Alright, finally, I have found the courage to make a video and write a blog about this topic.
The most frequent questions I get are about the "Great Mix" is how do I make my tracks to sound as they do and what are "mixing" techniques for the great results. A search for an answer or a search for the right way to answer these questions was pretty long, and finally, I think I have found the right way to explain it.
First of all, I must make it clear, and we all need to understand that a good or a great mix won't make our tracks to sound great, and in order to make our tracks to sound great, we need to do all the steps right.
And which steps I'm talking about?
The first step for a great sounding track starts when we do File>New Project. From this point, we need to make all the steps right in order to get great results. So the first step would be that we have great sounding sources. If you do not make your own kicks, basses, hi-hats and so on, you need to be sure you are using the good samples as if those samples are not good, there are no many chances that the track will sound great. If you make your own samples, then, the path just becomes several times more complicated. This path requires a lot more work and a lot more processes, and each process of those thousands of processes needs to be done correctly. And to make all of these processes correctly, you will need to have a wast knowledge about, synthesis, processing, mixing, you will also need to have amazingly trained ears, you will require high-end speakers, and without great acoustics in your room, high-end speakers won't help much.
All of us would like that there is a magical piece of equipment that will make everything sound amazing, but that piece of gear doesn't exist, and it looks like it will not be made any time soon.
So, to get highly trained ears, you will need to spend hours, and hour and hours in the studio, and to get the knowledge about all the processes, you will need to try all the possible solutions, and the hardest part of them all, you will need to make good decisions for all of those thousands of processes.
The infinite amounth of possibilities that exist in our daw, with all plugins that we use, where we can spend an unlimited amount of time just twisting the knobs and going around in a circle, we will need to leave all of those knobs on some points, and when we understand that there are thousands of those processes, we need to be real and understand that we need to make thousands of good decisions, and one bad move can undo all the good things that we did well.
So, the answer to the question from the title, is that there is no easy way to do this. A good mix will be a good mix only, and a good mix without a great sound design won't give us the results we are looking for, and a good mix without a good mastering just isn't enough.
For a great sounding track, we need to do all of those processes good!
My path from a beginner and somebody who had an obsession to produce music with high-end production were 15 to 18 years long, and all those 15-18 years I had a hope that there will be some secret that will give me the results I wanted.
I know that this might sound a bit egoistic, but I promise you it is not the case.
I am really happy that I finally got to the point where I have exact results as I want, and that I gained the knowledge for it, and that I finally trained my ears to that point.
The idea of this video and this blog is not to kill your dreams, the dreams really come true, but the path for this kind of dream comes with the high price of your time and nerves.
Besides the price of time you will need to pay, there is a financial side of the story. With all the plugins, software & hardware I bought in my life, all cables, sample packs, acoustic panels and everything that comes with it, I could easily buy an apartment in Belgrade. So you also need to expect a lot of investments for music creating tools.
My advice for all of you who are not well to pay this expensive price would be that you find somebody who already went through this process and you can hire them to do the mix for you, and there is nothing bad about that. You can save yourself a lot of time by doing so, and for you who still want to learn all of this and if you wish to see the whole process for a good sounding track, is that you get Psychedelic Tips Vol.2.
This might sound like advertising, and maybe it is, but I would never advise you of something that I don't believe in. In PTV2 I have recorded everything from FIle>New Project, covering the sound design of the kick and the whole drum section, which is the most difficult of all those thousands of processes, everything till the end of a track.
My idea with this video/blog is not to gain more sales for PTV2 as the course is selling really well, but I couldn't write/say this about my course before I spoke with people who bought it and who have seen it. Now, I am confident to say that this course can help you a lot in your learning process.
I really hope that you find this video/blog in the good mood and that you will understand that I wish you nothing but the best.