Behind The Console
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Behind The Console
Top Mixing Mistakes That Are Ruining Your Songs
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In this episode, we talk about what separates an average mix from a great one, and the common habits that can hold engineers back without them realizing it. We break down how to approach mixing with more intention, better perspective, and decisions that actually serve the song.
Yo, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to Behind the Console. It's Dot and Derek. And we're gonna talk about a couple of things today, but uh we want to start with uh mixing mistakes, right? Am I correct?
SPEAKER_03We want to talk about the common or top mixing mistakes that many engineers are doing that are ruining their mixes or making them making it more difficult for them to complete their mixes. So, off the top of your head, what's the first one that comes to mind?
SPEAKER_01I mean, hey man, it's something that I'm dealing with right now. It's wrong why, like some issues with cables that you don't know that exist, and then the whole balance might be off. You know, so I'm dealing with this right now. So I think um just making sure everything is in order, everything sounds fine, and there's no issues with any type of phasing or any funny things going on. Because again, sometimes you might have everything set up perfectly just the way how I have it right now, because it took me three days to do it, yeah, and then I'm realizing one of the cables is causing some issues, and I'm trying to figure out which one that is.
SPEAKER_03That's the hard part because it's like you don't even know which cable. So, like you could spend all day changing every single cable to find out which one's the issue.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I I roughly know it's in the chain between the interface, sub, and the speaker. Okay. So it's one of three cables that is there. I thought it was the cable that is go was going to uh from my mix bus, but then I realized when I was switching between the mix buses, they run on two different uh signal chains. It was still happening, so I figured it's not on the on the mix bus, it's gonna be closer to the speaker. Okay, then so it's somewhere on the monitor side, but I'm gonna figure it out like once we wrap up.
SPEAKER_03That's like one of the most frustrating things, man. Like when you have something wrong with your equipment and then you have to diagnose where the issue is from, it's it's like literally one of the most annoying things. Yeah, and it takes time. Yeah, it takes so much time.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I think if it happens when you just on your ones and you don't have a session, it's like you still can kind of troubleshoot it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but when it's like in the middle of a session and something fucks up and you're just like, oh my god, what is the problem?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. It happened to me a couple of times. I had to like cancel a session once. Really? Yeah, yeah. What happened? Um, it was time ago. I had the session booked up and everything was working fine. I turned off Pro Tools. I went back to grab some food. Yeah. By the time the client came, I turned on Pro Tools and it just wasn't working. It was it was just crashing all the time and just doing foolishness, and bump it was working perfectly fine, like 30 minutes prior to that.
SPEAKER_03Sometimes I almost feel like these issues though are I don't even know if it's like like your fault. I feel like sometimes it's literally just Pro Tools. Like there's so many bugs with Pro Tools. Like, I feel like though with PCs, for some reason, it seems like you have more issues with Pro Tools than I do because I run a Mac. But even for me, like sometimes I'll be in the middle of a session, my there'll be something wrong with one of my tracks, or like I'm in the middle of a mix, some plugin starts bugging out. But it seems like there's more common issues with PC than it is with Mac.
SPEAKER_01Honestly, yeah, I think it's uh it used to be. I would say like this maybe 10 years ago, Macs felt like I I think Macs were probably more reliable because when I was going to like DUC to check the issues, most of the issues were with PC. But right now, when you go to DUC, there's the same amount of issues with PC and the Mac. True. And I I think with uh with the difference is too, I don't really get too many issues right now because again, custom built PC, I know exactly the parts that I have, I know like what type of equipment I'm dealing with. If you get like one of those, you know, put together PCs with you don't know what motherboard is in it, and like you don't know the RAM that is in it, and all that stuff, I think it might be a little bit more problematic when it comes to the when it comes to the issues. But if you put the computer together with like you know all the high-end parts, like proper motherboard, proper RAM, proper CPU, and all that stuff, I don't think it's gonna give you that many that many issues.
SPEAKER_03I think um so going back to what we were talking about before, I think uh another really common mistake um that people make is in their mixes, a lot of times there's no clear focus point in the mix. So I think we talked about this like last episode very briefly, but in uh today different genres have different focal points. So if we're talking about like hip hop music, most times it's the vocals, kick, or snare and the bass, right? But I think sometimes what people do is like they'll listen to things and they'll be like, oh, this is too quiet, and they'll turn this up, but then they'll turn up this uh sound as well, and then they ruin the balance of everything. Yeah, and then it's like everything is fighting for attention, yeah, and you don't really know what you're listening to because there's no depth, because everything is literally just right in your face, yeah, because you just keep pushing it. Exactly, right? So I think that ties into another thing, which is like people not balancing their mixes um when they first start off and relying more on like EQ when it could literally just be a simple volume adjustment, you know.
