hyper Sleep with Taya Flow.
So let me know what you'allthink about this track.
I also do have a question formr aisle nine and mark matthews

(13:11):
what were your wins of 2024?

indeed, yes, uh, it's a again.
It's a fantastic album,audience listeners, so just
obviously just plug it intospotify and you'll find finding
grid.
So I write this down um, I,musically, I only released one
song this year and I wouldn'tnecessarily say it's my win.
I kind of just wanted torelease something so I put it
out there.
But I think for me my win wouldprobably be the podcast and

(13:36):
that was achieving.
My goal for the year was toachieve 400 downloads of a new
episode within seven days and atthe tail end of november,
beginning of december, I hitthat.
I've been sat around 375 to 390and then we hit it at the end
of, at the end of the year.
So that would be my win, wouldbe hitting that goal, and then
into next year I'm looking tofurther improve that.

(13:59):
I suppose another one as wellwould be.
I dropped a free logic promixing course as well, so I did
that earlier in the year, firstone I've ever done, and, um, it
was well received.
So technically, two wins, butit was mainly mainly the 400
downloads.
I would say um, that I hit thisyear for the podcast.
So thank you the listener andeveryone who's been part of the
podcast.
Um yeah, it was a quite a feat.

Aisle9 (14:20):
Um so, yeah, really, really happy with that one, so
I'll throw it over to you now,tim well, first of all I wanted
to say to Bending Grid I thoughtHyper Sleep, which he mentioned
, his win, was excellent and Ithink I love those hooky, clean,
funky guitars that turn up init and there's a great energy in
the whole track from hisprogramming and, like you know,

(14:42):
synths and the vocals from Tao'swere brilliant.
So, yeah, really, really wholetrack from his programming and,
like you know, synths and andthe vocals from taylor's
brilliant yeah, yeah so, yeah,really really top track and a
top album, yeah, um, from a topguy.
There we go um, yeah, um, butlike, um, sort of yeah, I think
my win of 2024 was probably acouple of them.
But like, uh, I think acrosstime that I did without runner,

(15:05):
um really sort of wentextraordinarily well, much
better than I could have sort ofhoped for.
That sort of really took offand a lot of people really loved
it.
I think so sort of wrote thattrack together and, um, you know
, uh, sort of split theproducing on it a little bit,
but like, yeah, it works outreally well and just sort of

(15:27):
yeah, just got a phenomenalresponse from sort of going into
loads of playlists and you know, and I think it's done over 50
000 streams now already, likesort of heading to 60 000
streams, and you know, it onlycame out in the you know sort of
middle of this year.
So I, I felt like it did reallywell, really quickly, and I
think I sort of followed that upactually with a track of my own

(15:49):
, which you know did really well.
So, yeah, I just sort of think,yeah, it's sort of I got over
10,000 monthly listeners, nice.
And then I sort of got, I thinkI went over 15 briefly and and
I'm right back down to six now,but, like you know, but it was

(16:09):
that felt like an achievement inthe sense of the music's more
important to me.
But I think that feeling oflike you know, um, getting over
that, that that point I had notgot that many monthly listeners
and got into that many sort ofplaylists with a tune I've
released before.
So I mean it was nice because,um, I sort of uh, you know,

(16:33):
managed to do it both with thetrack with outrunner and
obviously he had a lot ofsupport, and then I did it with
my follow-up track.
So I felt like, you know, I'dsort of um future horizon did
really well.
So I sort of felt that it wasnot just outrunner, who's a
brilliant artist, and becausehis support was enormous and
doing a track together.
Obviously you know you get alot more from good

(16:57):
collaborations.
You've got both artists and allthe rest of it, but I managed to
do it myself as well, whichmade me feel like, oh, oh good,
you know, it's possible to do onmy own on my own releases.
So, yeah, it was just reallynice to go above that that mark
and to get into so many umplaylists and, um, yeah, not to
get rejected by the whole ofsubmit hub it was good, yeah,

(17:19):
yeah, well done mate, congratsyeah, it's nice it's a nice one
to achieve and like you said Ithink collabs definitely help.

Oh, they do yeah.
Your music's quality as well.
Hot Cup of Sun.
I know I bang on about this allthe time.
It's been out for a while now.
I probably listen to it atleast once a day going round.
It's such a good song I listento it all the time.

Aisle9 (17:40):
Yeah, it was one that sort of slid under the radar
actually.
I don't know why, I think Ireleased it and it didn't no,
but yeah, it came out well,Thank you yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but no, it's been a goodyear.

really like that, nice, nice and a long way of
continuing to next year.
Submit Hub's an interesting one, isn't it?
I mean, I mean, you got to takeit like thick skin, I guess.
If you get rejected, you getrejected.

(18:10):
It is well it is.
But um, I'm finding um.
Now even more so because I dolike look for playlists,
depending on the genre of musicthat I'm, that I'm releasing,
and then invariably I'll say, oh, how can I submit a tune?
And they'll be like I'll findme on submit hub.
So I'm finding tune.
And they'll be like, oh, findme on SubmitHub.
So I find myself having to gothere more and more now, rather
than doing the old school bootson the ground just finding
contact details.

(18:31):
So no, submithub's aninteresting one Again, probably
a topic for a whole podcast.

Aisle9 (18:39):
Yeah, I've had good response overall, but yes, I
know it can be tricky.
You can just make a tune thatdoesn't neatly fall into.
It could be a good tune, but itdoesn't neatly fall into any of
the playlists that are reallythere and you can find it hard
then.
But, um, yeah, you've got tokind of, you've got to be

(18:59):
reasonably thick-skinned, Ithink, yeah as well, you know
yeah you're not always going toget agreement on these things.

No, and it's also I think it was anything like
that, isn't it?
You could just submit it tosomeone and they're in a rush or
they're having a bad day andultimately that's going to
impact their decision on whetheror not.
I mean, I'll hold my hands inthe air when I get um
submissions through via emailfor the for the um, the, the
playlist for the podcast and um.
Often, often than not, I willaccept, but there are occasions

(19:26):
if I'm in a rush, if it doesn'timmediately strike, then you
know.
So it does happen.
But, yeah, it's an interestingone, but thank you, bending Grid
, thank you very much, so let'smove on to the next one.
So this is FastEddy856.

FastEddy856 (19:44):
What's good everybody.
This is Andy.
Producer is FastEddy856.
What's good everybody.
This is indie producerFastEddy856 from the States,
jersey to be exact, and my winfor the year was being on Inside
the Mix podcast speaking withMark on how I made 100 mixes,
but now I'm down about three andthen I'm confident.

(20:04):
So I appreciate you, mark, forhaving me on the podcast, for
giving me some information.
I think, since the podcast,I've released, I believe, seven
singles since then.
So I'm very confident after ourtalk.
And my question for you, mark,is what's your musical goal for
2025?
Once again, this is Fast Eddie856, any producer, videographer

(20:29):
from Jersey.
You can follow me everywhereunder Fast Eddie 856.
Have a good new year, peace.

