The 3 most common music production mistakes (and how to fix them!)

Merch!

★ FOLLOW ME HERE ★

★ LISTEN TO MY MUSIC ★

★ GEAR ★

Disclosure: Most of these are affiliate links - if you buy anything through them (even if it's not the linked item) I'll receive a small percentage, which helps support my channel.

★ MY FAVORITE REVERBS ★

VALHALLA VINTAGEVERB, ROOM, SHIMMER, SUPERMASSIVE
I use VintageVerb the most but they're all amazing. Supermassive is brand new and awesome and free.

UNIVERSAL AUDIO LEXICON 224, EMT140, OCEAN WAY STUDIOS
Lexicon 224 for lushness. EMT 140 is my favourite plate emulation. Ocean Way Studios is quite unique and places you in very real-feeling rooms.

EVENTIDE BLACKHOLE
When it's time to get weird.

SMARTELECTRONIX AMBIENCE
Been around a while but still has a great tone, and it's free.

★ SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL MY TOP PATRONS ★

Ben Pevsner
Curtis Chambers
Brian Estlin
robert jornayvaz
sama
Patricio Gaudelli
Silas Reaper
Rene Seckler
Nick Simmons
Peter Vermeychuk
Ryan Mitchell
Videlik
Raverty
Russ
Valeriu111000
F L R COUCH
Marek Baszczyj
Vach Man
Dave Kincaid
Gnare
Adrian Durand
Corey Frang
{AnOnY mOuS}
Julie Bandin
cubedparadox
kris flores
Majo del carmen de bolivar
José Miguel
Oscar
Robert de Forest
rd1994
Simon Tobias
Raul perez
Abadul Sardar
Mark Yardley
G Devan Smith
Ben Lin
Harrison Gaulke
Alex Courtney
Chris Lin
Dakota Gilliam
Luke Gilliam
Will Goldsmith
Fred von Graf
Kaitlin Sebbage
Nicholas Taylor
Sam Barratt
Connor Somerholter
Shannon manning
Spencer Berndt
Philip Ohlin
Helton Paz
Yahali Gottlieb
ADdam lolz
Jamaal Curtis
anamuko
Edmon Cruz
TobiCaboose
florencia la rica
Ethan Lim
Kristopher Charles
Maximus Olenik
AJ Berg
Tim Koulaev
Damon Oliveira
Karol Hojka
Ben Adshead
Felix
Timothy McLane
Alexander Heale
Jack Morris
Tobias Gurdan

Thanks for watching today and a big hug to you if you share this video with someone!

[RoomieOfficial]

This is some great advice!! Even experienced producers need to refresh this stuff every once in a while ✊✊

[dulla]

a TIP for not adding too much reverb...
one of the main reasons we add too much reverb and leave it like that, is cause the plugins load at 100% wet, and then we take it down untill we think it sits good, but since you heard what 100% wet sounds like you think that 50% sounds clean, but its just a perceptive thing, instead when you have a good sounding reverb, decay, time, predelay etc. put the wet knob to 0% and then start raising while listening to the full track to know when to stop

[Scythe]

2:01 : Messy Reverb
6:21 Burying The Vocal
8:19 Static Instruments

[henry-qsvg]

0:05 when Andrew says "songs" it sounds almost identical as the first syllable of All Star by Smash Mouth

[Jonathan-welc]

Biggest mistake new producers make in general is taking the following too literally: 'just do what sounds good' and 'every producer is different, there's no right and wrong'. These two statements are absolutely true, but it's far more efficient to watch videos of how other people work and adapt your own style/workflow based on what you've learned. If it was as simple as 'do what sounds good', you could spend years producing without identifying that putting reverb on bass tracks isn't always a good idea, for example.

A lot of successful producers have this sort of bias where they forget about all the hours they've spent researching/shadowing others/watching tutorials, and just say 'meh, just do what sounds good - that's what I did'. It's rarely true. Watch videos like this, because sometimes a few simple tips can save you hours of frustration.

[Blarrgensnorf]

Using a small room reverb with very short decay is an underrated way of giving a sound dimension.

[avramneedleman]

I don’t know if you’ve heard this from other people, but my school has started showing some of your videos in the music production class. I think that it’s incredible that you can share your content to educate and inspire people about music. Thank you so much for sharing your passion for music, and for helping expand mine. Much love, my guy!

[BenHall]

A good psychoacoustic trick for making vocals (or leads) pop out in the mix is to very slightly and very slowly automate the pan from left to right. Just a really small amount. You wouldn't be able to tell its happening but your ear picks up on the movement and draws the attention to it.

[cURLybOi]

man, that "too quiet vocal" is definitely a thing. i was in your class this january and almost all my comments on the vocal track of my peers were "turn up the vocal" :)

[dovKaizo]

Andrew: "You're gonna want to have a shorter tail than you think is necessary"
Valhalla DSP: "Yeah so now you can have minute long reverb tails"

[hannes]

"Too much reverb on anything"
Shoegaze producers: Of course i know him, he's me

[timovitchbeats]

"You can play the same note, but not on the same way" - that's simple but really blew my mind

[bennywollinmusic]

Always love hearing your thoughts. I mostly do orchestral/cinematic work, but the idea of "ear candy" is still super relevant. It takes guts to have an instrument play just one note.

[coolmatthew]

"Whoa…maybe a bit too much reverb on that snare!"
That was the first sentence from my audio engineering professor said when he heard and reviewed my mix.

[TheRacePig]

Another thing with messy reverbs that you've gotta remember is the high and lowpass settings, which can tighten up the reverb immensely and prevent your mixes from becoming muddy and unfocused. You gotta figure out what the reverb is there for and what parts of the sound you want to reverberate, some instruments have tons of weird transients that will sound awful when the reverb is covering the entire audio spectrum. Basically the idea is that you place effects purposefully and with precision rather than just slapping presets on stuff, you have to know exactly why you put something on a track.

[roohawkins]

I hope you take a second every so often to realize that an entire generation is learning from your videos, your work making them is so influential in the progression of the culture and its beautiful

[BenjaminKassel]

I heard "The Coldest Darkness" in the first song and had a massive flashback. That's still one of my favorite albums you've made.

[nutritionalyeast]

On the flipside of the "too quiet vocal", I often hear "too loud drums" especially in electronic music. It makes it really hard to hear any other parts of the song in more noisy settings like in a car

[Aaron-zhkj]

I was in a traveling contemporary worship band (modern worship music is famous for the excessive use of verb in guitars). I had that realization about reverb and went months without using verb at all, instead stacking delays, which sounded huge. This worked especially, because of the dense mix my band had and all the big spacey venues and churches we were at. I eventually started throwing small amounts of modulated verb to add dimension, but I mostly just did it for the modulation. As it happened, we were at the biggest church we played at with the best sound guys and resources of any venue we played. Their sound guy later told me I had the best mono guitar sound he'd ever heard. (humble flex) All that to say, try creating space with delay and mild modulation instead of reverb. It works wonders.

[flundlip]

This is like a hyper condensed version of your course. Your course helped me a ton and I recommend everyone to enroll!