SPEAKER_01That's true. I mean, hey man, we gotta ask Jason what he's doing with the minus 1.9, you know.
SPEAKER_03Minus 1.9 loves crazy.
SPEAKER_00Did you listen to those? I didn't even actually listen to it on speakers. Did you listen to it? No, I'm not gonna listen to that, man.
SPEAKER_01I mean, look, it's it's I feel like I'm at that. For me, music is like, I don't want to say like it's a sacred thing, but it's like I want to listen to things that I want to listen to, and I want to work in the things I want to I want to work on, right? So it's like, you know, no this or anything, but it's just like like I I heard like a preview, and I'm like, this is not my cup of tea.
SPEAKER_03It was uh Northwest, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Didn't she just drop an album? I think so. Something like that. I'm gonna listen to it. I'm I'm interested to see how it sounds. I can't lie.
SPEAKER_01Just noise. I mean, look, I'm not even trying to diss, right? It's like every generation got their own sound, but I feel like we're getting to the point. It's it's almost I feel like even with music and stuff, it's like, and you know, I think the the overall balance of everything just kept being pushed more and more and more and more. And when we think we can't go any further, people go further. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Imagine we're gonna go to like plus five left, you know? Is that even possible?
SPEAKER_01Hey man, anything is gonna be possible soon, you know? Yeah. So I feel like we're going to the we are going to a certain place sonically that I don't know, it just it just sounds like noise at the end of the day, you know. I mean, it's like I get it's like a new modern way of whatever distortion, this, this, this, whatever, whatever is happening. But it is like when you're watching the movie and everything just becomes like super pushed and oversaturated and over-collared and all that stuff, it's like you won't be able to watch it, yeah. Because it's just gonna be too much.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that ties into literally another mistake that people make, which is people are over processing all of their mixes. So it's like sometimes less is more. So when you look at sometimes when you get sent to session, you ever open those sessions where you're like you're looking at the vocals and it has like 20 plugins. The kick has like the bass has like eight plugins, the kick has like 20 plugins, you're just like, yo, what are you what is what are you doing? You know, and you start taking off everything one by one, and the more you take off, the better it starts actually sounding.
SPEAKER_01Look, let me tell you something. Let me tell you a story. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna reveal names, uh, I'm gonna tell you after. But shout out to shout out to the guy.
SPEAKER_00You're gonna say the name after?
SPEAKER_01Like to you, but I'm not gonna because you know it's it is, but anyway, so um uh my guy calls me yesterday and he's like, yo, I was listening to uh I was listening to the mixes in Uber, and like you know, we always listen to mixes like good speakers and this and that and that that, right?
SPEAKER_00So he wasn't like Uber with shitty sound system and he played the mixes to his boy, it's like yo, like I couldn't for like I couldn't even hear the words and stuff, right? And I was like, I was like, yo, I told you guys, there's too much reverb, there's too much effects, there's too much of everything in the vocals.
SPEAKER_01But it's like you know, the sauce.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I'm like, I'm in my mind, I'm like, look, I told him, I'm like, look, you have a very expensive vocal chain.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, very expensive. Yeah. Why are we overcooking the vocals to the point where it's like you can't even hear the chain? Oh, you mean he already recorded it with an expensive vocal chain? That's just yeah, like right here. Okay, okay, okay. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01So, so it's like we had the conversation, and like I went back to the mix and I mixed it the way how I hear it in my head. Because I was like, I'm, you know, when I get the reference mix, I have to kind of follow like what's going on in the reference mix. Sometimes I don't agree with things, and I would say, like, look, I don't personally think it's the right way, but I'm gonna do it with you know whatever makes you happy. So I was fine with it. And again, it's like because I'm used to the I'm I I know the records, it's like I under like here, I know the lyrics and all that stuff, right? But then it's like when you play it on the shitty speakers, everything becomes like just a mesh.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01Because you have like 10 different scents for the vocals, you have like chores, you have two different reverbs, you have like some next level slab delays going on, like there's a lot of stuff going on. So when you layer everything all together, it's a mess, and you play it somewhere that doesn't have that definition, doesn't have the detail, everything just gonna be like a mess of you know, just everything all together, right? So so again, I feel like doing too much, and I I I get it, look, everybody wanna get creative, everybody wanna get um, everybody wanna come up with something different, you know. But I feel like sometimes trying to get something different by overdoing things is not necessarily the good thing to go about it, especially if there's like formula that you know that works, yeah. And the formula has been out for decades. You know, I mean it's like you don't have to, like if you're making pancakes and you know it's five ingredients, you don't need to do 15 ingredients to make pancakes because you already know that this is the formula. It's true, and with those ingredients, you know how they're gonna taste. When you're adding more, I mean, it might be a pancake, it might be something else.
