You can read the first 20 quick and easy tips that will improve your productions here!
Quick tip 21
Try automating the master fader 1 or 2 decibels in the chorus to add excitement.
Quick tip 22
Decide what takes you like and make comps right away. Don’t leave important decisions for later!
Quick tip 23
Treat music like a job, even if it’s not your job!
Quick tip 24
Make a template and constantly keep refining it.
Quick tip 25
If you want your chorus to sound big, don’t make it bigger make what comes before it smaller.
Quick tip 26
Separate the times you focus on sound design and sample organization from your actual production sessions.
Quick tip 27
Practice shortcuts and hotkeys! Your DAW is an instrument, treat it like one. Learning all of the hotkeys will drastically speed up your workflow.
Quick tip 28
Put each vocal section on its own track (lead verse, lead chorus, lead bridge) and send to a vocal bus. This makes it easy to change processing for the vocal between sections.
Quick tip 29
Don’t bounce and repeatedly listen to songs you are still working on. If you repeatably listen to a work in progress your brain will start to get used to it and it will become more difficult to make changes or add new tracks later.
Quick tip 30
Try adding chorus before a reverb to help widen and give movement to your return.
Quick tip 31
Avoid loopitis by following the structure of a reference track.
Quick tip 32
CONTRAST! CONTRAST! CONTRAST! Stereo sounds the best when there’s contrast. For the widest sound, make sure what is playing in the left speaker is different than what’s playing in the right.
Quick tip 33
ADD SOME AIR! For bright and shiny pop vocals make sure to add some “air” or frequencies over 14kHz.
Quick tip 34
Submix similar sounds and parts prior to mixing so things stay organized and you can easily process multiple tracks at once.
Quick tip 35
De-essing vocals allows you to get rid of harsh sibilance while maintaining clarity. I like to use one in the beginning of my vocal chain to make sure I get rid of anything before it’s compressed or equalized.
Quick tip 36
Small amounts of compression on multiple channels can really add up and help glue things together.
Quick tip 37
Don’t set it and forget it! Those faders need to move! Performing volume automation will give your mixes life and make you a lot cooler.
Quick tip 38
If a reverb isn’t working on a vocal, try a short delay. It can give you the sense of space you need without cluttering things up.
Quick tip 39
Modern digital recordings pick up transients very cleanly. Add saturation before compression to help tame some of those sharp transient peaks so your compressor will not have to work as hard.
Quick tip 40
Clean up that low end! Use plenty of hi pass filters on instruments that don’t have fundamental bass frequencies to get a tight and punchy low end.