Lovely.
Thank you Fast, eddie.
I think this is quite a niceone.
It kind of segues on from ourprevious conversation and that
is to hit 10,000 monthlylisteners on spotify, and to do
that I'm aiming.
I did set myself the task of arelease every month, but I'm
going to be realistic and that'sprobably not going to happen
because I've got a few otherthings happening this year.
So every one release every twomonths I'm aiming for, and then

(21:00):
I'm going to push it, uh, whenit's released and whatnot, and
then the aim is by the end ofthe year to hopefully at some
point hit 10,000 monthlylisteners, so that on Spotify
that is my aim for this year.
What about yourself, tim?

Aisle9 (21:13):
I think that's a good aim.
I'm sure you will make it aswell.
Yeah, I'm aiming to do a single.
You know, do a release a singleor an EP a month, and I
desperately want to put an albumout.
I've kind of I meant to do onelast year, sort of build up to

(21:37):
it and do one, and I've got, youknow, enough kind of material
hanging around easily to do it.
But I have the time to all putit all together is not
materialized yet, but I want to.
Yeah, I ended up looking.
I had a really good year lastyear and you know, yet when I
look back at it, the amount ofmusic I released was way less
than I thought it was I had.

(21:59):
So I didn't hit that, you know,single every month thing.
So I really like to do that.
So, yeah, I mean equally, I'dlike to.
You know, as I had the goodfortune of hitting 10,000
monthly listeners, I'd like tohit 20.
You know.
I'd like to go further sort ofthing.
But you know, to be honest, justbe good to put out more music,

(22:19):
I think, more consistently.

I think that would be key to it.
Yeah, yeah, most definitely.
It's something I really missedthis year and that's why I kind
of wanted to get on and releasesomething at the end of this
year, because I've been doingother bits and pieces this year,
keeping myself busy, but I'dreally missed actually just
releasing my own stuff, and Ithink that's going to be a focus
of mine next year is to getback to, uh, releasing my own
music and obviously doing otherother stuff as well, but I think

(22:42):
that's going to be a and justbeing creative for my own
personal gratification and thenreleasing music.
You know, and I'd love to do.
I might start trying to do onea month and see how I go, but it
probably will end up being two.

Neon Highway (22:55):
But no, I'm sure I'd love to hear an album of
yours.

I think that'd be amazing an album.
How many tracks?
Do you think would you shootfor?

Aisle9 (23:03):
yeah, probably 10 tracks .
I think, yeah, probably 10 to12 is reasonable, isn't it?

yeah, yeah, I think so yeah, I think I've got.

Aisle9 (23:13):
I've got that if you look at all the singles I've
released.
But I don't just want to putout all my old singles and call
it an album.
I want to put out new material.
That's obviously not been onthem, but I would feature some
of them because I thinksometimes as well it's part of
the Spotify sort of algorithmwhere things get lost.
I think you, you sort of put outsomething like I noticed that

(23:35):
Miami Nights, the first track Iever put out, which, um, you
know, now it's sort of lostsomewhere in my Spotify, it's
not on my sort of top five orwhatever, and you know.
And then you just find, like,tracks that you put out quite a
while ago do get lost.
So, and I think also, it'squite nice to maybe revisit um

(23:56):
sort of those some tracks thatyou've done and go like I think
I could have done that better,or I could have changed
something or done a differentmix, or, or I would have liked
to do an album version of it, alonger version of it, or yeah,
so it might be good, but I wouldhave liked to do an album
version of it, a longer versionof it.
Yeah, so it might be good, butI do want it to hang together as
a whole piece.
Really.
That's the key, isn't?

it.

Aisle9 (24:15):
That's the key, isn't it ?
And that takes.
You know I'm not quite enough.
I don't think it's going to beWish you Were here, but you know
I'm hoping.
Or Dark Side of the Moon, butI'm hoping for something that's
got some sort of quality to it,you know.

Yeah, I think that's the trickiest part,
having done the EP and I'vereleased albums when I was in
the band and stuff and justgetting a collection of songs
together that work cohesivelyand thread together properly is
quite a feat, because it can bequite easy just to have eight,
nine, ten songs that you justslap into an album, that and
then they're just, they'reeffectively 10 singles, you know

(24:49):
, and there's there's nocohesion there.
So getting them to yeah, tohave a cohesive set and
complement one another and thatflowing theme is, is quite a
quite a feat to achieve.
Uh, but I'm sure you'll do it,mate.

Aisle9 (25:01):
I look forward to seeing how it progresses I'm always
amazed by the number of artistssmall independent artists who do
put out some really good.
It's like that bending gridthing we mentioned, like people
who put them all together, andthe amount of work that's
involved in them, and they do iton top of their day job and
everything else and they getthese albums together as well as
singles, and I just think it'sincredible the amount of

(25:24):
creativity and hard work thatgoes into them.

Most definitely, yeah, most.
It's incredible the amount ofcreativity and hard work that
goes into them.
Most definitely, we'reapproaching the halfway point
with wins, so I'm going to playone from our good friend Neon
Highway.
He doesn't have a question, buthe's going to celebrate a win
with us.
So here we go, all the way fromthe Scottish Highlands.

Neon Highway (25:44):
Hi, this is Neon Highway.
My music win of 2024 wascreating my first proper
collaboration.
I worked with a tremendouslytalented post-punk artist based
in Spain.
Her name is Lux Mala, aphenomenal singer, an all-round
multi-instrumentalist.
What happened was I gave her abacking track, she quickly added
the lyrics, the melody, theviolin and the vocal performance

(26:06):
, and it's been a reallysuccessful track for us both.

It was great to see our friend Neil on Highway
releasing tunes again this year.
He's been quite prolific,releasing some good stuff and
also taking the leap with vocalmixing as well and vocal
production.
So, yeah, great work, carl.

Aisle9 (26:22):
It's a great track.
I loved it.

Really really good.
So long may that continue into2025.
Let's get some more collabs onthe go buddy and avid supporter
of the podcast as well.
So yeah, he's been there since,I want to say, the beginning.
So yeah, and he was on thepodcast a few times last year as
well.
So big shout out to neonhighway there, good friend of

(26:52):
ours.
Uh, so the next one let's gowith.
Let's pick this one here.
Here we go.
This is going to be aninteresting one hi, this is dan
from electric trains.

Dan B (26:59):
my win of 2024 was actually finishing an album and
the first single got on bbcintroducing.
So loads of thanks for theinspiration, tips and tricks
that I get from your podcast.
Check out the music if you canat Electric Trains Question what
final level DB are youmastering to?
Thanks so much.

(27:20):
Have a great Christmas From Danfrom Electric Trains.
Bye.

So that was Dan from Electric Trains.
I should have introduced thatbefore I played the clip.
So that's my bad Slap on thewrist there.
But that's an interestingquestion.
Db for Mastery?
My first response to that wouldbe I don't really aim for a DB
in Mastery.
Don't really aim for anything,to be honest.
It's kind of what suits themusic, what complements the
music best and gets it to theoptimum level that it needs to

(27:48):
be to portray that creativevision of what you want it to
sound like.
But generally I find, onaverage and we were discussing
this just before we came on outto record this you're looking at
LUFS, loudon's Units, fullScale, and you may have seen
that banded around quite a lot.
You see it on the internet alot, particularly if you dive
into the, the forums and thethreads of things like spotify

(28:09):
and they'll say they have thesetargets and whatnot which I
implore you, just I wouldn'tnecessarily pay any attention to
, um, that sweeping statementnow and probably someone's going
to comment on this on youtubeand say xyz, but generally I
don't.
Uh, but I mean luffs wise.
Again, I don't really shoot fora target, but if I had to I
would say it's usually betweensort of, and this is for, like,

(28:31):
synth music.
So this is kind of, yeah, thatsynth pop, synth wave music
minus nine to minus eight luffs,depending on the track itself.
If I'm working on somethingthat's more sort of EDM-based, I
can find that number movingdown to maybe sort of like minus
seven, maybe a bit further.
Again, it's got to complimentthe music and, depending on what

(28:53):
it is you're producing becauseyou might end up actually mixing
an acoustic track, in whichcase you don't want it to be
that hot You've got to dowhatever compliments the music
best.
But yeah, that's that's mythought process on it.
That's that's my thoughtprocess on it.
So for again.

