We condense nearly 50 years’ worth of producing and engineering experience into 36 indispensable tips!
When SOS asked if I might like to share my ‘cheat sheet’ more widely, I was happy to oblige. It came about thanks to my role teaching the History Of Production course at the Abbey Road Institute in Amsterdam where, as well as delivering the standard course content, I’ve always been encouraged to supply tips and anecdotes from my personal studio experience. This approach went down well with students but a few years ago one of them asked if I had “anything on paper.” As you can imagine, it’s pretty hard to distil the knowledge gained over nearly 50 years in the studio into a few short tips. But I gave it a go and handed out a sort of ‘stream‑of‑consciousness’ list of many tips to my class. It met with some very positive reactions, and I hope you find something useful here too.
1. Performance First
The artist’s performance is far more important than any technical aspect of the recording. Whether engineering or producing, it is your responsibility to create conditions in which the artist will be able give their best performance.
2. Plan & Prep
With tip 1 in mind, prepare things in advance of the session where possible. The client does not want to wait while you get your technical stuff together.
3. Do Not Bluff
If something technical is wrong then let the client know, as if you don’t it will probably come back to bite you. (Not everyone agrees with me on this one!)
4. Know Your Place
The importance of quick navigation using markers is too often overlooked.Know where you are in the song. Make use of markers or cue points, so that if someone says “let’s hear it from the second chorus” you will be there right away.
5. Set Phase To Stun
The more mics you use to record a sound source, the more likely it is that phase cancellation problems will arise. A case in point is recording a drum kit, where multiple mics will capture the same sound sources from different angles and distances (the overheads versus the close mics, for example). By adjusting the phase relationship of the various mics, you will be able to achieve a fuller and more satisfying sound. Do this by adjusting mic positions where possible. After recording, you can compensate to some extent by micro‑shifting the various drum tracks in time (zoom in on the waveforms when doing this), or using a phase alignment tool (an all‑pass filter) such as Little Labs’ IBP, which is available as a Universal Audio plug‑in.
All‑pass filters can adjust the phase of a signal without changing the frequency response.
6. It’s A Pass
A ‘bracket’ EQ, with both high‑ and low‑pass filters band‑limiting a signal, can be a useful tactic — with good judgement.Do use ‘bracketing EQ’, meaning high‑ and low‑pass filters, to reduce the volume of the parts of the frequency spectrum that are not needed for the instrument in question. The bit I italicised is crucial — I didn’t say “high‑pass everything except the bass and kick,” which is a common mistake. Try fairly soft filter slopes at first, perhaps 12dB/octave, as they generally sound more musical than steep slopes. Or try using gentle shelving EQ instead.
7. A Place For Everything
When mixing (and writing/arranging) try to ensure that each instrument has its own space in the audio frequency spectrum. Panning similar sounds away from each other may seem like it fixes a masking problem, but if you get it right in mono using EQ, the stereo mix will be fine too and you will be in better shape. It took me many years to learn this lesson.
8. Beware Treble Boosts
Don’t use equalisation to boost treble on everything. If you want the song to sound brighter, try using a bright instrument.
9. EQ In Context
Try not to adjust EQs when in solo mode, because if a sound is unpleasant in isolation but great in the mix, that’s fine. The sound in context (the whole mix) is what counts.
10. Near & Far
Sounds with more reverb and less high‑frequency content will appear to be further away. Dryer and brighter brings a sound to the foreground.
11. Where’s The Bass?
If your bass sounds fine on its own but gets lost in the mix, it’s probably some other instrument that’s to blame — something else is masking the bass. First do your best to find the culprit and EQ out any offending frequencies. When you’ve done that, you can often also give the bass extra definition by adding a little distortion, particularly to the mid and higher frequencies (this will generate extra harmonics), and perhaps try an EQ boost around 1kHz.
If you can’t hear the bass on small speakers, you don’t need more lows, you need more presence in the mids. Distortion can help with that.
12. Compression
Do not over‑compress unless you are sure it’s the right thing to do. These days, dynamics are the name of the game.
13. Compressor Timing
Regarding compression, there are good reasons to use different attack and release times, but I generally start with a slow attack (to preserve transients) and a fast release, and see how that sounds. When using parallel compression, you can be much more aggressive with a fast attack time and lots of gain reduction: start with the dry signal and mix in to taste.
When setting up compression, try a slow attack and fast release as your starting point.
14. Clip Gain
Consider adjusting your recorded levels with edits or automation before using any dynamics processing. For example, on a vocal track, adjust the levels per word or phrase to be close to the way you want them — raise the level of soft passages and drop the level of very loud bits — and create broadly the right balance before the part hits a compressor. Also consider reducing the level of excessive breathing between words and even de‑essing by changing the clip gain on sibilants before further processing.
15. Dynamic Balance
Add interest to your mixes by making the balance dynamic, for example introducing changes with each song section. And don’t forget to ride your effect returns: it’s very common to have vocal and instrumental effects such as reverb and echo constantly move up and down to suit the moment.
16. Rest In Peace
Take regular breaks, to give your ears a rest and keep things in perspective.
17. Referencing
Listen to reference music to make sure that you are in the right ball‑park regarding the overall sound: bass, treble, compression etc. But don’t be fooled by the fact that your references have been mastered and will probably be brighter and louder than what you are working on.
18. Listen Like An Amateur
After developing the ability to listen analytically, you’ll probably need to re‑learn how the general public hears music: as a block of sound that causes them to feel a particular emotion. Make an effort to do that, as the average listener is not interested in your snare sound or how much 2kHz there is in the guitar, only in the way the music makes them feel.
