Mixing and Mastering, Processing in general, are incredibly important when you are producing music. It has been a topic I have always been trying to research and better, and to evaluate I think I came into this project with a solid amount of both research and practice to produce my music, however, you can always better your knowledge.
How I use Processing
The most common processing was done to the ‘bass’ synths. These always had eqs, distortions, compressors, even reverbs to enhance the sound.
Eq’ing was done both to increase and reduce general frequencies (filter curves mostly), and to reduce harsh resonant frequencies that were hard to listen to. An example is the eq in Solestis on the main bass synth where I put a fine notch in to soften a very harsh resonant peak.
This eq notch meant that the bass was much more listenable as having a ringing harsh frequency is never nice to listen to.
Distortion was added using a few plugins. The most common is the fl studio soft clipper plugin, this just lightly distorts sounds adding more harmonics and depth to the sound – especially useful to put on sub basses. Another distortion plugin I like to use is the fl studio fast distortion plugin, this is a heavier distortion and you can reduce the threshold on the distortion to add a smaller amount of buzz which again creates more harmonics and a more interesting listening experience.
Reverb was added to create more space in sounds. I most commonly used the reverb that is built into serum and used the envelopes and lfos to modulate the reverb mix amount as to reduce it clashing with other sounds when the synth isn’t playing in the drop. I used generally low decay amounts on the reverbs I used that weren’t built into serum to avoid having reverb tails bleeding all over and muddying the high end up of the mix.
Compression is very very useful. My favourite use of compression is setting it to multiband mode inside of serum and cranking the low end – in turn reducing the high end – which heavily beefs up your sub basses. I also use it on group buses, drum bus – bass bus – etc, to help reduce peaks in the channel and glue all of the sounds together
Mixing research
The processing tool I did the most research on was definitely compression. It was definitely the tool that I by far knew the least about and underutilized the most.
The first article I read about compression was this very concise article on multiband compression. This inspired more research into a tool which I discovered extremely useful for sound design.
https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/multiband-compression-basics-izotope-mastering-tips.html
The next article I read was an Izotope article which once again very concisely gave me help with multiband compression. After this point I now know much more about the individual band controls, and I have a more solid knowledge of what effects they have on the sound.
I read this article which goes into detail about how to utilise the attack and release parameters on the compressor. It is useful to know these because different frequency ranges sound better with different parameter settings and it is really useful to know for sidechain compression to allow the kick to cut through the sub.
Eq on the other hand was an effect that I researched very little. The only research I did specifically into eq’ing that wasn’t to do with mastering was watching this video on the bus about Pro Q 3 – the eq I use. This eq has a great depth of features which I honestly didn’t know about until watching this video.
I again researched very little into distortion as a processing tool. I read this article detailing about soft clipping, as I said earlier a tool I like to use frequently, deepening my knowledge of the type of distorting sound which was very useful for processing my synths and drums.
The other article I read about distortion was a rather useful guide talking about ’10 smart ways to use distortion when you’re mixing’ this just details 10 more useful ways to use the effect – more knowledge the better.
https://www.musicradar.com/how-to/10-smart-ways-to-use-distortion-when-youre-mixing
Mastering Research
Mastering was a topic I was completely lacking in coming into this project. I did not master any of my music up until this point because I did not know how to do it or what it really was in all honesty. The main way I got myself up to some sort of standard was practicing mastering old songs I made, however, researching the practice was equally important to learning.
My first proper intro into mastering was where I got a lesson in mastering on ozone 9 from one of my teachers. After that ozone 10 got acquired and my research began.
The first article I read about mastering was ‘9 pro mastering tips for beginners,’ this article was honestly just like a foreign language to me at first but reading it through more and trying to apply these techniques using ozone I felt already much more confident in my mastering abilities, or lack of at that point.
https://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/9-pro-mastering-tips-for-beginners-227952
I read parts of the manual for ozone 10 while I was experimenting with these mastering methods so I more greatly understood the functions of the plugin.
https://docs.izotope.com/ozone10/en/index.html
The final piece of research I did about mastering was watching this video about tips for ozone 10. I found this video incredibly useful and referenced back to it several times while practicing masters.