Mix Tricks

I like parallel eq , especially over a period of time, e.g. if you slowly suck suck the highs out of a pad sound whilst some brittle crusty percussion creeps in over 32bars, (for example).

When done slickly over time it can be like audio voodoo almost, keeping a listeners attention when they’re unsure why since little seems to have changed in the track.

I’ve been using an envelope follower mapped to a gain on an eq on another track, say if you have a 50hz kick & a 50 hz sub, whenever the envelope follower senses the kick hit it’ll subtractively eq out the 50hz region of the sub, like an alternative to compression. I had a lot of atmos/pads grouped onto a bus with an eq ducking the 250hz region where my snare was because the envelope follower was on my snare track mapped to the gain of the eq on the bus

Actually just ignore my waffle & watch the above! 😉

ah crap i posted the whole playlist, the envelope follower tutorial for freq specific compression is No.10 on the list. & the whole list is a treasure trove for ableton users. I’m sure most of us know who Fanu is! ( If not, then get to know)!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcE1atJhP70

yeah that’s the one, it’s created more space (without thinning the mix too much) than a lot of stuff I’ve tried previously.

I´m trying to get a good mixing set up for m/s de-encoding.
So basically, I´m unsure as how to set this up.
I have my Bass seperated in 3 groups in Cubase, sub/mid/high and then all together in one bass group. I also have my drums seperated as for kicks/snares/hats etc. all going into a NY Compression Bus and together in a “drums sum” bus.
I would like to split now all signals into a mid signal and a side signal to compress and mix them individually. Do you guys have an idea how to achieve this for example via voxengos msed?
Should I create two final busses for the master or what do you guys do?
Thanks for the tip!

Yeah, thanks, just as you suggested works, really good.
I also just bought Brainworx digital V2 cause it’s on sale at Plugin Alliance. That thing is awesome! When you work 5 minutes on just the mono or side mix to get them straight, and then unsolo it, it’s like heaven opens 🙂
But I’m not yet sure about which way I’ll go, since I have definitely more control over everything when working with MSED as you suggested,
When you start working with the whole M/S stuff, it’s hard to stop,
it’s like a whole new world popping up!

Ive always found that if you keep things as simple as possible you`ll come out with the best outcome as it starts complicating a track to a listener… well even i find myself getting stressed at the sound when going too far.

With Mid & Side EQ… I use it mainly for high passing the side to around 250Htz or to wherever the Clutch Point (Bite Point) sits in the mix… ducking the upper or Lower Mids is cool as you said Noisia does, i find it great on Snare parts or even automating it on FX or Pads as it keeps it interesting without even trying really.

One thing i found good was to group Percussion and Rides/Crashes into Groups and Compress them together (Obviously Compress on there own tracks too)… it Gels them together alot more nicely and sometimes can remove the spacky tones in them too…

Phase Revers too….
Now this is very good for parts that are making other parts spike on an Analyser.. Phase Reverse the Part and hey presto… it has its own space in the Mix without haveing the Notch or completely Mangle up the Part… Great on Parts higher up the Frequency Ladder.

Feel like im rambling on now but these are just things i find have worked for me 🙂