CHECK YOUR MIXES LIKE THIS!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION

Welcome back. I'm Streaky. You're going to be amazed today with these tips that I'm going to give you on how to get your music sounding even better translating in the real world. So when I say the word translating, what that means, if you don't know, is it sounds great in the studio, but when it's in the real world, on radio, in the car and things like that, it doesn't sound the same. Now think of this in the same way. If you are into formula one, as I am. You have a simulator and you simulate the track and you drive the track. When you get there, none of the stuff works on the cars when you're there, because it just hasn't translated from the simulator to the track. Now that's all I'll talk about in F1. How are we going to do this with music in the studio?

Now, my first tip for you is you should be mixing in mono. Now, the reason I say you should be mixing in mono is because if you think of everything in a frequency band from the top to the bottom, I know normally go that way, but let's go from the bottom to the top. And when you're mixing in mono, everything's going to be collapsed into the middle. So what you can do is make sure that you have space. You have everything in the right frequency range. When you're in mono, it really shows up the floors. It really shows up what is poking out, what isn't. And if you watch my video the other day, which I'll link up above on how to worry about focus, this is a really good way of doing that when you're in mono.

Now, a great way to do that if you're in a door and you don't have other speakers, you can use a mono plugin. So you can just monitor it that way on your mix bus, stick it into mono. It'll fold everything down into the center. That way you're not worrying about what's going on. You're not worrying about all the frilly stuff. You're just worrying about where everything is positioned within the frequency band. That way you can do some cuts on the lows and the tops to get everything sitting right. Once it's sitting right, then you can go on stereo and you can start panning things about, and then that way you're going to end up with loads of space. And if you've got loads of space in your mix, you're going to be able to get that mix to go really loud. And you're going to be able to then push that because as I, as a mastering engineer, stop pushing a track. I need that space because with a limiter, it starts pushing all the parts together. So you can push into that space.

So when I say space in the mix, think of it as the white space on a canvas. So sometimes you've got a big canvas and it just shows the colors off so much better because the white space isn't taking up too much room. And then once you push that together, it gels the music together. So think of it in that way, try and get some space so mixing your mono really does that. Now also, whilst you're mixing in mono, which brings me onto the next tip translation is an Auratone speaker. Now they used to see these a lot more in studios, just as a one speaker. But I think a lot of people now use them in stereo. But what I would suggest is getting an Auratone speaker, having that there, you can flip to that, and that's a mono speaker.

So basically, it fold it down into this speaker and you'll be able to hear how things sound in mono. The other reason why mono is good. You don't know where your stuff's going to be played. So it might be played in a shop. It might be played on someone's car stereo, that's mono. You don't know if it's going to be mono. Some club systems ain mono. If you can make sure that it seemed mono and it works in mono, then when if it's in stereo or mono, it's not going to matter your track. Still going to sound the same. Now, sometimes when you do have something that isn't mono, you'll get a phase problem. And phasing means basically you'll have two things play, one play on the left, one on the right. As soon as you put it into mono, they, they basically cancel each other out.

And the problem with that is then it goes missing. So sometimes when you go into mono, you'll have instruments that just suddenly disappeared because you've got effects on there. You might have things out of phase when you've recorded them, and then they just going to disappear as soon as you put them into mono. So that's really a reason why you can make sure that then it translates really well. If it is played on a mono system, you're not in control of that after all. But saying about the speakers, that's the next tip is to try out on different speakers. So you should have, if you're mixing say two or three pairs of speakers. I know a lot of big mix engineers, they use little radios that you can have an aux input on. So they'll have it say it plays on a radio. They'll have it plays on a laptop speaker to hear how that sounds.

It's having a few different devices around so you can listen to exactly how it's going to sound. You don't need to be pumping it through there. Again, watch my video on the balance where it shows you how levels to do it at. But say that you can have different speakers to reference off of. So you know exactly how it's going to sound, which leads me on to my next point, which is knowing how things sound on those speakers. You need to have a selection of reference material that you're really happy with, you know sounds great everywhere. So it could be really professional stuff or it could be stuff you've done yourself. But you need to know how it sounds great in the car, how it sounds great on all these different speakers that you're working on.

And that way you're going to know, okay, those speakers are right. You're going to be used to the sound of those reference tracks. That way when you're mixing, you're going to be able to flip to those speakers and know, okay, it doesn't sound how all the other tracks I listened to on that stuff. So it really is about knowing those speakers really well so that you know, okay, when I flip to those, that's how it should sound on those speakers. That's how it should sound on that speakers. I've just flipped to the Mac mini speakers and I've can't hear the bass anymore. Okay, well I might have to put the bass up a little bit so that it plays on those speakers. Now, how am I going to adjust the mix to do that? And that's the same with the whole mix. It might sound really bright at one set of speakers, but then really dull on another set.

So what's the balance if they sounds dull on those speakers? Does everyone's music sound dull on those speakers? That's the thing you need to know. And that's what having good reference tracks will teach you. And let me know in the comments where you listen to things, is it in the car? Do you have the little stereo? I'd love to know your little tips and tricks on, little things you found about how to get speakers or what speaker you listen on, which then totally translates all the time. I think people will get a lot of value from that in the comments. And if you're liking this video, make sure that you subscribe. I’m only about 600 away from 40. I want to get 50K before Christmas, and then I'll give that Maselec EQ away. So please look down if you haven't subscribed, subscribe now. And if you wouldn’t mind doing me a favor and just hitting the like button, I'll really appreciate that.

So when you have mixed it in mono and you've got all that space, because when you then put it back into stereo, there's a lot of space around all the individual instruments. They are sounding better because they've got the space to sound better. But the most important thing about that is when you're sending it off to a mastering engineer, or when you're mastering it yourself, then you have the luxury of being able to push all those sounds together so that you can get a really loud sound that's not crushed. It sound really dynamic. Everything gets pushed together. If you want to know how exactly to do that, then make sure you the video coming up next, which is on limiting. That'll tell you exactly how I do that in mastering. So you can copy that too. Take those tips. Let me know how you go on. If you've got any other really good tips on how to get things translate properly into the real world, out of your studio, please let me know in the comments. I'd love to know myself. And I'll see you on the next one.