Aisle9 (29:10):
We were discussing this just before we recorded today
over to yourself, tim.
Yeah, I mean, I tend to.
I tend to sort of aim aroundthat minus eight, minus 8.5 um
level, but again, dependent ongenre.
Really that isn't right forevery genre and it is very
dependent on the mix of the song.
Because if, if your, if yourmix won't really, if, if, when

(29:34):
I'm working with it, masteringwise in order to push it up that
loud, I'm actually crushing thesong and ruining, you know, its
internal dynamics and itsstructure and it just does not
feel and sound enjoyable and apleasant listen at that kind of
level.
It may be that it needs to bemore dynamic and stay at a lower

(29:57):
, you know, volume level.
So it is all about the mixingand the song.
I have to say I think the mixingis an important thing.
As to how loud you can, inmastering, push something.
If the mix is really good andreally tightly worked out, you
will find you can probably takeit further in the mastering

(30:19):
stage level wise without ruiningand in fact hopefully enhancing
what is there.
But if the mix isn't, you knowsome mixes just won't take that.
They just won't and I think youend up knowing that, as a
mastering guy, you just go like,if I push this past a point, it

(30:41):
just doesn't take it, itdoesn't sound nice, it's losing
something and it's actuallygoing to sound better at minus
10, minus 9, something.
So you've only got two thingsyou can do at that point, which
is either go back to your, yourmixing and, sort of, you know,
go for better mixes, or you mayfind that, you know, leaving it
the dynamics a bit bit wider.
Um, you know, is is is betterfor your, your particular album

(31:05):
or whatever.
So I think I definitely saythat to artists when they're
doing their own mastering is,you know, uh, don't, don't crush
it to the point where you know,just bear in mind, is this
making this sound better, or youknow, or are you actually
ruining your initial creativevision?
So don't be, don't ruin thetrack in the mastering yeah,

(31:27):
definitely, definitely becauseof level.

Yeah, yeah, most definitely, and I think, um, a
lot of it, like you say, therecomes into the preparation, uh,
for the, the mix itself, the.
I mean there's again it's kindof sweeping statements you hear
this a lot like, don't you?
And it is true, you don't wantto fix it in the master.
Whatever you can do in the mixto make your life easier in
mastering, do it, andparticularly as well for the

(31:50):
mastering engineers as well.
I know I've, um, I've had mixessent to me and you stick it into
something like rx audio andimmediately you go in there you
can see the peak levels arecrazy and you can see these just
random peaks throughout the mixbecause they've got these wild
fluctuations in in dynamics andvolume for particular phrases.
It might be a vocal thatsuddenly shoots up or a snare or

(32:12):
a kick that just comes out ofnowhere, and the more you can
tame that and control that inyour mix, that's just going to
give you better loudnesspotential.
Yeah, the further down the line, without someone has to go in
with a clipper and just shavethe shit off of all that, yeah,
and then you get this horribledistortion because you want to
try and push it as far as youcan go, yeah yeah, if it's

(32:33):
already really stronglycontrolled.

Aisle9 (32:37):
Yeah, it's surprising how loud you can get it I mean
I've had I've had to watch itsometimes where I've gone like
god, I'm like hitting sort ofminus six and it sort of doesn't
audibly sound, distorted really.
But I generally don't aim forthat kind of level myself.
I don't really think there'sany need to.
But there are some music genreswhere that extreme loudness is

(32:59):
called for.
But I don't think it reallyhelps most music to be that loud
.

No, that reminds me of a conversation I had with
someone on the podcast and itwas another mastering engineer
last year and they were tellingme how a label uh, it was an edm
or dance label contacted themand said they wanted something
around minus two.
Uh, I know I was like that'smadness, absolute like yeah, I
don't know why you'd want itlike that, because that's crazy.

(33:25):
I mean, when you put it into astreaming platform, it's going
to get normalized anyway.
But it's just going to be onesolid block brick of audio, uh,
but I guess the label.
We're kind of like that's whatwe want, but, um, I think if
that were to happen, I'dprobably say, well, just don't
put my name to it.
Um, just say you, you masteredit in-house, rather than saying

(33:47):
I did it but no, I think a keytip for this is to get the mix
to the standard or the placewhere it's going to be most
conducive for the masteringprocess to take place.
So get it nice and controlled.
It's that control throughoutthe mixing process and, more
often than not, masteringengineers, if you send it to
them for feedback I mean, I'mnot saying this for everyone,

(34:09):
everyone they will providefeedback for you to make their
life easier to go back into themix and sort that out.
Um, but yeah, I hope that helpsthere, dan um, again it's there.
I should have done this offthere, but there are some
episodes of the podcast that youcan dive into, uh, where we
talk about luffs, in particularlast year.
There's a lot of episodes withsome mastering engineers that

(34:29):
would help you out.
So let's move on to the nextone, and this is quite an
interesting one, and I'm goingto let you take the lead on this
one too, because I haven'tactually thought of anything off
the top of my head yet, so I'mhoping you might inspire me for
this one.
So here we go.
This is from Jesse K, who wason the podcast earlier this year
from the new agency.

Jessie K (34:55):
So my name is Jesse K and I'm the CEO of new agency
and a guest on this greatpodcast.
This year, my biggest win of2024 was being selected as a top
voice on LinkedIn.
It's allowed me to connect withso many great people, it's
allowed my newsletter Beats andBytes to grow expeditiously and
it's just allowed me to helpmore and more brand marketers

(35:17):
understand the power of music asa marketing vehicle, and that's
what I do at New Agency.
I live in the intersection ofmusic, technology and brands, so

(35:40):
having a megaphone likeLinkedIn allows me to connect
with so many more people and Iso much new things coming into
the market.
What would you want to seecreated to make your job better,
to make it more interesting, tomake it more impactful?
What is an invention that themarket space is missing from a

(36:03):
music and tech standpoint?
Quite interested to hear that.
Happy New Year Sending love.

Thanks for everything, Peace.
Thank you, Jesse.
So yeah, I'm going to throwthis one straight over to you,
Tim.

Aisle9 (36:17):
This was a tough one and I came up with a super boring
answer.
Yeah, this is one to use atparties.
Yeah, A better way of sharingprojects between DAWs.
There we go.
That's really exciting.

John B (36:36):
Important no.

