About This Course

Looking at a track he has mixed for BBE Records, as well as a work in progress, Richard dives into the art of mixing, looking at various dynamic processes you can carry out to make instruments sit well together, such as additive & subtractive EQ, stereo imaging, mixing kick & bass, compression, reverb & delays + more.

You will learn:

• What is additive EQ
• What is subtractive EQ
• Ways of using these EQ functions
• Stereo Imaging
• Mid/Side EQ
• Mixing kick and bass
• Sidechaining
• Compression

Lessons: 

1. Additive & Subtractive EQ

The difference between additive and subtractive EQ. Subtractive EQ is great for detailed changes and is a much warmer approach to EQing your music, Additive EQ adds gain to the bandwidth selected, try keep this as broad as possible to avoid pops and harsh harmonics becoming the focus in your mix.

2. Stereo Imaging 

A look at Mid Side EQ, nowadays imaging softwares like Izotope Stereo Imager can carry out these functions, albeit less precise than manual mid-side EQing, which can be done in Ableton & Logic’s stock EQ plug-in. 

He answers the questions: 

• What tracks would you use imaging softwares on?
• How do you balance kick and bass?

3. Kick & Bass

Dance music is all about the kick and bass relationship. Richard talks about sidechaining and softwares that can carry out sidechaining like Nicky Romero Kickstart. He discusses other dynamic VSTs like multiband compression, and recommends the Sonarworks Room Correction software as a vital mixing tool.
He answers the question on what is the difference between a stereo master and stem master.

4. Compression

As a rule of thumb, RIchard would always bus his tracks together. Ie all drums will be bussed to one channel, as would the backing vocals and melodic instruments. Richard starts off with the API-2500 compressor from waves and talks about SUMMING and creating Track Stacks.

5. Track Playback

Looking at an afro style house track, Richard gives us a preview of how this mixed and mastered track sounds.

6. Drum Bussing

Richard busses all his drums into one return channel, he uses compression from the API-2500, slight saturation from the Virtual Tape Machine and RC24

7. Reverb & Delay

The 2 essential spatial mix effects. Richard discusses ways of creating percieved loudness as oppose to heavy limiting. He uses Echoboy and Valhalla Room Reverb and avoids using the same reverb on every drum channel.

8. Work in Progress

Richard shows us a track he is currently working on, again looking at drum busses, backing vocal treatment and track summing. He discusses how to make a sample bass instrument  sound as realistic as possible.

9. Vocals

The track in this session is heavy on the background vocals, Richard discusses ways he would treat a vocal in his session, using sidechain techniques with Nicky Romero Kickstart. He talks on the importance of the positioning of effects in your effect rack, while discussing useful vocal plugins like Vocal Strip by SSL, Multiband compression using Fab Filter Pro MB and the Sonarworks Reference 4.

10. Live Q&A

Do you write the track first and mix later, or mix as you go?
Are there any specific processing effects you could recommend for bass?
Do you put anything on the master buss when your sending it to be mastered?