SPEAKER_03I agree. You know? And it's not and it's not just like on individual tracks, but a lot of times people are overcooking the mixed bus. Oh, everything. So then when it comes to your mix bus, everything that you're sending to your mix bus is just fried. So you could be you could be over processing your mixed bus, but then you're mixing your song like on the individual tracks. Like, oh, why doesn't it sound better? Why does it sound better? I'm changing this with the kick, I'm changing this with the vocal. But it's like what's really happening is you're just smashing the mix bus and everything's already distorting coming in, you know. So it's you really have to be be conscious of all the moves you're making. Yeah, and again, everything is very genre dependent in today's world, 2026. I mean, bro, the amount of distortion and the amount of free-for-all.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's literally just the free-for-all, bro.
SPEAKER_03Do you uh do you ever mix a mono? Do you ever recommend people mixing a mono for like a portion of their mix?
SPEAKER_01I personally don't. Um, I know guys that do. I'm not against it, I'm not for it, I just don't do it. Um, I tried, it wasn't my cup of tea. Like, I wasn't really like it just wasn't like I feel like there's so many stereo things happening that I I get it. Sometimes when you collapse the stereo image and like things disappear and this and that's the phase issues, yeah. But the thing is that when we get stamps, man, there's already so much stuff going on. It's like sometimes it's like I don't even want to touch the stereo image anymore because there's already so much. I don't know what the producer added on it, you know. So it's like I would check it every now and then to kind of see maybe what's going on, but it's not something that I like. I know there's guys who are like, yeah, I I make 60% of the mix and mono. I personally don't do it. So I don't, it's not like I don't I don't say do it, I don't say not to do it. If it works for you, it works for you. If it doesn't, it doesn't like for me it's just not my thing.
SPEAKER_03I feel I think I used to do it. I remember maybe like a couple years ago, I watched this. Um I think it was a video by Ali, mixed by Ali, and he was saying that he does a does mixing in mono sometimes, like he'll check in in mono. Yeah, and I remember that's when I had the uh the D-Box, you know, on the D box there's a mono button. So I remember I used to do it and I was like, okay, it's kind of cool. But then I I think I realized for me too, it's just when I collapsed the information and I was like hearing stuff in mono, I just kind of lost the vibe of what was going on, you know, because I'm so used to just hearing things wider, the instruments wider, hearing the vocals, hearing the reverse, but like now everything was kind of just yeah, yeah, here. And I get it, you know, like in certain systems and certain places that you're gonna play the mix or you play the music, it's gonna be in mono. Yeah, so it has to sound good in mono. But I think as long as you're not really having any crazy phase issues, and I think the TC um electronic is really clutch for that with the correlation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. After I got that and I was able to check the correlation, I was like, okay, this is like actually super, super helpful. Because I wasn't even able to get any of that information before, and I was kind of just relying on like my ears, but then but then sometimes like you know when you play something on the speakers and it sounds fine, but then all of a sudden you play on your air paws and things just sound like really weird and phasey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was having those issues here and there, but I think honestly, after getting the TC, it it helped me a lot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for me, I'm I'm like I I would use like a vitalizer to maybe spread things a little bit, um, but not over the top. If I do it, it's just a little bit, maybe the wider plug-in um as well. But I usually try to do the stereo imaging on the master bus. So like on the portico, I would just kind of like find the SFE, right? Yeah, yeah, the width that I like and kind of keep it there. And then I have an exciter as well that I kind of move the I have it on the MS mode. So when I move the the sliders and stuff, I kind of the bands, right? Yeah, the bands, I kind of fine-tune where I want the stereo image to be. Uh, but yeah, there's definitely some tools. I remember some plugins that I've tried and they just did not do a good job. They were like doing too much phasey stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I agree. The only ones that I really use to really widen stuff is um the vitalizer. I do like the BX digital, the V3. I like that the spread, the stereo.
SPEAKER_01You gotta be careful with that one though. I love it, but you gotta be careful with that because it changes. You can push it a lot. You can push it a lot, but it does, it does a lot too. It does. For me, it's like my 100% with that plugin would be like 115%. Like that's the max you're pushing, you mean? Yeah, because it's always on 100.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's like if I do it, I would do like maybe two, three percent, like just a little bit. If I'm doing like maybe hook or something, I want it to pop a little bit more, I would go a little bit more excess excessive. I would do like maybe 115 or something.