Aisle9 (36:36):
I just sort of, you know , as a mastering mixing engineer
, like constantly you're dealingwith people.
Now We've got everyone workingin all kinds of different things
.
You know, someone's in Logic,someone's in Ableton, someone's
in something else and I noticedactually a new thing that Cubase
, which is what I work in,happened to have brought into

(36:57):
their latest version, which wasthat it can produce a sort of
file that is kind of sharedbetween it and Bitwig, I believe
, which you know sort of uses a.
It uses a kind of shared sortof common file format, and there
have been things like OMF andstuff like that.
That sort of exist, but it'snot very good and it doesn't

(37:20):
really work across all DAWs.
So I think it would be amazingto have that way of just going.
Look, you all like working indifferent things, but you can
just export your project in this.
Someone else can pick it up inwhatever they're in and it will
kind of work out.
I mean, it would actually be alot more clever than you think

(37:44):
to try and go oh right, they usethis reverb in Ableton, but we
can use this reverb in Cubase.
We can.
You know, it's something thatclever that you know.
But with AI and all the rest ofit.
We've got such advancedtechnologies to work these
things out.
You know, I'd love thatcompatibility between things,
but maybe it's not in theinterests of, you know, software

(38:07):
developers to make.
This is my theory.
There's like who wants tocreate something that means
everything can speak to eachother.
But you know, I mean it wouldbe lovely in terms of what we do
, I think, or maybe it's athird-party company that makes
something that sort ofinterfaces with all these things
, and you can, there used to besomething a bit like that, but,
like you know, so you could gothis is my project, I'll load it

(38:28):
up into this and it willconvert it into something for
somebody else.
But you know, but yeah, that'sa pretty dull idea.
So I won't try that at the newChristmas party, but you know,
no, I won't do that.

It's a good idea, though it's just
standardization, isn't it?
That's what you want,standardization across the board
.
And the thing is with technology, for the most part, if you
think back to like the withcomputers and networking, and if
you want to go down that avenueand that route.
That's essentially whathappened with regards to that,
and that's how we access and weuse what we're using now be able
to communicate via the internet, because there's
standardization of protocols andand, like you think, if, if the

(39:09):
manufacturers were able to dothat, so it'd make it a lot
easier for us to then share andcollaborate between daws um, but
I'm assuming they were veryclosed box and don't want that
to happen.
But maybe, like you say, itdoesn't need that third party to
intervene and say, okay, well,I don't know some form of ap,
API access, and then I'll beable to put it all together and
then you'll be able to do it.

(39:30):
And, like you say, with theadvancements of tech, it would.
Certainly.
It must be something that couldbe done, but, like you say,
it's an interesting one for aparty, isn't it?
If someone says what are you upto this year?

Aisle9 (39:46):
More online collaboration as well, and
making that easier within youknow, so that you can be in your
studio and I can be in mine,and it has got.
It is possible to do it now,whereas it wasn't, but the more
that could be, it could work out.
So I could go like, oh, I'vegot vocal talent in you, you
know LA, and I just want torecord them in London.

(40:07):
Lovely, I can just, like youknow, sort of, uh, sort of sit
on this and that will stream,you know perfectly, into my DAW
and they can hear it perfectly.
That kind of thing.
More, you know, being able tocollaborate, collaboration in
general and making collaborationeasier, is probably something I
would love to see.
Um, because we, we do do do it,but it's not as easy as it

(40:30):
could be.

Yeah, yeah, there are platforms like you
mentioned.
You've got like audio movers,which is the one I use when I'm
sharing sessions, and thingslike that, which I use, session
wire.
Yeah, yeah, just building onthat, just building on that and
making it easier would beamazing.
I still haven't really.
Thing is, I think of ideas thatwould be great, but then I
think to myself actually, like,with AI, now there are things
that automatically do it.
I mean, I think go back to ourconversation just now about the

(40:57):
feedback for a mix maybe someway of automating that you can
have a chat bot that you can gointo and provide feedback on
your mix prior to you thenmastering it, rather than just
uploading it to a master.
This might already exist and itjust goes.

Aisle9 (41:13):
I don't actually use these platforms, so there is
something out there I can'tremember the name of it now that
is sort of come up, that's kindof you can feed your audio into
, and it kind of comes back witha load of you know checks and
advice on things and you know itwas interesting, it's.
Yeah, I can't remember the nameof it.

I did try but again it's, you're at the mercy
of the, the data that thatplatform is being fed and how
it's responding to what, becauseit is basically just if, if and
if.
If it was if, if and elsestatements and just saying if it
does this, then do that, andthat's what you're at the mercy
of at the moment.
I mean, as technology passes,in five years time we may listen

(41:55):
to this and we're like it'stotally moved on, and then
people are using this sort ofplatform and thing all the time.
There was, oh, what was thatone that was released recently?
Um, it was an engineer whoreleased his mix in process as
an automated function, so youcould submit your mix and it
would mix it in his particularstyle, and I cannot remember the

(42:17):
name of it.
Yeah, I think I saw that as well, yeah oh, it's gonna bug me
because I discussed it on one ofthe episodes here, and just
that idea that you could now mixin the style of someone else
using ai and you can see whereit's going.

Philipp K (42:32):
Yes, yeah it was the first one um that you mentioned.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah and it'd be
interesting to see how that goesand whether or not more get on
board and you know you get yourplugins, which are the CLA
plugins with Waves and whatnot,which are sort of their
signature plugins, whether thenit's going to move down the
route.
Okay, now you can have asignature mix and then go for

(42:59):
that, which will be interestingand how that plays out.

Aisle9 (43:04):
I think obviously technology moves on at such a
pace that maybe these things aregoing to be a lot more possible
than we think.
But to a degree you don't wantto take the human out of the
process and it's why somebodywants to hire Chris Lord-Owge to
do a mix.
It's like it will sounddifferent than you know, just if

(43:29):
you bought all these pluginsand stuck it on the mix.
you know that it's there's ahell of a lot of decisions going
on within any engineer's mindor musician's mind when they're
putting something together, andit's those things of the you
know, it's those human thingsthat make things interesting to
us all.
In my mind anyway, it's notperfection.

Exactly, I think that's.
Would you strive for perfection?
I don't think you do.
I like having the idea that,like whatever I put out, there
are going to be subtle nuancesto it that are imperfect, and I
think that's what makes it.
As soon as you start deviatingaway from that, then it becomes
too clinical, too mechanical,too digital.
Yeah, yeah, you know, and thenyou need that, you know.

Aisle9 (44:10):
To something that's just reading things by numbers
rather than actually going.
You know, making that sort ofcreative decision, and you know
it's a creative decision whetheryou have your base up by an
extra dB or down by an extra dB,and that you know there's not a
right or wrong there by anextra DB, and that you know
there's not a right or wrong.
There's a what you felt.

Yeah, yeah 100%, I say, isn't it?
If you think it's right, thenroll with it, and then you'll
soon get told by the rest of theinternet.

Aisle9 (44:35):
that it's wrong, it's a bad idea.

Yeah.

Aisle9 (44:40):
Yeah, generally what?

Jessie K (44:40):
happens.

Yeah, I'm not going to go down that very salty
route.
Thank you very much for thatone there.

Aisle9 (44:52):
Jesse Good question.

It was very good because it had me thinking,
because, again, with technology,I think of things.
I'm thinking.
I'm fairly confident itprobably already exists, but
maybe in 2025 there'll be more.
So let's move on to this onehere.
This is Jill, so Jill's got aquestion.
Now Anna Wynn.
This one here this is jill, sojill's got a question.

