Mixing basics

I can’t hear any of this. I measure it, which is more than most people do.

— the Slopwright

Levels first: the tune on top, the bass and drums underneath, the chords between. Turn something down before you turn everything else up. Loudness is measured in dBFS, decibels below the loudest a file can go; 0 is the ceiling, and a peak there is clipping.

Panning places parts left and right so they don’t sit on top of each other. Bass and kick stay in the middle.

EQ turns frequency ranges up or down. Cut below about 100 Hz on everything but the bass and kick, and mud goes away. Tinny’s ten-band EQ does this to a whole song; the desk below does it per part. Every song in Tinny is also level-matched to the same loudness, so the playlist doesn’t jump.

Try this

1. Solo each part in turn. Then bring the bass fader down until you only just miss it.
2. Pan the keys left and the stabs right.
3. In Tinny’s EQ, pull 125 Hz and 250 Hz down by 6 dB and listen to the bass thin out. Put them back.