The Basics of Mixing Music

o be You will find four basic elements to mixing music: (1) Levels (2) Panning (3) Compression (4) EQ. That is not to say these are the sole elements, most mixers will also want to make use of effects such as for example reverbs and delays in their mix as well. But these four elements are probably the most essential things you have to understand when mixing music.

(1) Levels

Level is just another word for volume. The significance of this would be extremely obvious so I don't wish to get into it too much detail. Clearly the volume degree of each of the parts of one's song is a huge aspect in how your song sounds. If you have practicing the guitar far too loud than you can't hear the vocals, and visa versa.

There's no occur stone rules as it pertains to mixing, but you may want to get at least a difficult idea of one's levels when you proceed to another steps.

(2) Panning

Panning refers to where a sound is in the stereo spectrum. Including the guitar may be all the way left (100% left) or somewhat left (25% left) or in the center (0%) or almost all the way right (90% right) or anywhere else in the stereo spectrum. Just as with level I would think the significance of that is pretty obvious.

Even more so with setting levels, there's mastering dolby atmos music no rules to panning. You might want to accomplish it last, you may want to accomplish it first. You might want to be very experimental with the way you pan or you may want to accomplish things in a very basic way. A very basic pan may have drums, bass, and vocals up the middle with one guitar on one side and another guitar (or a keyboard or something else) on another side. I wouldn't recommend doing that, that's just an example.

(3) Compression

Compression is an infinitely more complex subject than the top two, in reality it's too complex to get into great detail here. But basically compression is a way of removing a few of the dynamic from the part. Meaning making the quiet parts louder in relationship to the loud parts. Nowadays it's very commonly utilized on almost everything (many would say overused) but at least you are likely to wish to use it in your bass guitar and your vocals.

(4) EQ

By EQ I am talking about adjusting the frequencies of one's tracks. That is normally done to keep different parts from "fighting with each other" so that you can hear most of the parts. EQ is part science and part art and is far too complex to get into great detail here.

A good example of how EQ is employed is that usually the bass guitar and the kick drum are competing for the exact same "spot" in the mix. To simply help let both sounds be heard clearly a mixer will often lower the kick drum in one spot and the bass guitar in another so both have their particular space to be heard clearly.

That is something you would want to do plenty of research on and do plenty of experimenting with to see how it effects your music. If you haven't tried it before perhaps you are surprised by simply how much effect you can have in your sound by adjusting the EQ.