Jill R (45:09):
Now that's anna win hi, this is jill at roller blue.
My music win in 2024 wasgetting a top 30 placement for
two of my electronic tracks inthe australian song contest, one
in the pop dance category andthe other instrumental.
Here's my question for markonce you have a rough mix in
place, do you have a process forthe order of fine-tuning

(45:29):
adjustments?
For example, do you start withpanning, further EQing or
automation?

Great question and also I just want to throw
out there it is great that theseaudio clips have been submitted
from the United States, the UKand Australia, and if I put a
triangle and just join that,it's quite cool that the podcast
sort of traverses the globe.
So, uh, that's very.
Thank you, jill, it's a verygood question.

(45:56):
And when it comes to that soyou mentioned there, uh, what
approach first.
So with me I always do like astatic sort of mix or balance,
however you want to call it,which is where I just do level
and pan, basically, and thenjust get a basic mix put
together.
Then from that I then gothrough the instrument group.
So I usually start with drumsand then go through the drums

(46:19):
and then, if there's a vocal, Ibring the.
I tell a lie, actually.
I usually go with drums andthen bass, particularly getting
the kick and bass right, andthen I bring in the vocal and
then build everything in aroundthat.
Generally, I start with EQ.
It's usually some form ofsurgical EQ, if it needs it If
it needs it that's the caveatthere as well if it needs it,
because sometimes it might not.

(46:40):
What you don't want to do isjust start EQing and compressing
things because you feel likeyou have to EQ and compress
something which, particularlywith compression, you can go
down a very destructive route.
If you feel like you need toput a compressor on something
for the sake of it, eq I think.
Less so you probably there willbe.
I'll be struggling to think of atime where I haven't EQ'd

(47:03):
something.
I don't know if that's a goodor a bad thing, um, but no,
generally it is.
I usually start with um, just abasic balance of level and pan,
and then I'll go through the,the drums, kick and bass, then
the vocal bring everythingaround that, and then I'll go
through each track, do whateverprocessing I need to do on those

(47:25):
tracks and then I'll then moveon to automation.
Automation usually comes at thetail end when I start moving
things around, ducking thingsout, bringing things back in,
and that's automation of level,pan and also sends, muting sends
and the level of sends andthings like that as well.
So that's generally my.
That's kind of a verywhistle-stop tour through my

(47:46):
workflow.
I'll send it over to you now,tim.

Aisle9 (47:50):
Yeah, because I think, if I'm correct in saying that,
the question was sort of look atyour fine adjustments, wasn't
it at the end of when?
I assumed, anyway when Ilistened to it, that you're kind
of because we've got anotherquestion coming up about order
of things.
So it was like when I heardthat question it was like you

(48:13):
know that you've got youroverall mix and you're making
adjustments at the end.
And I think the one thing thatyou mentioned it, mark, and I'm
100% the same is that automation, to me, is the last thing.
It's the last thing that comeson at that point.
And you know, because if youautomate your mix earlier, it's

(48:36):
like you've given control tosomebody else and it's busy
running all these things andthen you'll end up fighting it
and then you'll end up going oh,but my vocal's too quiet here
and I need it, you know, andI'll put this other plug-in on
to make it louder.
And then suddenly, no, justleave it all and get it all
sitting as good as you possiblycan, um in a static version and

(48:57):
then reach for the automation ismy, my tip, because I I think
that way you won't be fightingthings too much and you can just
fine tune them when they'resitting at that point.
Because if you've got your eqright and you've got your
compression right, your mainvocal, for instance, should be
sitting pretty nicely at thatpoint.
But it will need some finessing, probably with some automation.

(49:19):
And you know probably won'tneed finessing with panning, but
like it will probably need some, you know, be sitting in the
center of your mix but like umother things, yeah, sure you
might.
You might want to sort of have,you know, changes in the send
levels, changing in the panning,changes in um, you know volume,
and that might be the last sortof thing you do.

(49:42):
So I tend to all of thosethings you know will be
automated at the end and I won'tautomate them really until the
end of the mix.
So, um, but yeah, volume isdefinitely the the thing.
If I'm tweaking stuff at thevery end of a mix, it generally
still is tiny little bits ofvolume movement.

(50:02):
Is this sitting in the rightplace?
Does this need to come up ordown?
And occasionally a little bitof like very sort of subtle eq
sort of things, becausehopefully everything's basically
sitting there, but at the endof my mix it might be like oh, I
think a little bit more in thebass, in that, little bit more
brightness on this.
So it's just really tiny littlethings, but they're often just

(50:26):
really small eq.
I remember I remember sittingthere and going, oh, just too
much, 300 hertz in that I'lljust take another dB out of this
.
So they're very small movements,hopefully.
I think that's the thing.
As you go across your mix, themovements get smaller and
smaller and smaller.
So you've done all your broadstrokes earlier on and you're
gradually moving down to veryfine stuff.

(50:48):
Um, you know, I mean, if you'restill going all right, massive
movement on something at the endof your mix, there's probably
quite a problem already that you, you know, you've got got it
almost.
And sometimes during the mixingprocess you sort of realize
that you've got things out ofwhack or out of balance and
you're almost better to go away,freshen up your ears, come back

(51:10):
, put all the faders you know,do it solo.
You know sort of maybe startfrom building up from your drums
upwards and build back intoyour mix, if it's really got a,
but hopefully at the end of youroh, just cramping my leg but
hopefully at the end of your mix.
You're just doing fine littledetails of the volume, fine

(51:35):
little details with theautomation.
That's where I'll probably beor hope to be.

I think that's really good advice, dad, the
idea that it should be smallmovements at the end, um, and I
think that's really good andit's not something I'd
consciously been aware of, butit's something that resonates.
You know, when I was working ona mix earlier and I was just,
it was just like oh, that vocalmaybe.
Okay, in this section I'm justgoing to automate the, the level
down.
It's going to come down by a dbhere, just so it sits better,

(52:05):
and then in the next sectionit's going to come back, or
maybe I'm just going to bring upthat verb there again, just to
bring that push that vocal backa bit, just near this part here.
And it's just little, littletweaks.
And, like you say, if you'refinding that oh man, I'm, I
don't know you're pullingsomething down by 10 db, a
particular instrument, then atsome point I think, when it came
to that initial balance, thatyou've got something slightly

(52:26):
out of whack if you're makingthose wild movements.
That being said, I mean, if itis like a breakdown, then that
makes perfect sense.

Aisle9 (52:32):
Yeah, yeah, it's more of a sort of arrangement decision.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, a hundred percent.

Aisle9 (52:39):
One little detail there that I think is someone showed
it to me early on and I remindmyself and go back to it.
All the time is like is towardsthe end of particularly of your
mix, you're trying to do finethings turn the volume right

(52:59):
down really really super low soyou can hardly hear it, and just
listen to it super quiet, as ifit was almost in the background
.
Like you know, you're listeningto it on the radio in the
background, in the kitchen typething.
Listen to it really low andjust see what you will see where
things sit and sort of see,almost turn it down, and turn it

(53:20):
down and turn it down and go,well, it's just disappearing.
What's, what's still stickingout, and if it, it should sort
of work really, really quiet.
Your drums, your bass, your,your overall balance should be
beautiful even at a reallyreally low level.
If it's not and something'sbeing lost or poking out too
much, you'll hear it, and thenyou may need to just make those

(53:42):
tiny little adjustments to sortof sit it in there and then turn
it back up loud and then turnit back down really quiet, and
so you can just like because itshould work, but both ends of
the scale.
If it's not, there's still aproblem that's uh.

