All the way from the start, I can feel it in my heart like... hey what's going on out there I'm
Sean Divine hope you all are doing well today I've got a new video where we're
gonna talk about how great mixing is in the small details so these seemingly
small details that collectively they make a really big difference in terms of
where your mix ends up you may have a good mix but in order to get it to great
you're gonna have to make a lot of tweaks that to the average ear or maybe
to even you all or myself individually may not make that much of a difference
but they end up making a huge difference so I've got a session open here this is
just an example it is a bit more on the extreme side of the example because
there were a lot of tweaks made to this mix but I want to just show you these
are the project alternatives so this is over the course of like 11 or 12 days
and each of these days after about I think probably the 2nd of April these
are all just days of small tweaks and kind of getting things right or hearing
something that maybe wasn't sounding right in my car or on earbuds or another
speaker system maybe I just heard something after the fact with fresh ears
that wasn't working so these are all these little changes up until you know
yesterday where I actually had what was the finished mix so again this is a bit
extreme but just to show you that even when the mixes is done like on the 2nd
of April is when this is really finished there's gonna be a lot of small tweaks
after to get it to the point that it needs to be now again that maybe one day
of tweaks I did this over a long period because I'm working on a lot of
different mixes at the same time and this is actually my track so it's not
like I had to sit here in one day and kind of finish it but that is again just
to show you the amount of little tweaks and things that are going into this as
an example in this EQ here this is on the vocal I was hearing just this
resonant sort of bump up here at 2k that just was sounding a little bit harsh to
me only on certain speakers and it took me a couple days afterwards to really
pick up on it so I just came in here and I had to make that little you know one
DB deduction which again it doesn't seem like a big deal gating noise out of all
the individual tracks again on one track probably not gonna be a big deal but
using the gate on all the tracks with noise that collects over time makes a
huge huge difference this is the EQ for my reverb so some of you may just be
rolling off lows and highs I'm going in and I'm finding the individual curves in
the mids and low mids high mids that are particularly resonant so that's another
thing you know really taking the time to precisely EQ your reverbs is going to
help them sit better in the mix make it to where your vocal is sounding the way
it should and not too washy but also having the right character to it in
terms of the reverb space automation another huge thing that is a lot of
small little things pans here you know increasing volume here and there I've
got a lot of muting so whenever these instruments end they were hanging out
into the verse which some of you have asked about like 808s and stuff like
that and they start to clash with whatever element comes after that and so
I just have a mute on to turn those things off another thing I want to touch
on is that you know you all are seeing the YouTube format of me mixing in you
know 30 minutes maybe or less or a verse or for a vocal or whatever it may be and
you know that is kind of just me going off of my intuition but you've got to
understand that you know I've been doing this for a very long time so I've got
you know 10 plus years of experience so I'm able to make those decisions quickly
and on the fly but that is not going to be the finished mix I'm still going to
be going back and making tweaks and doing everything that we're talking
about here in terms of just maximizing and making sure I'm getting a great mix
first is just one that is the essential core balance and some of you are gonna
have to experiment a lot more that than that most of you will I had to do that
too you're gonna make some mistakes that's okay but again just be realistic
about you know how long it's gonna take to do mixing and and how you know you're
not gonna get it perfect the first time it's okay to have some revisions it's
okay to have to go back and fix some things I do it all the time you're never
gonna be so good at mixing there's not these tweaks to make so some of you are
gonna ask well how do I know when I'm done with the mix you know you don't
want to get in a pattern of these small tweaks that never end that can happen I
do have a video that talks about how to know when you're done and to not overdo
this so if you want to watch that check it out but the key is just knowing in
your intuition okay there's some things that I need to get right here
something's not right I think that's the biggest key is being honest with
yourself to listen and then recognize what is not working so it may sound good
on your speakers it may not sound good somewhere else and you gotta identify
okay well what's the problem there is there a problem
you know maybe these speakers are just crap but you still got to understand
that people are listening on crap speakers so you don't want that to make
your mix sound bad you know if it sounds just as bad as everything else but it's
still you know sounds the way it should versus it sounds worse than everything
else on those bad speakers that's a problem so you want to be consistent
being honest what can I do to make this work across everybody's listening
environment to the best of your abilities and to the best of those
playback settings alright y'all so just a quick video again emphasizing these
small decisions that you're making in the mix either during the process the
main mixing process or afterwards tweaking things and getting it right I
can guarantee you that the best mixers out here
great mixers are doing this they are going back and making a lot of small
tweaks that compiled make a really big difference and that is what you're
hearing ultimately in a great mix versus a good mix is someone who is
conscientious enough to pay attention to these small little
details that the average listener may not notice individually unless you
pointed it out but trust me it is making a huge difference across the entire mix
once it all comes together and that's what mixing is all about is these tiny
little tweaks here and there we've got you know tons of space in this frequency
spectrum to manipulate and process and blend and you know just make it more
exciting so there's a ton of options and variables and a lot of mixing is just
knowing okay what's the problem how can I fix this or you know what can I do to
accentuate something in this mix and do it across the entire blend of the
session so hope this helps you if you have any questions about the small
details that make up a great mix feel free to leave a comment below if you
have some suggestions for the viewers out there for little things that you go back
and do I'd love to hear about them I know other people on the channel would
as well so feel free to leave that comment if you learned anything the video
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