SPEAKER_03But are you doing this on your mixed bus or are you on your instrument bus? On the mixed bus. On the mixed bus. Okay, okay. True. Yeah, yeah. True, true, true. I usually like spreading things more for my instruments, and I like keeping my um well actually no, that's that's not true. Because I'm on my master desk, I like using the the widener as well. But I only push it like at most like 10%. Yeah, just a little bit. And then I use the um the uh mono mono button as well. Like the the thing that the tight ends are the lower end? Yeah, yeah, I use that as well. Maybe around like depending on the song, like 60 to 80, maybe 100 sometimes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I use it that the some songs need it, some songs don't. It really depends.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um I think another issue that um one of the top mixing mistakes that people make is they mix in solo a lot. So you ever I remember when I used to start mixing a lot before I really even knew what I was doing, I would listen to things that I would listen to in solo. Like, for example, like the snare. Like I would listen to the snare and solo, I'll be like, oh, there's so many frequencies here, there's so many frequencies in the low, and there's so many piercing frequencies, and I would like spend like hours just EQing the snare, and then I would play with the rest of the mix. I'm like, damn, this sounds like ass. You know what I mean? So it's I think when you're mixing stuff in solo, I think it's important for you to know what you're looking for in relation to the rest of the mix. But if you're just soloing things individually and just like literally sweeping the oh, this, I don't like this frequency, boom, I don't like this frequency, boom, and you play it again with the rest of the mix, most of the time it's not gonna sound cohesive with everything else.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think I was never big on mixing and solo, like it just never made sense to me. But I think it's like it's a balance of everything. Sometimes when you have like a sound that has like a piercing frequency that you need to just like identify, I think it's fine if you solo it, find the frequency, kind of work around that frequency and just bring it back, mix it in. You know, so again, mixing the whole thing in solo, like kick solo, yeah, snare solo, bass solo, like that would take forever, and like that would not really make sense. But you know, it's just it's just another way of doing things, you know.
SPEAKER_03So I think uh another big issue, obviously, probably the biggest one are low-end issues. So relationships between the kick and the bass, things not meshing together. I think that's probably one of the things that would cause your mix to either a you can't push it loud enough, or you can't get it clean enough, or it's just causing a lot of muddiness in the rest of the mix. Yeah, yeah. So, for you, like what are things that you would do to kind of get that perfect harmonious relationship between your kick and your bass?
SPEAKER_01Honestly, it there's no specific thing that I do because it really comes down to how the kick sounds and how the bass sounds. If it's like a kick that is more bassy with like almost like an 808 feel, it has a sustained. Yeah, and then it's an 808 on top of that, and I'll treat it very different than if I have like an acoustic kick with uh with the live bass. Right? Uh but one thing that uh one thing that I always do is R bass on the bass. Like that's one thing that I always do, and you know, not a lot, but just a little bit to give me that bump in those like lower end harmonics, that's so soft harmonics, and kind of find a space for it. Um and just listen, I I feel like it's always about keeping the keeping it punchy, keeping the kick punchy, and keeping the bass driving everything else. Like that's kind of my philosophy, unless there's like only bass and no no kick or something. Like, you know, different songs are gonna have a little bit different approach, right? Um, but I don't have a specific way how I mix um the bass and the kick correlation. It really comes down to just like how it sounds because sometimes I get stuff and I'll listen to it and I'm like, oh, it already sounds good. Right. And sometimes selection. Yeah, and sometimes I get something, I'm like, oh, I gotta flip the face on the kick. Cause like something is not right, or I might have to just like line up the transient to like get it a little bit closer, right? So um, yeah, there's there's there's so many different ways, so many different solutions for different situations that you know it's really hard to pinpoint one because it really comes down to like how it sounds.
SPEAKER_03What are your thoughts on sidechaining? Are you uh a fan of sidechaining? Because you know how some people on the internet are like, why would you ever sidechain your kick and bass? I never sidechain my kick and bass. That's how you lose all the punch. But then there are people who swear by it, no, kicking sidechain is the best way to get your kick and bass on and clean.
SPEAKER_01I think my biggest, my biggest take on not everything, whatever method it is, um, is there to use. If it works at a time, use it. I don't like out probably I wouldn't side chain probably 95% of the times. Okay. But every now and then I'm like, I need to sidechain because this is what is necessary. Okay. I try to avoid it as much as I can because I don't like when the kick kind of when they do this. What does that mean? Like kick hits and it ducks the the bass and then like it comes like it comes back. For me, it's like I understand the concept, but I'm trying to make it work without trying to like use that extra dynamics and sending this here and this to like duck it here and get the envelope to release here and all that stuff. Like, I'm I don't like again, I don't necessarily like to do it. If it works, if I need to do it because you know the mix requires certain type of feel or something, I would do it. But it's not something that uh it's not something that I like do every single, you know, every single mix.
SPEAKER_03So if you're not doing that, say for example, you have you do have a kick and a bass that aren't really meshing together, would you just focus more on EQ? Is that like your primary CQ?