Another one, another great one.
And do the same, I think,comparing if you've got a
reference chat you're workingwith as well a, b them at that
really low level, and then makesure obviously you want to have
a very, very good reference thatyou're working with as well A,
b them at that really low level,and then make sure, obviously
you want to have a very, verygood reference that you're
working with.
But you'll get an idea.
Okay, well, I can still hear X,y, z in this reference.
That's the sound I'm going for.
I'll be able to do that withmine.
Another one as well which Ifound works reasonably well is

(54:21):
if you just have enough volumethat you can step outside the
room and then you can hear itoutside the room, and that's
quite good for the mid-rangebecause you can get an idea if
you can still hear everything ina balanced way outside of the
room.
Now, I appreciate this.
This is more, I guess, if youare like a home studio producer,
because if you're in aprofessional setting, then

(54:43):
you're probably it's going to betreated.
You're not going to hear agreat deal outside the room Not
doing carny or anything.

Aisle9 (54:48):
Yeah, exactly.

But if you're at home and you've got a home
studio, then you'll be able todo this.
You'll be able to go out theother side and then you'll be
able to hear If all you can hearis one particular instrument.
I did this actually.
This is interesting.
I was listening to the radioand my car's an old piece of
shit and basically I had to havethe heating on full wax so I
could see.
And it made it so that the songI was listening to on the radio

(55:13):
all I could hear was the hi-hat.
It was just Like that is all Icould hear and it made me think
is that a creative choice, or isthat my radio, or is that
genuinely someone's mixed it?
So the hi-hat is that loud,that at that low volume.
It is just pure hi-hat and andnothing else.
I couldn't hear the vocal, Icouldn't hear anything.
It was just this hi-hat comingthrough.

(55:35):
So I thought that was quiteinteresting.
But then it just goes to showthat maybe some people, some
genres, music is just pure hats.
There we go, that's off to thatproducer.
Yeah, indeed, I'll probably getcorrected now.
They'll be like this is aparticular for this style of
music, which is fine Hat rock.
Yeah Right, let's go.

(56:01):
We've got a couple more left,so this one kind of feeds on
nicely from the previous one.
So this is Kai's music win.

Kai C (56:06):
Previous one, so this is kai's music win hey, this is kai
um, my music win from 2024 wasthat I learned how to actually
mix and record and I started mymusic journey, uh, got my ideas
into the music.
I also learned how to reallymake, how to compress really
well, how to eq really well andjust make good mixing and
recording, and I learned that Ineed to get sound from the

(56:28):
source and not later in the mix.
My question is in what ordershould I mix the whole track?
Like what first drums, or firstEQ, or first compression?
I just don't know how to dothat.
First maybe automation,probably gain staging.
And what order should I mixvocals?
Like how should I place firstsurgical EQ and then, or yeah,
how I mix vocals, like howshould I place first surgical eq

(56:48):
and then, or yeah, how to mixvocals?

thanks, oh, there's a.
There's a lot to unpack in thatquestion.
Yeah, yeah, it was.
It was two or three questionsthere, so thank you, guy.
Uh, well, done as well for umgetting to the place where
you're happy with with yourmixing um.
I think the first, the firstpart of the question was regards
to the process, um instrumentgroups.

(57:11):
I guess you I think you werereferring to there in terms of
what you do first I think Imentioned this earlier.
So with me it was I startusually start with drums and
I'll bring in the bass and then,and then it'd be the vocal and
then mine's predominantly likesynths and effects and they'll
just come in around that.
So that's generally theinstruments and groups that the
way I work with.
So it's always.
I always start with a kick drum.

(57:32):
I always start with a kick drumand then bring in the other
drum elements, as I say, thenagain the bass and the vocal and
whatnot um, and I might have toplay the last bit again to get
the rest of the question.
But I think it was to do withthe order.
So that's the order I would doit in.
Then I think you mentionedsomething along the lines of the

(57:53):
order in terms of the channelstrip and settings.
I think was the next part withvocals, but I think you
mentioned something there aboutgain staging and automation.
So this sort of mirrors orechoes what we had, the
discussion we had just now abouthow you should probably leave
automation until the end.

(58:13):
And gain staging is a word thatI find is thrown around a lot
online a lot, and sometimes it'smisrepresented.
Now I mean my understanding.
The way I see gain staging ishaving the audio at the optimum
level going into the plugin, ifit my understanding.
The way I see gain staging ishaving the audio of the optimum
level going into the plug-in.
If it's a plug-in or whateverit is in your chain, it's the

(58:34):
optimum level going into it andalso coming out of it into the
next sort of step in the chain.
That's gain staging to me.
Sometimes I see people refer togain staging and what they're
essentially referring to is justlevel.
Overall level is getting thelevels right in a song.
So for me, gain staging ismaking sure you're at the

(58:55):
optimum level going through.
If you go from the top of thechannel strip to the bottom and
you've just got the optimumlevel.
I think when you first startworking with audio.
I think it's the output.
I know I did this when I firststart working with audio.
I think there's a.
It's the output.
I know I did this when I firststarted years and years ago.
I would neglect the output.
I'd feed something into aplugin and then think, oh, it

(59:15):
sounds great, but neglect whatwas coming out of it.
And often you can get thatloudness bias.
Just because it's louder, youthink it's better.
And that's where gain matchingcomes in really, really handy,
so that gain staging.
You're kind of doing thatthroughout the whole process and
then just leave the automationto the end, um, but I'll throw

(59:36):
it over to you now, tim.

Aisle9 (59:37):
Yeah, I mean, I I think very similar sort of um order
for mixing.
I will start with the drums,then add the bass and I will
start with the kick drum.
Probably in the drums, um,kicks their hats, sort of you
know kind of work down throughthem.
Um, something that I would sayon on top of this is not only

(59:59):
should the order in which youmix sort of that you know you
get a pattern to the, to theorder, but for heaven's sake,
put that in your project whenyou're doing your project.
So, um, I sort of think thatprojects should follow as well,
like I always have my drums atthe beginning, my bass, my
guitars, my synths, likeliterally the order of tracks in

(01:00:23):
your mix, and mix in that ordertoo, so that you you have the
whole thing and it will, it willpay dividends.
You will find mixing a loteasier and you can grab a you
know a project from five yearsago and it will still have that
order in it and you'll be ableto go straight into it.
So, and I think it just helpsas a way of working, um, but yes

(01:00:44):
, I work in that kind of way.
So it will be drums, bass,guitars, synths or synth guitars
.
That's a little bitinterchangeable, um, but more I
would say on, and I don'tactually put the vocal in often
until the end, um, towards theend.
So I will almost build up,almost build up a sort of

(01:01:05):
backing track before starting toput the vocal in.
But like I again, I will sort ofgo for on the synths and
guitars, more the rhythm partsinitially.
So I'm trying to build up therhythm section, the drums, the
bass and the, the rhythm partslike from the guitars and the
synths, um, or keyboards andthen any.

