6 Steps to make your music sound EVEN better! (Requested followup from my +$100 Steemit Post)

Please Check out the previous post for more information!

1 Space

This is the basis of any good mix. You want each instrument to take up its own space (we're talking frequencies) in the mix. There's a reason you don't hear songs with 4 basses, but 4 guitars - each guitar can have a new sound (frequency) that adds to the song without stepping on the rest
here's a basic outline of where each instrument sits

This may sound like we're really getting super technical, but it all boils down to what sounds good. Sometimes I don't want my vocals to sit where the chart says because it doesn't fit the song. And if something sounds behind something you may try making something else quieter....

2 Sidechain

When we sidechain something, we take the input of A and make it affect B. In this instance we have a Bass and a Kick. They both sit in the low end and would fight with eachother for the space. If we went and made one louder, it would just make everything messy. So we Sidechain the Kick to the Bass. now every time the Kick hits, it makes the Bass quieter. Now our Kick punches through the Bass, and our mix stays clear!

You can use this for a variety of applications Vocals on Guitar, or Spoons on Trumpet. Kick on Bass is one that I ALWAYS use.

3 Mono/Stereo

Put your Low FQ in mono so that it sounds good through subwoofers. Put your highs in stereo so they sound great. here's something I didn't mention Mix your whole song in mono. If you can make it sound good in mono, then make your last step be to put it into stereo, your mix will be better. :)

4 Busses

Busses are tracks that don't contain audio, rather they are used to send effects to other tracks that do. They're super useful for things like Reverb Gates, bussing compression and other things that I don't talk about in this post. Here are 2 ways you can start using them!

5 Bussing Reverb

By bussing reverb to each track, you put everything in the same room. The more that you put on to each track, the farther away the instrument will sound.

You can add reverb to individual tracks, but I only do that as an effect because it's easier for me to change one parameter on my main slider than go to each track individually. I still put verb on individual tracks if I'm going for that sound. ill factor has by far the best video for making reverb settings.

6 NY Compression

The idea here is wer're crushing the highs and lows with a high Ratio compression to make it sound more full. Ratio is for every 1 db that goes in, how much is the compressor able to push the sound down by. So a low 1:1 will be barely moving, while 1:inf will CRUSH IT!. You probably don't need it that high. Also set a quick attack .01ms and slow release 3s PLEASE DO NOT JUST USE THESE NUMBERS THEY'RE EXTREME TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA, do what sounds good to YOU

I strongly advise messing with where the NY starts on each track individually, and also what amount of Gain you use on the output on a song by song basis. Each song has different instruments and will sound best with something different.

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