SPEAKER_01Sometimes I just go, I'm like, if the kick just doesn't if the kick doesn't kick, I just take trigger and I just find it replace the kick? Yeah, yeah. True, yeah, you could do that. I don't even tell them, I'm just like you don't tell them? What if they hear it and it sounds different? Every now and then, but like nine out of ten people don't like they can't tell. True. As long as it sounds good, as long as it sounds good. Cause I'm not changing the pattern. I'm just and like I even when I'm changing the kick, I still try to find something that is within that same frame of the kick. Okay, you know what I mean? So it's still it's similar, but it has like certain character that I was missing before. Okay. Cause like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna spend like an hour, two hours trying to EQ the kick to make it sound certain way. If I can just find a kick within five minutes and I'm like, hey, it's good to go. That's true, that's true. You know, it's like I'm I'm trying to be efficient with this, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03Like, that's true, that's true. I think um, yeah, it does. I guess changing the kick does matter. Uh the sound selection at the end of the day is definitely the most important thing, I think, when it comes to kick and bass relationships. It's just sometimes you can literally just find that cake that just meshes perfectly with the bass, and there's literally no issues at all. Like you receive the mix and everything is perfect, and you actually don't even need to touch it at all. And it and all it really needs, maybe is like you said, an R base to boost the the sub a little bit, give it a bit more fullness, a bit more roundness. But a lot of times you do get those cakes and those bases where it's just you're just pulling your hair, man. Yeah, yeah. I have to admit though, that I'm late to the party with Saturn 2. Saturn 2?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. On what? On bass or just in general? Uh in general, but like base mainly. Like I found like, you know what, then I want to apologize too when it comes to I mean, I guess with Saturn is a little bit different situation, but like, you know, I always kinda I always kind of You weren't a fan of Fab Filter. No, I I love Fab Filter, yeah. Yeah, I I use like Pro Q all the time. Pro Q is like my top three EQ. Really?
SPEAKER_03I thought you've always SSL everything.
SPEAKER_01You're SL SSL, yeah. SSL for the EQ EQ, Pro 4, I use for the Spectrum. Oh. Because the way how like I have a couple of dynamic EQs, but that spectral mode, man, it hits different. Like, I don't know what type of crack these guys added to it, but like just the way how it captures the Like those little peaks and frequencies and stuff, and like how you can clean up certain things. I'm like, it adds a lot of latency, but you know, it's something for something. Do you like that more than Sooth? Two very different things. Sooth is a very different plug-in to uh Pro Q4. Uh they do different things, they sound different. Sooth, I would definitely yeah, it's just two different applications. I I don't want to compare them because I use them as much, I just use them in a very different ways. Okay, but anyway, what I was trying to say, I want to apologize because I always bash the presets. And last time I had like this thing about that. Yeah, no, I had this issue with the with the base, and I just couldn't get it to cut. Like I did so much, and I was like, just last resort. I'm like, you know what? Let me just try Saturn 2. Like, I it's always in the back of my head, but I was like, let me just try it. Right. And I just started going through through presets. I was like, look, I'm I'm too lazy to even try to figure it out. Let me just go through presets and I'm going, going, going, and like, bam, it clicks.
SPEAKER_00And I'm like, okay, I think I I figure out how to make presets right now, you know? But those those presets are different from the presets we were talking about. No, no, yeah, yeah. I know. We were talking about EQ and stuff, but like vocal presets, and drainers.
SPEAKER_01For sure, for sure. But uh yeah, Saturn 2 is uh is something that I've the thing the crazy thing is I've used it a couple of times before, it just didn't it didn't Saturn to me before, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03I feel I'm not a big user of Saturn 2 as well, I'll be honest. Yeah, yeah. I haven't really used them much, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it's like it just I I just tried it and I was like, yeah, it literally gave me the character that I was looking for. So I was like, you know what? I'm not gonna use it. I don't use it all the time, but like if I have an issue to get bass in a certain place, I'm like, you know what? Let me add a little bit, let me tweak it. And like I'm learning it as I go right now because before it was just preset, kind of tweak the preset. Right now, I'm trying to understand every saturation, like every move, every little slider that it has, and all that stuff, just to like really remaster it.
SPEAKER_03Um so what was the preset itself doing that that helped push that bass? Was it just adding more harmonics in the top band? Is that what it was doing?
SPEAKER_01It added harmonics, but it did something, like it just lifted the the bass in a way that I couldn't lift it with anything else. I couldn't lift it with the EQ, I couldn't lift it with the R base, and R base was already on it. I added like some other saturations and this and that. It just didn't do it because I didn't I didn't want to change the character of it, I just wanted to lift it. Right. And there's a preset called clean or something like that, and it just like popped, and I was like, okay, that's exactly what I wanted to do. Because like it still maintained that same character, right?
SPEAKER_03It just like gave me a little bit more, you know, boost. Was it for an 808 or was it for like uh like a bass guitar or was it for a sub?