(01:01:27):
I will tend to put the vocalsin then and any lead parts like
lead guitars, lead synths orwhatever tend to play around the
vocals or hopefully be in, notin the way of the vocals, so I
will put them in, maybe afterthat.
I'm not particularly interestedin the lead synth line if I've

(01:01:47):
got a vocal in it until I knowwhere the vocal's sitting.
But you know, it's that rhythmsection really that I'm most
concerned about initially.
If it's a track that's got arhythm section, a rhythm feel, I
really want the drums, the bassand the guitar and synth,
rhythmical pads and chords andall that to really, you know gel

(01:02:11):
, and once they're gelling um,then I know that all the other
parts can be made to sort of sitand work on top you know um or
sort of sit in there but like,yeah, um.
As for order of channel andstuff and gain staging, I mean I
think I'm with you very much.
It's the same idea.

(01:02:31):
I mean there is a wholequestion with something like eq,
surgical eq and creative eq.
It's a big question, but Iwould, if I'm being really
particular, I would probably domy cutting eq first and then my
boosting eq would be last ortowards the end of my chain.

(01:02:54):
There so often um.

Marc Matthews (01:02:56):
But you know that is quite a big question, so it
is, and I think it all comesdown to what works best for you,
and I'm very much the same Inmy head.
The way I think is I'm going toget rid of what I don't want at
first, which is the surgicalelement, then maybe some
compression and then somecreative EQ.

(01:03:17):
I guess you would call it thensort of like that tonal
compression this is a very, verysweeping generalization here A
de-esser in there somewhere aswell.
Sometimes I'll do a de-esser atthe beginning and one at the
end, or I might just have one atthe beginning, I might just
have one at the end.
It really depends on on thethis is a vocal or I suppose, on
a hat as well.
You can do it on cymbals too,um, and it really depends.
But generally I think yeah, I'mwith you on that one I think

(01:03:39):
surgical eki first makes mostsense.

Aisle9 (01:03:42):
And then they're all kind of clever mystery things
like de-essing your reverbreturns.
There's all kinds of advancedsort of stuff which you can get
into.
I'm not saying you have to dothat to make a nice mix.
I'm sure you can survivewithout doing that but these are
definitely sort of things thatyou might end up with.
But I think, yeah, you're right.

(01:04:04):
It's that getting out stuffthat you don't need in there,
because before you hit yourcompressor is generally not
everyone believes in that, but Ican see the sense in it that
your compressor is going to bemade to work a lot harder.
If you've got like and betriggered by all this sort of
low end, that energy, maybe thatyou're not, don't actually need

(01:04:25):
in the in, in the particularchannel you're listening to.
So you know you, you might takeout that energy, that actual
sound.
Maybe you've got low end rumbleon your vocal or something and
you just go, I don't need thatin the actual vocal, so I'll
take that energy out and then mycompressor will probably be a
lot gentler or more controlledbecause I don't have all of that

(01:04:48):
triggering it and and you know.
So, yeah, take out what youdon't need, or or or get a, get
a sort of more balanced soundbefore you go into compression
saturation, you know, sort ofcreative eq, you know yeah, I
thought.

I don't know if it was that clip, so apologies,
kai, if it wasn't in yours, butthere was.
I think you mentioned aboutgetting a better recording or
getting it right at source.
I think it was that one there.
Yeah, and that's what I wasgoing to say as well.
I think that's that's a massivepart of this sounds.
If you are recording.
I know there's many genres ofmusic whereby we're using
samples rather than actual, butthen you have to make sure you

(01:05:29):
find decent samples.
So that's one in itself, and Ifound this the other day.
I thought, oh, this is a greatsample.
Then, when I stuck myheadphones on and really dug
into it, there was some weirdshit at the beginning and end
that I had to get rid of.
So there's a learning curve foryou there, folks.
And I thought this sample wasgreat, and then it's not, until
I stuck my headphones on,because that's where I do my

(01:05:50):
really like surgical editingwhen it comes to actually mouse
clicking, editing of audio, andthen I could hear this.
So if you're ever using samples, top and tail, make sure you
check them.
I know they let that one slipthrough, but yeah, getting it
right at source.
Because what I was going to sayis you've got to think this
goes back to what you saidearlier about de-essing the send
on on a reverb.
You think back to all theseamazing records that were made

(01:06:11):
sort of like 30, 40 years ago,where they were using a much
fewer, fewer elements to putthese mixes together, but on
reflection, they were probablygetting it right at source
versus what we.
It's quite easy now to think,oh, I'll roll with that and I'll
fix it later, which youprobably don't want to do

(01:06:32):
wherever possible.
But that's a classic one I seeonline all the time.
You see tips and tricks peopleput out and the classic one is
someone will say I'll do this,this and this for this vocal or
whatever, and then you'll seethe comments saying just
re-record it.
Just re-record it.
Or like record another one,record another version, record
an overdone record, a harmonyyou're like.

(01:06:53):
Well, I don't have that optionright now, um, so sometimes you
don't, and then you have to makedo with what we have, which is
quite a lot in the in thedigital realm.
But no great question though,kai, very, very good.
So, in the interest of time, Ithink we'll move on to the last
one now, which is another kai.
This is valley lights, who hasbeen on the podcast before.

Valley Lights (01:07:14):
Um, a full rotation of the sun ago, and, uh
, it is gonna play now hey, thisis valley lights, and my
biggest win of 2024 was gettingout and playing live music.
My first show was called Escapefrom LA.
Played it with some amazingmusicians like Slack Machine and
Missing Words.
I then went on to do a summerseries of concerts called Summer

(01:07:37):
Nights, which was an amazingsuccess, and it was so beautiful
to meet all of my friends andfans and meet new amazing people
all of my friends and fans andmeet new amazing people.
I want to ask, mark, what doyou suggest for musicians who
want to get out there and startgigging, start playing shows and
start playing live music, whereall the magic happens.
2025 is going to be amazing.

(01:07:58):
Guys, stick around.

I'm glad I put that one at the end because I
like the way you ended that onethere, kai.
That was a great way to end orto have with the with the last
comment there.
So well done.
On the gigs as well, it'ssomething that I do miss
profoundly gigging.
It's probably been over 10years now since I last gigged,
and before that I was gigging alot, so I do really miss it.
My advice I mean I've been outof the scene for quite a while,

(01:08:22):
to be honest.
Honest when it comes to giggingand uh and rehearsing and
practicing with other musicians.
But way back when, when I didit it was, I think I found my
bound band for the local trade,it um, which is uh, which is a a
.
It's not even a periodical,it's like a newspaper which you
just put.
It puts up like trailers andcaravans for sale and I put an

(01:08:45):
advert in there trying to findsome other musicians, and
somebody responded and then Ijoined them.
We got together and they becomegreat mates of mine still
friends of mine now and then, um, we're running on this journey
with this band for ages, butobviously I mean we have better
things to do now rather than useour local ad trade or trade it
to do that.
But I notably for me and thisis something I'm going to do

(01:09:07):
more of this year, because Iwant to work with local artists
not to gig, but just to workwith them and like singers and
get them on some of my tunesrather than going down the
international route of somethinglike Vocalizer or these other
platforms where you can find topliners and I think the best
thing to do is just embedyourself and start networking in

(01:09:29):
your local air quotes wateringhole of musicians.
So I mean, if you go onFacebook or something like that,
you can find these groups.
Like I live in a city calledExeter and there's like Devon
musicians, exeter musicians, andyou can go on there and
there'll be a plethora.
Every day there are peoplecommenting saying they're
looking for this musician orthey're looking for musicians to
do X, y, z, and that's a reallygood place to start, I think,

(01:09:52):
to meet musicians.
And I think I remember when Ifirst started with the band and
I only really progressed and gotbetter as a musician when I
started playing with otherpeople and got out of my silo in
my parents' shed and thenstarted gigging with other
people and got out of my my siloin my parents shed, um, and
then started gigging with otherpeople.
So, yeah, my, my advice reallywould be is just to um.

