Blog
What I'm learning about mixing and staying in the creative zone. I share what actually changed my sessions.
i tune to the song in melodyne, not to perfect pitch on the graph
Whole-take auto made the vocal technically correct and musically wrong. My guitar, loops, and synths weren't always at the pitch a tuner calls in tune. Manual Melodyne on the words that needed it is how the vocal locked to the song.
· 6 min read
the phone check isn't the last step anymore
I used to bounce from whichever system I was on when the mix felt done, then phone-check at the last minute. Headphones were lying about low end, speakers about width, and mono was where phase showed up once I started checking while the mix was still moveable.
· 7 min read
i still high-pass. i just don't start the mix that way
I used to put a high-pass on every channel because that's what cleanup looked like. The mix got clearer in the wrong way. Rumble, tails, and the thin I want on purpose are still filters. Everything else kept its bottom.
· 7 min read
the mix lost because i replaced the demo instead of finishing it
Doing it properly killed the demo. Keeping the bounce and stealing its decisions is what brought the energy back.
· 7 min read
keep the lead in the middle, let the doubles be size around it
I was scared to add doubles and scared to pan them. Keeping them close and loud is what stole the centre. Quieter, a bit wider, and related to the lead is what finally felt like one vocal.
· 6 min read
mid-side dynamic eq first, then one vocal driving the rest
A static EQ cut scooped the track. Mid-side dynamic EQ made room in the centre without taking that frequency out of the sides. Tether kept the backing vocals moving with the lead.
· 7 min read
how issue stacks keep mix revision notes from getting lost, rewritten, or forgotten
I used one Apple Note per project, nested bullets for each bounce. The list couldn't play the moment or tell me which mix a line belonged to.
· 6 min read
why mixing at conversation volume and not concert volume changed how i approach mixing
My vocals sounded great in the session and hollow everywhere else. Mixing loud was gutting my mids - conversation volume is where EQ and dynamics stay honest now.
· 6 min read
why that mix-ready vocal balance never survives mastering - and what i learned about fixing it
My vocals sat perfectly in the mix until mastering buried them. Fletcher-Munson curves, limiter behavior, and phone playback all work against vocal prominence - louder at quiet volume was the fix.
· 8 min read
why stabilising first, then EQ, then compression finally worked for me
More plugins didn't fix my vocals. Level stabilisation before EQ and compression did.
· 8 min read
how staged compression techniques changed my approach to mixing vocals
Stacking compressors until the life was gone? I rebuilt my vocal chain in stages, each with one job, so dynamics stay musical and I stay in the mix.
· 6 min read
