I have an arch nemesis.

(You do, too.)

He was a bigger threat when I was first starting out with recording, but he still rears his ugly head.

His name? My car. (If you must know, my car’s name is “Franc.”)

I hate the sound system in my car. Great mixes sound “okay” on it. Bad mixes sound awful. I bet you can relate, no?

So here’s the deal.

I finished up a mix last week. Throughout the entire mix process I only listened to the mix through my nice studio monitors and headphones.

You see, I came down with a small case of overconfidence.

Because the mix was “working” for me, I didn’t see a reason to listen to it elsewhere. Perhaps it’s arrogance. Or maybe stupidity?

Either way, I waited way too long to listen to the mix in my car.

And???

It made me sad.

The balance between tracks was off. The lead vocal and snare drum were too loud, and there was a general harshness in the upper midrange.

So here’s what I did.

I went back to my studio, and fired up my “crappy speaker.” This is a single speaker I set up a few weeks ago. I use my mixer to send the mix in mono to this cheap little powered speaker I bought years ago.

What’s so awesome about this crappy speaker? It has a 3-inch woofer on it. It’s teeny tiny compared to most studio monitors. It doesn’t have much definition, especially in the low end, and it really emphasizes the mid-range of the audio passing through it.

In short, it sounds like a car stereo speaker, in all of it’s hideous glory.

And you know what? When I play some of my favorite albums through this speaker, they STILL sound great.

When I played my unfinished mix through it, the problems IMMEDIATELY jumped out. I mixed for a while through this crappy speaker until things were sounding good again.

Then I flipped back to my main studio monitors, and…

Yay! It sounded great.

No more mysterious trips to the car.

No more guessing what my mix sounds like in a crappy car stereo.

I brought the crappy car stereo INTO my studio.

And you know what?

I think it’s my favorite thing to mix on right now.

Who’da thunkit?

Regardless of how great or crappy your speakers are, you need to know how to manipulate your mix to sound top notch, and it all starts with a crazy little thing called EQ:

www.UnderstandingEQ.com

Joe Gilder

Last week I finished up a mix for a song I’ve been working on for a while.

(It’s actually the song I’m using to demonstrate everything I’m teaching to my latest round of Production Club students.)

The mix is sounding really incredible…if I do say so myself. It’s clean and full and punchy. It’s pretty much exactly what I envisioned for the mix when I first wrote the song.

But you wanna know a secret? (A secret that some people would rather I didn’t reveal?)

I didn’t use a single “fancy” plugin.

TRANSLATION: I used only the plugins that came free with Pro Tools.

I shared the mix with one of my buddies who sells music gear for a living. When I told him I only used stock plugins, he told me not to tell anyone, or they won’t buy plugin bundles from him!

(He was joking, of course.)

So, am I anti-plugins? Nah, not at all. (I own the Waves SSL and Gold bundles.)

But you know what I AM against? Putting up imaginary barriers.

Every time you say you can’t get a good mix with your “boring” plugins, you’re putting up an imaginary (and false) barrier.

And you know what? It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I can only speak from my experience, but let me encourage you with this:

You CAN get great-sounding mixes.

You can.

Even if you’ve never bought a plugin bundle in your life.

You can.

Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.

To learn how to wield a “boring” EQ like a champ:

www.UnderstandingEQ.com

Cheers!

Joe Gilder

Hey, guess what?

People who say “you can’t mix on headphones” are silly gooses.

Do I enjoy mixing on studio monitors?

Yeppers.

Do I enjoy mixing on headphones?

Again, yes.

Why? Because I really love mixing. And you should, too. It’s stupid fun.

But there are things to consider when mixing on headphones. There are good and bad parts to both headphones and speakers.

What are they?

Graham and I hash it out in detail on the latest episode of the Simply Recording Podcast. You can give ‘er a listen right here:

SimplyRecordingPodcast.com/mixing-on-headphones/

That’s all for today.

Joe Gilder
Home Studio Corner

P.S. If you’re super anxious to “get your mix on,” but you don’t have any tracks to work with, I gotcha covered:

www.MixWithUs.com

Have you seen the movie “The Waterboy” with Adam Sandler?

It’s a silly movie.

Bobby Boucher wants to play college football, but his mama tells him that “foosball is the devil!”

Well, today you need to imagine me with a thick Louisiana bayou accent (I grew up in Mississippi, so that shouldn’t be too hard for you) saying, “Boosting with EQ is the devil!”

Now, I think Bobby’s Mama was wrong about “foosball,” but I’m right about EQ.

Lemme explain.

Mixing can be tough. No doubt about it.

But a common tendency among beginners is to use EQ to “add to” the sound.

They think EQ is meant to be used to:

• add more bass and warmth and “punch” (by boosting the lows)
• add more “presence” to the track (by boosting the mids)
• add more “air” to the track (by boosting the highs)

Add, add, add.

Boost, boost, boost.

You end up with MORE than what you started with.

In my opinion, the best way to mix is to start with a bunch of tracks and start TAKING THINGS AWAY. (Think of it as a sculpture.)

It’s already a challenge to get all the tracks to blend together nicely. Why make it even MORE challenging by boosting frequencies, thereby adding MORE sound into the song?

You’re working against yourself.

More cuts, less boosts.

Boosts aren’t always bad, but if that’s your go-to EQ move, you might want to re-think your approach.

Cutting is the way to go, but only if you do it right. Otherwise, you might as well be boosting.

To learn my non-boosting, devil-free approach to EQ, hop on your fan boat and skim on over to:

www.UnderstandingEQ.com