Author Topic: Mixing your tune as you go  (Read 8455 times)

Atherton

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Mixing your tune as you go
« on: February 17, 2016, 04:01:11 am »
So I know there are a lot of people who swear by the process of segmenting their music making process into certain stages, i.e. sound designing, writing, arranging, mixing, etc., because to them it is a more efficient way of doing things.

For example, if you are writing music and trying to come up with a new song idea, it wouldn't be an efficient use of your time to try and get the mix sounding super tight as you're writing it because it will mess with your flow/ flow state. That I totally understand.

One of the things I tend to do though is after I have a solid idea down, and I start arranging it, my arranging process ends up kind of getting merged with my mixing process and I seem to do both of those at the same time. Does anybody do the same thing? I feel like throughout the whole writing process, I am intermittently mixing my track and kind of tightening it up as I go along. Not quite sure if it is Resistance in disguise and is actually slowing down my music making process, or if it is just part of my writing style and is kind of who I am as a producer. Could be all of the above!

Let me know if you guys go through something similar to this. Cheers!

Marrow Machines

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Re: Mixing your tune as you go
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2016, 04:47:40 am »
i try my best to get as close as possible to getting something that i like initially, because i can always go in and tweak it later.

that's really the trade off if you're looking for speed. It's not getting bogged down in the details early on, and just getting what ever you have in your head or on your fingers out in the daw.

then you can segment things as it comes.

I think from a novice or starting approach, this is good to have those sort of segments. but with out self analysis of where you're at or what you've done, you can't get quicker if you just continue in that approach, or expand upon the that idea as it's foundation.
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Lydian

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Re: Mixing your tune as you go
« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2016, 05:47:56 am »
The only thing that I really separate are my composition process and production process.


I play a few instruments so I try to utilize that by writing the notes first. If the notes sound good on a piano then I know that if it sounds bad in my DAW it's gonna be because of the mix or arrangement. I'm not to sure whether it makes things any faster but It doesn't feel like it makes things any slower.


Arranging, mixing, and sound design are a bit of a different story. It's hard for me to tell whether an instrumentation is going to sound good without everything already being mixed. Therefore I like to build out the full instrumentation first (Bass, Drums, Harmony, Leads, FX, etc..) and simply arrange it from there. I've seen virtual riot use this method in his livestream and avicii does the same thing. Same goes for Zedd when it comes to writing things on a piano first. Not to sure about whether he writes his full instrumentation first though.

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Arktopolis

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Re: Mixing your tune as you go
« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2016, 03:46:29 pm »
I prefer to write my music in the DAW, and to me it's important that it sounds as good as possible when I'm playing it back, otherwise I might lose my faith in the whole thing. So I tend to mix as I go, but getting those notes in there is always a priority.

Xan

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Re: Mixing your tune as you go
« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2016, 07:38:32 pm »
I'll write a part and I'll do a small mix/EQ on it and slap my mastering chain on. It gives a good idea of what the finish product may sound like.
I never leave mastering on though. Always turn it off.

Kinesthetics

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Re: Mixing your tune as you go
« Reply #5 on: February 18, 2016, 06:33:32 am »
I balance and EQ as I go, like others mentioned, to get a picture of how the track's going to sound by the end. Bigger jobs like bussing or detailed EQ/compression I leave until the end.
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PlainSimple

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Re: Mixing your tune as you go
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2016, 08:41:22 pm »
i write and sound design the same time , because the sound design helps me write diffrently .
the last thing i do is balance and some compression
lately i dont compress a lot excpect drums and drop synths
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RAVÉN

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Re: Mixing your tune as you go
« Reply #7 on: February 26, 2016, 08:58:40 am »
I would normally eq a little bit but I would like to keep latency low because it is fun to play stuff in.  :)
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Re: Mixing your tune as you go
« Reply #8 on: February 26, 2016, 06:04:45 pm »
This is something I wondered about too.

I had an experienced producer tell me this:

It's OK to EQ/pan/etc. as you go, but after the composition/arrangement stage is done and you're actually ready to mix, you should set everything back to zero and build the mix back up from scratch.

So far I've had trouble sticking to that.

I can't tell from looking at the comments here, but is there a difference between how us amateurs do it and how the pros do it?

Axis

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Re: Mixing your tune as you go
« Reply #9 on: February 28, 2016, 06:12:31 pm »
I always mix (and even master) as I go, otherwise I quickly lose motivation.  This is by no means a universal method, I can see the benefits of focusing on the composition/arrangement first, but it does not work for me.  I need to hear a final (or close to final) result at any point to be able to do accurate referencing and to make sure my sound selection works.  When a track is done, all it takes is one final bounce.

Midge

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Re: Mixing your tune as you go
« Reply #10 on: February 28, 2016, 06:20:53 pm »
a lot of 'pros' also bounce everything down to audio and then do a final mix from those audio parts. I once read that Deadmau5 does this. So he will mix in his project but then for the final version he will export everything to audio and do a final mix down.
I know a few high level producers who do this. Also makes sense because when you are mixing other peoples music you generally do Stem mixes anyway.