(01:10:13):
I mean, it's easy as anextrovert or someone who it
could be quite hard if you'reintroverted, but it's just to
break beyond that barrier andjust talk to people online.
Everyone's really nice for themost part, um, and then, yeah,
go down these watering holes andjust get meet local people, go
to gigs, and then it all reallysnowballed from there.

Aisle9 (01:10:33):
That's my thought process I have been out of the
game for a while, so it may wellhave changed well, yeah, I I
did at one point do an excessiveamount of gigging and, uh, you,
you know, I sort of, uh do knowwhat it uh, yeah, I sort of
felt like I spent 18 yearsconstantly on the road at one
point in my life, so it wasgreat.
I, I don't, you know, I lovedit.

(01:10:55):
Um, but I, I have been out thatloop a little bit, although I
did, you know, I have done a bitof synth wave live gigging,
which I really enjoyed.
Yeah, you were were indeed likeand I'd like to do some more
actually on, hopefully, on, Iwill get to do some some more
live stuff, um seeing, becauseI've got a fantastic drummer in
stew, my mate who who plays withme, and a couple of other

(01:11:19):
awesome mates who I'd love toget involved, um, so, yeah, I'm
fortunate.
I've got kind of a really goodbacklog of you know, sort of
back catalog of sort ofmusicians who I know, like you
know in my little black book, ofsort of cool musicians it'd be
nice.
Yeah, it'd be nice to getinvolved in the projects and do

(01:11:39):
stuff with.
But, like um and I know thatyou what you're saying mark,
some people don't really havethat and they're trying to sort
of get out and meet othermusicians and that's sort of the
side that you really coveredthere Trading or whatever that's
.

Oh, trading, yeah , yeah, trade it.
I don't even know if it's stillgoing.
It might be Gumtree Marketplaceyeah, gumtree.
I haven't used Gumtree inbloody years either.
I remember selling someequipment on there, some old
band equipment.

Aisle9 (01:12:11):
You too can find a room full of bedbugs, yeah, but like,
yeah, I think the one thing Iwould say with that from years
of doing live stuff with variousbands was, I think, if I went
back into it now, what I woulddo differently.

(01:12:32):
And it sounds like sorry, I'veforgotten the guy's name.

Kai, sorry Kai.

Aisle9 (01:12:39):
Yeah, kai has done this already with what he's done.
But I would say, don't bother.
Just sort of playing any old,you know dive with your music.
If you're, for instance, if youdo synthwave or if you do you
know shoegaze or if you dowhatever it is like you know,

(01:13:01):
whatever your genre is, go andfind the places that people
really go to listen to thatgenre, don't it?
It can be very soul-destroyingwhen you're in the dog and duck
and nobody you know nobody wantsthey want to hear johnny cash
and you're trying to play, youknow, gunship or whatever.

(01:13:22):
Like, just don't, don't go andplay the wrong to the wrong
crowd.
Try and find your crowd andyour audience because you do
want to get a response.
You do want to get, you know,connection with people.
That's why you're doing it.
So, um, and that probably means, like you know, networking
online and finding other peoplein your niche who are going out

(01:13:44):
and are gigging and you know,and then try and get on you know
supports and that sort of thingand work with other people in
your niche.
Um, and don't be too proud todo whatever comes up in that and
sort of see where it goes.
But yeah, I would not bothersort of doing.
There are some gigs that areworth saying no to.

(01:14:04):
That's all I'd say, you know,yeah, I I a lot.

I totally second that.
I remember playing some gigswhere we would set up.
We would be the oddest band onthe lineup and I'd be like what
are we doing here?
I don't think anyone here isfor melodic death metal and then
you're playing.
That's it.
Yeah, you're playing in a.
Legion at the back of a.
Legion in.
Yeovil yeah, and you'rethinking why?
Are we here, why are?

Aisle9 (01:14:32):
we here, yeah, and you don't want to be there.
You want to be doing some sortof you know, metal kind of sort
of night of lots of bands insort of Bristol or whatever.
You want to be hitting andfinding your audience.
So not every gig is worth doing, but like, oh, yeah, I mean it
does, it is.

(01:14:53):
It is an amazing thing when youstart doing gigs and you really
get a good response.

It's, it's awesome yeah, most definitely
yeah, maybe at some point in thelater, later, maybe you know
into it, it'd be nice.

Aisle9 (01:15:05):
Maybe, maybe we'll concoct something, mark, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah we could do.

We could do.
Yeah, okay, collab going, putall our connections together and
then do something down in thesouthwest.
There's a number of southwestartists knocking about in the
odd scene, and then, of course,we've got bristol up the road.
Yeah, great city, um, but thankyou everyone for your musical

(01:15:33):
wins of 2024.
So had philip, we had bendinggrid, dan fast, eddie, jessie k,
jill, kai kai, valley lightsand, of course, neon highway.
And I say, of course and ofcourse, thanks for jumping on
and hashing these questions outwith me.
It's been a pleasure.
Yeah, it's a good format.

(01:15:54):
Maybe it's a format we couldcontinue doing into the new year
.
We'll see how it goes.
Let's see what the response isto this one.
It's quite nice havingquestions come in and answer.
Maybe next time we'll do itblind and um, we'll have the
questions, yeah well, listen,but we won't see.
Yeah yeah, um, and we won'tlisten to the questions
beforehand, but it's been anabsolute pleasure.

(01:16:16):
Uh, this is going to come out onnew year's eve, so I'm going to
wish you a festive time.
Have a great festive time andChristmas.
Yeah indeed, and happy new year,folks.
Before you go, I want to hearfrom you.
I want to know your favouriteepisode of the Inside the Mix

(01:16:36):
podcast.
Alternatively, you could justreview this episode.
Click the speak pipe link inthe episode description and you
can record an audio messagedetailing your favorite episode
and why, and also give yourselfa shout out.
All you need is your mobilephone.
You don't need a SpeakPipeaccount.
You don't need to download anapp.
It's just like sending me anaudio message via WhatsApp or

(01:16:58):
whatever messaging platform youuse.
As soon as I get your audio,you will be entered in that
month's draw to win a Starbuckscoffee voucher, and if you don't
like coffee, just give it tosomeone else and pretend that
you bought it for them.
All you need to do is clickthat speak pipe link and send me
an audio message reviewing thisepisode or a previous episode

(01:17:19):
and give yourself a shout out.

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#175: What's the Secret to Mixing Without Muddiness? Achieving Clarity and Dynamics in a Mix

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