5 Mixing Mistakes to Avoid

Ever tweaked a channel to perfection, only to realize you were on the wrong channel, or the wrong knob? Or how about the whole EQ or Compressor is bypassed! Today, I'm going to teach you five things you need to avoid so you don't trick yourself when you're mixing.

If you're new here, my name is James, and I help church sound techs enjoy running sound at church. Because it's just a lot more fun when you're crushing it.

Context is Key When Processing

The first tip is to avoid listening in solo mode. I know it can be really handy to pop on the headphones and listen to something by itself and then start EQing, compressing, whatever you're going to do to the signal. The problem is this makes us want to make something sound good by itself. But if you listen to really good-sounding records, all the individual instruments don't necessarily sound good by themselves. We have a tendency to want to add 1kHz and 100Hz to everything to make it sound just…better. The problem is, when we do this, things don't sound good all together. So then we have a really cluttery mix that ends up being muddy because everything is trying to occupy that “feels-good” space. So whenever you're processing something with EQ or compression, try to listen to it in the context of something else.

Brighter Isn't Always Better

Step number two is to avoid picking something because it makes it brighter. Not everything needs to be sparkly and have a lot of top end. Some things need to be dull so that those things that are sparkly actually still jump out. Contrast is a key to great mixing. The other thing that you'll run into, especially in live sound, is that your ear will adjust to things that are bright and then you try to make everything brighter and brighter and brighter, and then things get louder and louder and louder and suddenly you've experienced temporary threshold shift. This happens when your ear normalizes something that's out-of-balance so if things get really bright your ear says, “Oh, I'm going to protect myself” and makes it less bright. So you don't notice that your threshold of hearing is shifted in those higher frequencies. Then somebody else walks in the room and they think you're scratching nails on a chalkboard because everything is so bright. And you don't want to be known as that sound tech that makes things painful. That's a quick way to get a different job.

Name That Processor! Can You Hear the Difference?

And now it's time to play Name That Processor! This is a game we played on my Youtube channel to test out all of you Sound Ninjas’ listening skills. I’m going to play you two examples and you try and guess what type of process you think it is. Think about how it sounds different. What do you like about one or the other? Here in a little bit I'll tell you what it is and you can see if you guessed it right. Pop on your headphones and let's play!

So what do you think the process was?

A dB Boost Isn't Always the Answer

Tip number three is kind of tricky because you've got to avoid picking the louder one. This is especially true when we start using compression and limiting. But we've got to take a quick trip to Nerdville for a second.

The way your ears perceive different frequencies changes at different intensity levels called phons. Two guys named Fletcher and Munson figured all this out, and they figured out what intensity you needed to hear these different frequencies in order for them to sound even.

As the relative intensity goes up, your ability to perceive top and bottom end goes up as well. So any time you turn something up a little bit, it's going to sound better. But you didn't actually do anything to it other than make it sound louder. So avoid tricking yourself just by thinking "Louder is better". And I know there are some YouTubers out there that say stuff like “Loud is more good” or something, and that's not necessarily not true…but when you're trying to mix, it is true. So the way this functions in the real world is that when you're trying to learn what the compressor is doing and if you like what the compressor is doing, you have to match the output signal and the output level in order to really hear the tone changes for what they are rather than just, “Oh, this is louder, so it's better.”

Some of you may have tried putting on compression and getting some gain reduction. And then you're like, “Well, I don't know if I like it or not.” So then you bypass it. Suddenly you don't have any more gain reduction. So the signal got louder. You thought, “Well, why’d I put that on there if it made it sound worse?” In truth, you've controlled the dynamic range of the signal, but now the average level is lower until you add the makeup gain. The makeup gain adds a gain stage after the compressor's gain reduction circuit so that you can boost the signal to match the average level, both with the compressor in and with the compressor out. 

Makeup Gain on Electric Guitar 

Finally, now you can compare whether it's better or worse with the compression ON and the compression OFF. 

