I struggle really with mixing and mastering. When music sound good in my speakers, it sounds bad in the car and other places. Are there any fundamental rules that you follow to make a song at least listenable? I see many people’s music sounds amazing. Any tips and useful links with verified technics are much appreciated!
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Biggest quickest difference I’ve found is to Cut bass where not needed. (Basically everywhere except kick drum and bass line)
And try to keep kick and bass in complementary frequency bands (in tune with each other if possible)
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This sounds like a speaker and/or room problem.
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Absolutely true, neither monitors nor room is good for such a tasks. But heard mixes from people that have similar situation and they sound way better.
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Learn how to write music (I mean in the creating a song sense, not in the notation sense). Strong song writing and an ok mix will outshine boring song writing and an immaculate mix.
When it comes to mixing, 9/10 times the problem isn’t the mix; it’s the writing. People need to spend an inordinate amount of time on the mix because they have multiple tracks/instruments occupying the same space and performing the same functions. (There’s also the harsh truth that the song doesn’t sound bad because the mix is bad, but the song itself is boring). Learning how to write will allow you to address many of these issues before they pop up and to better address these problems when they do by being able to identify and go back and remove redundant tracks entirely or re-write them so they’re not performing the same function as other tracks in the mix.
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Then one of the answers is: Know your room. Find out where the problem frequencies are that get lost (or boosted) in translation to other listening environments.
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In relation to the mix sounding good with your sound equipment but bad everywhere else, get a pair of airpods (as that’s what most people will likely listen to the music with) and do a mix for those, and see if that improves things.
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That’s a very important one. Surely enough there is learning every day, bit by bit.
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Thank you!
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How long have you been producing for OP?
It took me years before I got to a level I was happy with my mixes, and I think it largely comes down to trusting your ears than any single technique.
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Room treatment would be my first step. Watch videos on speaker placement and mixing position in the room, then do all you can to improve the acoustic properties. Then get used to how you fav artists music sounds in that space and start making comparisons of how your mixes sound compared to those.
Unless you’re very skilled and experienced it doesn’t make sense trying to mix something you cannot hear properly. Building bass traps, a cloud and some panels to reduce unwanted reflections can be done quite cheaply.
With that done it’ll be easier to hear when there is way too much bass and highs. Also the stereo image will translate to you way more, allowing you to make more constructive decisions as to where you want to place everything.
If it sounds like shit in the car, usually WAY too much bass.
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As a general rule from someone who is in the same boat, I found a few elements which really help.
Cut useless basses. Cut useless hi. Cut harsh and resonant frequencies.
Less is more, in crowded parts remove some sounds plain and simple. I’m always amazed at how much some parts have absolutely no impact or interest for the track.
Cut tails, don’t let releases die for bars, when a sound finished its job, it deserves to be put to rest.
Learn about phase correlation and how to correct. I’have been very surprised by how many preset synth patches induce phase problems without any correction.
These did not make me a mixing engineer but clearly improved my outputs.
Hope it helps.
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Unless you have a big room and a lot of money and time to spend on decent monitors and room treatment, I’d choose headphones to mix your music.
Ever since I switched to the Sennheiser HD650 with soundID reference, my music sounds great on different soundsystems. Here’s the Sonarworks review: Sennheiser HD 650 Studio Headphone Review - Sonarworks Blog
I really wish I had learned this sooner → Just whacking some sound panels on your walls or adding a nice carpet in your room won’t make a big difference. I even rented a nice studio for a while, but I honestly get better results at home with these headphones.
I only use my monitors in the creation phase or to take a break from the headphones.
Besides this, using reference tracks in combination with visual analysers such as Voxengo Span, Metric AB or Fabfilter Pro-Q is also essential to improve your mixes
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Send us (or me privately) an example and I’m sure people will be able to give some pointers to help you fix that mix. Or hire someone (like me, please, I’m starving lmao) to help you with mixing/mastering/finishing your tracks 
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I mix with my ears but I master with my eyes. I’m trying to get that meter on the master as high as possible. Eq-saturation-compression is all you need. I think you absolutely can make a bad mix or song sound loud and clear. the “it’s in the mix” isn’t really an answer is it? I’ve been in a few studios of guys who do mastering for a living and it’s all visual feedback devices, doesn’t matter if it digital or analog.
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Get busy referencing ur mix to tracks of a similar genre to what you make. Eyeball the spectrum, see how loud the kick and hats are etc.
You have to learn to map what you hear in your studio to how it sounds on other systems and locations. Ie when the bass sounds like this it will sound like that in my car etc.
Also some people have just been doing it for a long time and are really good at it.
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IMO a good mix starts with selection of sound-sources, composition, and arrangement. In this early state decisions are made, which sound will meet other sounds at the same time.
If this is done wisely, lots of problems of bad mixes are avoided before the mixing process even starts.
If a mix sounds muddy or doesn’t have enough clarity of the voices than often too much voices share the same bandwidth of frequencies and hence are overlapping. It’s sometimes like an unwanted chorus/phasing effect and can be avoided. Follow the principle “less can be more”.
There are many techniques to craft a “good” mix and to describe them here would be too much. But we have many resources we can learn from: books, YT, courses.
I enjoyed the book “Mixing Secrets” by Mike Senior, which deals with room acoustics, monitors, and the most common mixing gear, as well as how to use them for different purposes.
TBH to master mixing takes time, to learn the basics, and then to improve step by step your experience.
Some buzzwords to look for:
- subtractive equalizing
- use of compressors and side-chaining
- parallel processing of audio FX
- chart of frequency ranges of various instruments
- basic acoustic room treatment
- mixing with monitors or headphones
- mixing on studio monitors and testing on “lower quality” speakers
- taking enough breaks to recover your ears
- and more …
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This is clearly the only advice to apply at first, before you even start learning mixing techniques.
Knowing how to find and arrange sounds together is an essential prerequisite for a track to sound good. That’s where everything is decided; after that, the mixing should be simple and fast.
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It’s part of everyone struggle, and a matter of experience, mostly.
In the end, proper acoustic treatment, monitors, samples, nice gear, etc. it all helps, but if you don’t train your ears you’ll never get the results you want.
A/B constantly with tracks you like. You’ll start noticing patterns… what you need to add… What you need to take out. Iin terms of instruments, arrangement and frequencies. It’s all related.
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And that takes years to get right
So true. Is the single most important thing, really.
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