SPEAKER_01Like what it's like uh 808 sub-ish type of situation. It's not straight 808, but it's not straight sub. It's like something in between. Okay, interesting. You know, so interesting. I gotta start giving Saturn Tuna more try. Yeah, yeah. So Saturn, um, but yeah, let's go back to mistakes.
SPEAKER_03What are some other ones you use commonly see?
SPEAKER_01Mixing? Yeah. Um mixing when your ears are tired. I think that's the big one. You know, I was so tired yesterday, like last night, like my battery was completely drained. And I was like, I'm trying to mix that song and I'm mixing it. And I'm like falling asleep mixing it. Falling asleep. I'm literally falling asleep mixing it, you know, and I'm like, I can't hear what I'm doing, and I'm like, I want to finish it. Oh, I have this idea. So it's almost like the ideas in my head are being disconnected from the reality because the information that I'm getting in, it doesn't register in like in my head top. Right, right, right. You know, so I feel like mixing on uh when your ears are tired or overall when just tired, that's one of the big mistakes. And the thing is that because I know it, I was like, you know what? I did maybe like five minutes and I was like, Yeah, I'm I'm shutting it down, I'm gonna get back to it in the morning. Yeah, because I know if I kept going for an hour, like I would wake up, I would I'll go back to the mix and I'll be horrified. I was like, I literally have to redo the whole thing because I messed it up, you know?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sometimes you actually create more work for yourself just because you don't really know like when to call the quits. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I completely understand that. So, how often are you like usually taking breaks then? Usually when you're when you're mixing, do you have like a time interval kind of thing you do, or are you just like, yeah, let me just take a break whenever I feel like it.
SPEAKER_01Whenever I feel like it. I mean, we don't have supervisor looking over our shoulder, you know what I mean? So it's like we don't have to, sorry, sir, can I go to the washer?
SPEAKER_02You know, like we don't have to do that.
SPEAKER_01So uh whenever I feel tired, I would take a short break. But generally, I I think is you know, even when at least for me, when I go between the between the mixes and have to recall the mix and stuff, like it's always like a couple of minutes cool cool time because you know I have to recall everything, make sure everything is the way how it was before, and then go back to it, right? So it's not like I just open it, start mixing, and then like another one and they just start mixing. Like, there's always a little couple of minutes in between so I can like rest a little bit, get my ears like readjusted to to what I'll be doing, right?
SPEAKER_03So yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel that. I think for me too, it's like I have the same issue where it's like I'm mixing something, and even though it might be like closer to the end of the day, I'm just tired. I'm just like, man, I just want to finish this, bro. I just want to finish this, I just want to send it to him. I just want to like be done with it, you know. But I know those ones. It's always those ones, man. When you do it and you wake up in the morning, you I throw on my airpod. I'm at the gym, I'm throwing on my airpods. I'm like, let me listen to the mix I did last night. I'm like, oh my god, this sounds like shit.
SPEAKER_01The vocals are all over the place, the reverbs are too loud, the delays are like, oh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I think one of the main things that I realize that I do um when my ears get fatigued is I'm things always go brighter because when my ears are tired, or the higher frequencies to me, they're not registering as high frequencies. They're more like dulled out because my ears are already just tired from hearing them all day. So then I find a lot of times when I'm listening to it the next day, everything's just really sharp, really bright, like just too much air everywhere. And I'm just like, man, this is I really shot myself in the foot with that one.
SPEAKER_01Even with everything you said, um, when it comes to sharpness and stuff, like I told you before about the changing the tubes. So when I was mixing before with the old tubes, everything sounded fine, and there was no issues with it. And then I changed the tubes and I started hearing things different, and I went back like reworking the mix, reprinting it, and listening to it back. And I'm like, holy, there's like day and night difference between the way how it was before and how it is right now. But it sounded fine before, yeah, until I changed the you know, and uh I even want to I want to say something about changing tubes, whoever uses tube equipment and all that stuff, guys. Get yourself high-end tubes. And I know it's like a lot a lot of like I remember there was somebody that commented on my TikTok, he was like, Oh, tubes don't make that big of a difference. Some, some, some. Like, people, there's always people that fucking talk, man. Always saying something. Like people either they don't have the thing, they try to convince you, like, look, it's a small difference, some, some, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's always yapping. But the truth is that look, if you change something and you, yeah, maybe, maybe if you change a tube or like change a piece of gear and you print back the old mix through it, it's not gonna be a big difference. It's gonna be like, it's gonna be a little bit of difference, but it's not gonna be a big difference. Right. But once you start mixing in it, and you're gonna start hearing things different, and you're gonna hear that frequencies that the top end is smoother, and this and that, and that and that, the decisions that you make are gonna change. For sure. You know what I mean? So 100%. I would say one of the one of the one of the the mistakes I would add to uh to the list is not trying to get your gear sounded the best as it can sound. You know what I mean? Because again, it's like, yeah, you can you can have a JJ tube or any of those like you know mid-ran mid-grade or like lower low end tubes, and they're gonna do a the job. I'm not saying they they won't, but there's gonna be a difference if you have a $30 tube in it or if you have like a $200-300 tube in it. 100%.