Judging Levels - Your Ear & Peak Meter Aren't the Same

The same thing can happen in the opposite direction where the compressor can add the average level so that it sounds louder when the compression is on. Now you think compressing everything makes it sound better because you just made it louder! And it might actually be better, but don't trick yourself into thinking that just because you boosted the makeup gain too much.

The last part of this is that your peak meters on your console aren't telling you the whole story of what the average signal level is doing. So you really have to use your ears to try to fine-tune getting the gain the same with the compression on and the compression off. And then you can decide, “Is this compressor giving me the tone that I want? And is it making the signal better rather than worse?” Maybe that's why a bunch of people struggle with really understanding compression. If you're new to it and want to get a better handle on the controls, you can check out this video I did on that subject HERE.

Name That Processor! What was the Difference?

Now it's time for the big reveal. Did you guess the right audio process?

Make Sure You're Processing in the Right Order

The fourth thing that you need to avoid is processing things in the wrong order. And I don't mean like putting your EQ before your compressor or after your compressor, although that does make a difference, but here's a wrong way to do it: you push up the fader, you start bringing down the threshold on your compressor, then you head over to your EQ, which happens to be before the compressor. Then you realize you don't have enough gain at your mic pre. So you start to turn that up. Now you've gotten yourself into a mess because everything you did with your compression changed once you messed with your EQ and your preamp.

Although compression is probably the most fun tool you have on your console, (aside from riding up delay, of course, because it's always fun to make those echoes come through) you have to wait until you've processed the signal in other ways in order for your compression to be most effective. Make sure you have good gain on your preamp and make sure everybody's happy in their monitors. Then you can start to get some general EQ in place. Roll up the high pass filter first, roll off some lows if you need to, and NOW you can start to adjust your compressor. Once your compression is dialed in and you're not having to chase around the level of the signal coming in, it can make it easier to fine-tune the EQ and figure out those things that were jumping around when the level was changing.

Don't Get Bogged Down by Perfection

Tip number five is to avoid paralysis by analysis. Sometimes you can get so sucked into the detail in the fine minutia of the recovery time of your gate that you forget that your overall balance in the mix is what makes the most difference. Nobody leaves church humming the kick drum, and if the electric guitar doesn't sound perfect, it doesn't matter as long as the vocals are up and clear. And honestly, there might be something bugging you about one of your inputs that you can't fix at the soundboard. There's some stuff that just has to change at the source. For instance, I know one worship leader that instead of strumming up and down on his guitar, he would strum kind of side-to-side and this scratchy feeling was impossible to fix. I couldn’t do anything about it without making the guitar sound super dull.

In live sound, we're in a big time crunch. So you've got to learn how to use your tools quickly and effectively to get stuff passable and then come back and fix it later. My favorite tool for this is the high pass filter. Think of it as a one knob clean-up-the-mud control. If you're in a hurry, roll up the high pass filter until it's clear enough and move on to something else. You can come back and fine-tune it later.

One of the ways that I evaluate how my mix went is how the toms turned out. If I've got enough time to figure out everything else and get those dialed in so then I can figure out the toms and get them just right, they’re the last thing that I'm really worried about. So if I got to that, then it was probably a good mix. Don't cheat yourself on this and skip ahead, because having great-sounding toms but not hearing the lead vocal or the background vocal right is just kind of silly.

As we sum up this article, let me leave you with a parting thought. 85% of your mix is getting the balance right at the faders with good gain structure. Everything else is just icing on the cake. So don't focus on the minor points when you should be focusing on the major points. You've got your broadband EQ, or your fader, and your digital compressor built-in right here on the end of your hand (hint: it's your finger on the fader). Follow these tips and you'll be well on your way to a great mix.

Remember: it's all about the low end, void the sound tech solo, and nobody leaves church humming the kick drum. We'll see you back here next time on Attaway Audio.