19. The Mix Bus
You don’t have to add stuff to your mix bus. These days I generally use a little EQ and perhaps a little compression. But I made records for years with nothing on the mix bus. More can always be added when mastering. (And please, do not limit the mix bus because that ties the hands of the mastering engineer.)
20. Two Little
Often, two devices arranged in series, each working just a little bit, will sound better than one device working harder. This can apply to both compressors and EQs, for example.
21. Work The Cue Mix
What you put in an artist’s headphones matters.The musician’s headphone mix is of critical importance and can make the difference between a great and a poor performance. Spend time making sure the artist is hearing exactly what he/she wants to hear. You can manipulate a singer’s distance from the mic to a certain extent by giving them more or less of themselves in the cans. You generally don’t want your singer to get too close to the mic; be aware of the proximity effect, which is a rise in bass response when close to a directional mic (eg. cardioid).
22. Beware Bass Boosts
In general, be wary of boosting bass frequencies, as these eat up a lot of energy in the mix and can’t be heard on some playback systems. If in doubt, check against known reference tracks.
23. Learn The Rules To Break
Being different is good, and breaking rules can lead to originality. But try to be aware why the rules exist, and why you are breaking them.
Breaking rules can lead to originality. But try to be aware why the rules exist...
24. Take It Too Far, Then Back Off
When setting up plug‑ins or outboard equipment, try extreme settings to clearly hear what the device is doing, and then back off to a more suitable amount of processing. Be aware that some processing, such as harmonic enhancers (‘exciters’), can be addictive, and after applying more than is required your ears will need a chance to ‘get back to normal’ before you’re able to make a good judgement again. Specifically with exciters, a little less than you think is enough will generally be just right.
Beware! Your ears can grow accustomed to the sound of harmonic enhancers, making it easy to overcook things.
25. Automation Rules
Automation is a powerful tool for much more than levels — it’s worth learning your DAW’s system in depth.Become very familiar with your DAW’s automation features. In the days before automated mixing existed, the engineer, the producer, the whole band and maybe a few roadies too all had their hands on the console at mixdown. I now like to end up with nothing manual to do during a final mix, so everything is automated. But avoid the temptation to automate the soul out of the music. An occasional unexpected level jump or extreme effect setting can often be a good thing. Do your ‘human’ balance passes and have the computer repeat them for you. You can then tweak to taste — but don’t tweak too much.
26. The Master Fader
You may find it useful to ‘ride’ the master fader so that your choruses are maybe 1dB louder than your verses, for example. There is no law that says the master fader must remain static throughout the song.
27. Commit To Decisions
Don’t postpone too many decisions while tracking: 200‑plus tracks at mixdown time will not lead to a good end result. So try to make choices along the way and commit to them. You can always save the ingredients of a pre‑mix so that you can redo it later if absolutely necessary. I generally have a muted folder in my project called 'Parking', in which I save all these ingredients. (I also disable its contents to save on processor power.)
28. Comping
Back in the day we would often record a performance in little pieces, punching in to fix things as needed. In later years, I realised that it is better to capture longer performances, in complete takes or large sections, and then ‘comp’ the best bits together. This approach generally gives the most natural feel and flow to the performance and is less stressful for the artist too.
29. Embracing Spill
As far as possible, have your musicians play together. This will generally give you a better result than recording each player separately. Assuming your players are competent and don’t make mistakes the whole time, don’t worry too much about spill between microphones (eg. drums in the piano mics or guitars in the drum mics). In a good acoustic space, the leakage may even enhance the sound of your recordings. The late, great Al Schmitt had something to say about this, the use of the omnidirectional mic pickup pattern and much more in his books Al Schmitt On The Record and Al Schmitt On Vocal And Instrumental Recording Techniques. Recommended reading.
30. Find Your Own Way
Experiment and try to find new ways of doing things. Being able to copy someone else’s technique can be very useful and educational but the most original and rewarding results will come from striking out on your own and pioneering a new approach. Easier said than done, but worth striving for.
31. Listening Levels
A good reference monitoring level will help you make better, more consistent judgements.Don’t fool yourself by listening too loud or too soft. When you listen very loud, your ears work like compressors. Most stuff sounds better when you play it loud but it’s really hard to judge balance that way. Find a monitoring level between those two extremes and stick to it most of the time. If the band wants to listen to a playback of their performance at rock concert volume, by all means oblige — but leave the room while they’re listening to protect your hearing.
32. Keep It Real
For ‘real’ instruments, listen to the way the instrument sounds in the studio first, then (assuming it sounds good!) see if you can capture that sound in the control room. Moving a microphone a few centimetres can make a big difference — it is really useful if you can have an assistant do that for you in the live room while you listen to your control room monitors.
33. Quiet, Please!
A quiet listening check on small speakers can shine a helpful light on the midrange.Listening very quietly indeed, in mono on a small speaker (like an Auratone) is a step I generally take during the mixdown process. You will hear mainly the mid frequencies and this makes it easy to check the balance of this critical area.
34. Have A Plan
Try to hear (imagine) the sound you want to achieve in your head before you start pushing buttons and turning knobs. With so much choice available these days you will get lost if you don’t know beforehand what you are looking for. This also applies to synth or effect presets.
35. Vox & Bass Check
Before you commit to your final mix, wait until the next day if possible, and then do a final check on your vocal level and bass level. Those are the two places you are most likely to have misjudged things after spending a day mixing.
36. Keep A Clear Head
Please stay away from drugs, even if you are surrounded by them in the studio. Trust me on this one. Be the person whose judgement is not impaired.