SPEAKER_03You know what I mean? There's a reason it's $300.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's there there's a reason, you know what I mean? So it's like always try to just just just engineer stuff, you know. I mean, I I feel like I watch a lot of uh I'm watching a lot of um history, like there's this history of audio channel on YouTube, really, really interesting. And they break down a lot of companies, like how companies, you know, how it they came to life, like how Philips came to life, Panasonic, RCA, like all those companies, like even though they are not necessarily pro audio companies, like Yamaha and all that stuff, but there's like segments how they say how this thing became big in recording studios, right? Like why uh like uh uh NS10s, there was a whole segment like how Yamaha had the different ideology of a speaker because usually speakers were created like oh we need more warmth and this and that and that. But then Yamaha was like, we want the the speaker to be a tool, we don't want it to sound, we don't want it to sound good, not even sound good, we just want it to be as transparent as it can be, right? You know what I mean? Like paper cones and like just just making it like critical for critical thinking. But then that speaker literally changed the whole entire year 10, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01That changed the whole entire music industry, the way how it's how it's um, you know, how people were listening to it. Same thing with JBL. JBL used to have a speaker, I think it was like in the 70s, that every studio had. You know what I mean? And like just watching those in the those videos and seeing how usually it starts exactly the same way. Young engineer, and it's not audio engineer, but it's like you know, just uh electric engineer, like they know how to get stuff a certain way. Right. And it starts like, you know, the guy is like early 20s or even 19 and all that stuff, and he has a vision. He's like, Oh, I want to do this, and they start to like build their own amps in like a little room, some, some, some, and then the amps become more and more popular, and they have they get more money and they build the companies and they have more, you know, more ideas how to get things sound better, and they find better components and this and that. Like, it's you know, it's super interesting. But what I'm trying to say is that if you're an engineer, if you mix records for a living, or you want to mix records for a living, and you plan to buy a whole bunch of gear, you have a whole bunch of gear, try to modify it to make it sound even better than what it is. It might be different, it might be better, but I I think like if you if you do something, if you cater the sound towards how you like to how how you like to hear things, you will have more fun mixing things, and at the end of the day, it's gonna sound better because you're gonna be fully immersed in the sound that you're chasing.
SPEAKER_03I agree. It's important to be open and just be experimental with the things that you're the tools that you're using.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 100%. And and it's like you know, doing certain things. I mean, you changed the tube in the in the the manly. Yeah. I switched tube again. I got the mollard right now. Mollard? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh, how's it sound compared to the the lion? Very different, but it's also fire. Yeah, different in what way? Like darker. Darker?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, interesting, like warmer. Gold Lion is amazing, it's very bright, it's like in your face, it's really here. Mollard is like smoother. Smoother. You know, I mean it doesn't have as much power, but it's like it kind of melds melts in instead of like pushing it up front. You know, but yeah. No, sorry, go ahead. But then I have a diff I changed the tubes in the preamp as well. So I have like different tubes like on the stages, right?
SPEAKER_03I'm not gonna lie, man. I've been um I started mixing some vocals recently, and I just realized I don't think I really like the U87. This is a kind of off-topic question, but no, it's I I I've been mixing the songs with the U87, and the the guy came in to recut some of the vocals on the track, yeah. And we were doing it with my manly, of course, and I'm recording with the manly, it just right off the bat, it's just so much more like dynamic, so much more air, so much more clarity. I'm comparing with the raw vocals from the U87. I'm just like, bro, this does not sound good, bro. Yeah, it's like it's just so dark and so like like low mids, and just it's just so much more to clean up. Whereas like with the many, I'm just like, yo, all I need to do is a few EQ touches, and this shit sounded good, bro.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I I think I was never a fan of U87. Um, I was watching this. Um, there was an engineer in UK, I forgot his name. Again, I was watching just some YouTube uh video, and he was presenting his studio, and he said he had five U87s, and he said, like, I don't really like this microphone, but everybody always requests the that's what I'm saying, bro.
SPEAKER_03It's like so many people request the microphone, but I feel like it's just it's just hype. It's just like, oh U87, U87. They just know what it is, yeah. But they don't know any better.
