Mix Critique: How to Improve Your Mixes

In this tutorial, pro mixer David Glenn critiques a mix using some great comparison techniques, and shares some insight into how you can get the best results in your own mixes.

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Transcript Excerpt:

So, let's give a listen to yours.

[song plays]

Okay. Let's come out here with some vocals.

[song plays]

Okay, cool. I had another note there.

Alright, man! So there's that. Then here's Chris Tomlin's mix.

[reference plays]

And there's a big pause...

[reference plays]

I've got Lecrae coming in with some good stuff, man.

Okay, so you hear the difference. It's pretty dramatic, but at the same time, I think we can do some stuff to tighten your overall frequency range, the stuff going on... I'm going to give you some tips for – I hear some pumping in the limiter, so I want to talk to you a little bit about that as well, but I think that you've got good balances. You've got some great stuff going on.

Let's get in and try to take this a little bit closer. The first thing I want to look at, is I'm not sure if you're doing much referencing when you're mixing, but I highly, highly recommend it.

I'm going to do an EQ match, but before I do that, I've shown this a couple times in some of my other videos, and you being a member over at The Mix Academy, I know you've seen me do this, but I can't stress it enough, man. This could really, really help you out.

I'm going to throw this – actually, let's put this right there... I'm going to throw this down to like, 30Hz, and I'm only going to listen to your track at 30Hz, then we're going to check out Tomlin's.

So, those of you listening back, and then Matt, if you're listening to this, some good headphones or a system with a sub, or if you're listening on monitors in a good treated room, you'll hear this sub stuff going on, but if you're on a laptop or a phone, you probably won't hear this stuff.

Here's the sub region on Matt's track.

[subs]

Okay, kinda cool.

[subs]

And then on Tomlin, you can hear it's a little more leveled out and a little more compressed. Things are pretty – I don't want to say flat, but they're nice and smooth, nice and tight.

Alright, Matt. So you've seen me do the EQ trick on my stereo buss – actually, the master fader, but for those of you guys watching back that haven't seen it, what I have is in my mix session, I'll have everything going to a set of busses I kind of adopted from the Dave Pensado, All Drums, All Vocals, All Music, Low End, High End, All FX, different groups... sometimes All Guitars, it just all depends.
But those pre-stereo busses go to my stereo aux track called the sub-master, which is my stereo buss. The stereo buss thing goes to the main outs – the master fader.
The reason why I do these stereo auxes is because then I can have my reference track solo safe'd, going out to my main outs, and then say this is my stereo buss right here. That then meets it at the master fader, but all of the processing goes to the stereo buss, and not the main outs.

I hope that makes sense. If not, I have a whole course on that called the mix series. It talks about session workflow and all of that good stuff. We'll have the link in the description below, but just to kind of help catch you up, this is how I'm able to help reference, and this EQ here controls both of those.

Once again, let's take a look at this, because Matt's seen this, but for those of you that haven't, I'll take an EQ, it's typically the Pro-Q2, and I'll just go up the frequency range here.

So here's 35 and below.

[35Hz and lower]

And then now I'm going to click over to the reference track and check out 35 Hz and below.

[reference lows]

More power, right? So, there's a lot more going on. I checked Matt's track, and he was at about a -8LUFS or RMS level, so it's mastered. This is a mastered track.

So anyways, moving on, we can then pull this up and hear Tomlin.

Let me hear Matt, pull it up a little more.

[alternating between reference and Matt's track; filtered]

Nice. And we can make our way up. For me personally, once I get to about 100 or 150, what I'll do is I'll add a low-cut/high-pass filter, and I'll do the same thing, but now, I'll take these two bands and link them, so I can hear everything except for the subs, and really just focus in on 100-200, 100-150, whatever you want to do to taste. You can sit here and have a blast with it.

[alternates between reference and Matt's track; filtered]

Okay. Then we can just keep sliding up.

[truncated]

[numskull]

This just might be the most helpful mixing tutorial on youtube. Well done, sir.

[Darksagan]

Holly shit that eq Matching changed everything. I am definitely getting that plugin. Great job.

[Kintu]

Oh gosh, prob one of the best tutorials on mix Down ive seen, and i went trhu them all, more of this tutorials please, David is jedi when it comes to this damn

[briancase]

Wow, I'm lucky to have found this. Thanks so much for the clear, easy-to-understand techniques. Some I know, some are new. 👍 Even just to get insight into your analysis priorities is a great help. Thanks!

[TheVidman]

+David Glenn Kulp That was an awesome video, I like how you explain in details and in this case give very constructive critique that will not only help the mixer, but everyone doing mixing. Keep up the good work!

[spotterotter]

Thank David Glenn, really awesome tutorial. Also, as you spoke about the notes you put down on your Wunderlist app. Am sure as an experienced mixer in the community you have noted down a number of irregularities with the mixes you get sent by mixers who are learning and also the mixes you get from your clients. I was wondering is it possible for you to share some of these notes maybe through a free pdf or another informative video with us in order for us to understand just what you put your "magnifying lense" on in a mix apart from the most obvious ones and I believe that it will really help us as mixers to broaden our vision as we approach our own mixes and through that, gain experience.

[FrascoProductions]

Thank you sooo much for these videos, I've only watched half of it but my mix has already improved tremendously man, I appreciate

[RafaelFaraon]

I would love to watch more Mix Critique on the net. Helps a lot!

[Russplight]

Hey Glen nice vid!!  As an add on to this topic....a vid on when, why and how to use mono vs stereo plugins would be awesome.  No one hasn't really dived into this aspect not even Dave Pensado or the other greats.

[blankspace]

Awesome referencing tip man, I'll definitely be using this in the future

[jrloeb]

So helpful! Thanks so much for taking the time to do this, you're the man!

[LodvarDude]

Very interesting video. The part about eq-matching is particularly useful as a quick-fix, but as he says, it's always better to go back and find the problems in the mix rathet than messing about with the master. 2, 5 - 5 k is always tricky, there is usually lots of stuff going on. He totally lost me however, when he said to turn down the overheads and replace the cymbals with samples. That's crazy. The overheads is where the actual SOUND of the kit is MADE, the point-mics just helps the sound you crate there. Maybe the drums are already sampled? To me, the whole kit sounds very mono, listen to the toms.My personal opinion is that replacing real drums (and a drummer-performance) with samples, is a bulletproof way to make your mix, and your song, sound like EVERYONE ELSE. Perhaps that's the way we become professional mix-engineers - make everyone sound the same.

[Studijko]

Very helpfull. I love your tips. EQ matching sounds very interesting. I would love to have some of my recordings criticized too

[mbliss]

Really good tips here David. Really useful ideas!

[sonnybrasco]

I love what you're doing David. How could I get you to hear out a mix of mine and critique it? Been watching Mattew W. for a min. Great tips!!! I remember when u first came on the scene. You're dope as well my friend. I would love this for one of my mixes i think worthy lol. Let me know sir.

[damilolaadepitan]

Thanks David. I love the mix overall, however the top frequencies was too harsh, which corrected. that was the first issue i heard in the track. I think some vocal automation should would help also. kudos to you Dave and the guy who mixed the track.

[davdcl]

Actually, I'm thankful for your time and this tutorial. Learned a lot in 35 minutes.

[kingthuggatv]

This is cool you actually showing the artist what you did to his music please do more just like this. Different genders rap. Pop. rock edm

[TiANrckstr]

great video David really awesome tips!

[PerceptiveAudio]

Hey David! Great video as always :) Question: When using the matching EQ and the automation/widening trick would you do this in your mix template or bounce the mix and import it into a new session like you've done in this video?

Keep up the good work! Andy