Learn to Trust Your Ears

A musician friend of mine emailed me recently asking for advice on music production and mixing.

I remember the amount of trouble I had with mixing music and how much I absolutely hated it. I'd mix my track, think that it sounded great, stick on a Radiohead record and then think "Oh shit, my track sounds completely wrong". There'd be too much bass, not enough bass, bassdrum would be too distorted, every possible problem with the track.
Looking back, the first piece of advice I would offer other would-be producers/engineers/mixers would be:

Learn to trust your own ears


If it sounds wrong to you, then you need to change it, not to how it would sound on a U2 record or a Radiohead record but to how it should sound for YOUR record. One day I downloaded an eq guide which listed what frequencies in each track did what. How to make a guitar sound less "boxy" by reducing eq at around 500khz, how to add weight to a bass drum by increasing at 60hz, all of this stuff suddenly starting making sense and I had a reference guide to what I was hearing and how to control it. There are many eq guides on the internet:


The second important piece of advice is:

Don't try and imitate other people.

Yes, its nice to learn how to get that cool synth sound that Aphex Twin uses, or get that drum sound thats in that yoghurt advert soundtrack, and you should always be looking to learn new techniques, but if you're trying to copy someone elses style then inevitably it will end up sounding like what it is: A copy.

You should look at each of your own tracks as an individual and how it should sound on its own. Nigel Godrich mixes differently to Mark Stent and he mixes differently to Bob Rock you should be mixing to what sounds good to you and not be constantly comparing your track to others. If your track is similar to a track that Nigel Godrich has mixed then sure, research and look into the techniques he used but don't try and get all of your tracks sounding like the tracks on that song because ultimately you will end up dissapointed and frustrated.
I think this is the main reason why my first album took 4 years to get out. And if I could redo the whole thing again I would!!

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