- Mixing with pink noise.
What is it?
How do you do it?
And is it any good?
Now, this is a subject I made a video on
a couple of years ago
and you can can check out the original there.
But, mixing with pink noise
has been talked about a lot
and I get asked about it every single day.
So, today I'm gonna explain
what pink noise is,
what mixing with pink noise is,
and I'm gonna show you how you can do it
and how it can help you.
If you want more mixing tips,
don't forget to download my 30 mixing tips cheat sheet
below this video.
It's completely free
and it's helped thousands of producers,
so you can grab it for free below this video.
Now, in a nutshell, mixing with pink noise
is a way to get a balance of your different levels
in your mix very, very quickly.
I mean, you can even mix a track in 30 seconds
using this pink noise technique.
So, first, okay, what is pink noise?
So, pink noise is a waveform or a noise signal
and it sounds like this.
(pink noise audio)
So, what you're hearing is a noise signal
that has the same audible power
in each of the frequency ranges
throughout the octaves.
So, it looks like this on the spectrum analyzer.
But, the idea behind mixing with pink noise
is that it gives you a template or a reference
that gives you a nice even slope of frequencies
from the low base frequencies
up to the highest treble frequencies
that sounds pleasing and balanced to the human ear.
So, without further ado,
I'm gonna walk you through an example
of how you can mix with pink noise now.
So, the first thing that you have to do, obviously,
is to load in all of your stems for your track.
Now, you might have them already loaded in as audio
or you might still have the MIDI still.
But, basically, you need all of the tracks
that you want to mix for your entire song.
Then, when you've got those loaded in
just load in a pink noise sample
into a blank audio track.
That's what I've just done here in Ableton.
You can download this pink noise sample
for free from below this video
and I've just looped it the entire length of the song.
You can actually also use pink noise generators
in some plug-in synths.
So, if you prefer to do that, have an experiment.
I haven't found any way to do that in Ableton.
So, I just use this WAV file that I loop
and, again, you can download it below this video.
Okay, so after we've done that,
the next stage is to loop the busiest part of the track.
So, that would usually be the last chorus,
the last post chorus, something like that.
And, then, make sure that all of your faders,
apart from the pink noise, are brought down to zero.
Now, it is worth noting,
here you see I have three groups:
chords, leads, and melody.
Now, if you're not using Ableton
they may just be sent to busses.
So, this is for a layered instrument, basically.
These are all layered instruments.
Now, we are only gonna be balancing
the kind of bus fader of this.
All these faders in here have already been balanced.
So, if we just listen to our chords
we've got these different samples from the chords
and they are all
(electronic music)
balanced as we like them.
Now, the same goes for the lead as well.
So, if we hear these.
(electronic music)
You can hear it's made of several layers.
So, that's fine.
We want to leave the faders within the group, or the bus,
as they are so the balance is the same.
And, it's the bus fader
that we're gonna to be bringing down to zero.
So, we'll just minimize those to make it easier.
So, every fader that's not a bus fader
brought down to zero.
Thank you very much.
And, then we can get started.
As I say, loop the busiest part of the track.
And, we are gonna do our static mix.
If you want to learn how to do a dynamic mix
you can click the video link
that I'll put there or there and check that out.
But, for now, we're just gonna do the static mix
using this pink noise technique.
Now, a bonus tip here.
You can actually sum your master channel to mono
using a mono switch, which is what I do.
I've just got a little utility plug-in in Ableton.
You can do this in other DAWs as well.
And, a keyboard shortcut, so it's mono.
And, the reason I'm doing this
is so I can just concentrate on the frequencies
and not basically get distracted by the stereo field,
so I'm gonna do this in mono.
And, remember, you can do this before you do any mixing.
You can do it in the middle,
after you've done some EQ and compression
to get the levels again.
Because, obviously, when you do some compression
and some EQ it changes the relative levels.
Or, you can do it at the end,
after you've done all the processing,
all the EQ and compression, and other things.
This tool is here for you to draw upon
whenever you get stuck or you get lost in the mix.
So, I've turned off all the effects
on all of these channels.
So, we're just working on the levels.
So, let's play our pink noise.
(pink noise crackling)
Well, that sounds unpleasant, doesn't it.
Now, the key is to bring in the tracks one by one,
until they're just audible
above the level of the pink noise.
(pink noise crackling)
So, you can just hear that tick above the pink noise.
(pink noise crackling)
And, then, I'm gonna mute that track
and I'm going on to the next one.
(pink noise crackling)
You can hear it just audible above the pink noise.
And, after I've set one, I just mute it
and then move on to the next.
And all the while,
I leave the pink noise working, of course.
I'll just give you a quick example
of what that's like with a vocal.
(pink noise crackling) (faint singing in background)
It's just audible above the pink noise.
Now, I'm gonna rush through
and I'm gonna fast forward this video
and do it exactly the same for all of these channels.
(pink noise crackling)
Okay, so now, we've finished.
We can just switch the mono switch on our master channel
back to stereo, so we're gonna hear it in stereo.
Turn off the pink noise channel.
Just get that out the way.
Make sure that all the other channels are turned on.
So, we can hear our full mix.
So, let's hear what the result is.
♪ Mine mine mine for life ♪
♪ My baby ♪
♪ My sacrifice ♪
♪ Oh na na ay ♪
♪ Do you feel what I'm feeling ♪
♪ Oh na na ay ♪
Plenty of headroom there.
Bear in mind, there's no other effects done yet, no EQ.
You know, the sounds that were selected for the track
are pretty good anyway.
So they match well,
but you can see all effects have been turned off.
This is just the level matching that we've done.
And, you can hear...
Like, that's a pretty good balance.
So, it's conclusive.
Pink noise mixing works.
If you get lost at any point in the mixing process
and you're confused about how to get your levels balanced.
This is such a great and quick tip
for getting it done quickly.
So, obviously, I'm doing this example
with EDM music with, you know like,
future based pop music.
Is there any other genre
that you want me to do this pink noise mixing on?
Let me know in the comments below.
And, the most popular option
is the one I will mix using pink noise.
(upbeat electronic music)