SPEAKER_01I think it's I think it's more marketing that was like though, don't get me wrong, it's like U87 been on like the biggest records out there. 100%. It's still a good mic. Yeah, it's it's it's a good mic, but again, at the end of the day, it's preference. I'm I'm with you on the same boat. Like, uh, I never liked U87. Yeah, man. I was never a fan of U87, and you know, even when I was looking for a microphone, I went with uh Manly because that was the second, I don't want to say second best thing, but that was in the same league as U87. But it's just like it like sonically, it just appealed more to my preference, what I like to hear. You know what I mean? And like U87 and 103, they just have that weird frequency, like somewhere in the high mids or something. It's like you know, you know what I'm talking about, like that bricky-like frequency that is always there, and it's like you can't really get rid of it. It's just there all the time. It's part of the sound, yeah. It's just it's a part of the sound.
SPEAKER_03And I hate it, bro. Yeah, yeah, man. I hate it. Like, if you compare it to the manly, the vocal automatically off-rip just recording, so much more open, so much bigger. It just feels better, yeah. You know, and it's like when you're mixing the vocal, it's so much less work. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, man.
SPEAKER_01100%. Yeah, I mean, look, shout out to Neumann, you know. I mean, uh, shout out to them. Like, I I still use MT48, love that thing, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Neumann's still a great company at the end of the day. Like, you know, the the the U47s, U67s, amazing, amazing microphones. Those are some of the best microphones in the world.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's just yeah, I I think the the U87 is just a hype. I I feel like the biggest thing is like everybody always talk about this mic, everybody want to use it. It's almost like sometimes people call me and they're like, Do you have U87? You know, like people specifically ask for the microphone.
SPEAKER_03That's happened to me too. That's why I'm saying this, because it's like people request it and then they're like, Oh, what microphone do you have? I'm like, oh, the manly. It's like, oh, what mic is that? And I still have the link. And then they see the price, and it's like, okay, say less. You know, but it's just you have to be open to trying new microphones. It can't just always be U87, U87. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I feel like Manly just looks so much better. Oh, it looks way better. Yeah, yeah. It looks way better. Even like the the the sorry, not the the mic, uh, what do you call it again? The mesh or the stabilizer, the oh, the shock mount? Yeah, the shock mount, sorry, yeah. Skip my mind. Even the shock mount, the way that it looks, bro, look, it just looks fire, bro. Yeah, yeah. The colors, the red and the black. Yeah, yeah. I would love to get a gold one, but the budget is not here right now. That's like that's like the same price as a C 800.
SPEAKER_01No, they uh they have one on at Lung McQuaid right now in the the gear, gear hunter thing. Yeah, I think for 7,000. But that's used though, right? Yeah, that's used.
SPEAKER_03They have one used for 7,000. Yeah. That's kind of crazy because a new because the ones that we have is is like five bands. Yeah, so it's not too far off.
SPEAKER_01Honestly, I'm not gonna lie, Lunger McQuaid did slapping the the deals later.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, bro. I think that might be worth a cop. But I've never heard it though, so it's hard to see.
SPEAKER_01It's it's it's a different mic. It's it's it's a different design, it's not based on the same capsule. Have you heard it before? Have you used it? I've heard like uh there was a website that had comparison between the the black one, silver one, and the gold one. How did it sound? It sounds good. More vintage, darker. I personally kind of nice. Like it's it's a nice microphone. I just don't think it like even with the C 800, I don't think CA hundred is worth 15 bands. Oh, 100%. You know, I mean it's just one of those things where it's like you paying for the for the brand, and you not even brand, you paying for the the what the mic is known for, like how it looks and all that stuff. I don't know. I I as I said before, I feel like five thousand dollars is tops for any micro. I feel you, man. I feel you, man. So I mean, even like the the telefunken, the 60, is it the 67? Or is it 47? I forgot which one that is. This one? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it's 47. Yeah, but like with this one, it's like, you know, I think it's like 17,000 or something. Yeah. But the crazy thing is that just the cable for it, like just the the the cable going from the microphone into the the power stamp, the power supply, is like 1500 bucks. Just that cable? Just the cable. So if the cable goes, you have to spend 1500 bucks just to get a cable in. And you the thing is that you know that this cable is now worth it.
SPEAKER_03100%, 100%. Like it this cable is 100 bucks top, especially today. It's probably made in China, bro.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 100%. You know what I mean? So yeah, it's just it's just one of those things. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03But yeah, but yeah, man. I think it's a good point to uh wrap it up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think we're we're good. Yeah, so uh we're gonna we're gonna get a guest, another guest soon time. We just put in a couple of things together. 100% so uh it's gonna be uh a couple of guests, yeah. So you guys gonna see.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we got some surprises lining up, we got some guests lined up. So yeah, man, stay tuned. Thank you for listening and watching as always. We appreciate you guys. Stay tuned for the next episode. For sure. All right, peace out, have a good one.