When I say unconventional, I mean strategies that are otherwise learned from experience and kind of general practices as opposed to things like "Push around 5kHz to make snares pop out".
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When automating, Blend instead of A/B. I.E. Instead of automating a filter to turn on during a breakdown, have it always active and make a very fast 0->100 dry/wet automation. Having it turn on or off can cause little "blips" or pops in the frequencies affected that you might not notice on your current monitoring set up.
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Speaking of A/B, Stop EQing/compressing with split second comparisons, listen to a passage and then make your verdict. Your ear might think the instantaneous difference is refreshing, when in reality that boost might be fatiguing, and that cut might take away from the overall tonality of the track.
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Our ears usually trick us into thinking a boost sounds better than a dip (Louder sounds better) so make sure your messing with the output gain on your EQ.
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Mixing is more about Level Control than anything else. Steve Duda once said (In the most un-egotistical way) "I can probably make a better mix than most of you with just faders and panning"
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Almost everything is a case of yin and yang / give and get. When you boost the sub, the highs seem less present and vice versa. When you cut the lows off the snare, the kick is able to breathe more. Figure out what gets your more than what you gave.
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You can't have a big kick and a big bass - at the same time. I hear this the most in Dubstep, its a lot of psychoacoustic effects. Like, that first kick hit during the intro is this big booming one with a huge reverb on it. So your brain remembers it as such. (Just think of how important first impressions are) but by the time the drop hits, if you listen closely the kick really is just a punchy beat marker and the bass is filling the spectrum.
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Know your monitors, many amateurs mix to the exact opposite of the Frequency Response of what ever they are listening on. Everyone goes through the trial of playing your track in your car and then thinking OH MY GOD I CAN ONLY HEAR BASS
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No, you can't master your own tracks. All you're doing is putting compression, EQs, and Limiters on. Mastering your own track is like taking your sister to Prom. Mastering requires and someone who can listen objectively and make decisions based on experience and intuition. If you think you can do that to your own track, you're fooling yourself.
- If you want to have your track professionally mastered. Then hire a professional. (Honestly the same goes with mixing) Note: Mastering engineers can't fixing mixing mistakes. Note 2.0: 50% of a mastering engineers clients want their track to sound completely different, and the other 50% want their track to sound exactly the same, but better. Figure out what you want and tell them.
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The Loudness War is over. -Thankfully- Streaming formats are using better loudness algorithms now. In a general sense, loud songs are being turned down to match quiet songs. Maybe on the dancefloor you might have to worry about this, but really the DJ is probably redlining into the Engineers limiter.
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Finish all your damn tracks. The reason you think your intros/outros/transitions/drop/whatever suck, is because you avoid them/do the same thing expecting a different result. So you get in this self-perpetuating loop thinking that you "lost it" or whatever.
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Piggy backing on the last one: Not every session you make has to be a track. If you wish you were better at intros, then just make a session where you make different intros.
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Make sure to check your mixes in mono, and I mean true mono. In Ableton, set a utility with 0% width on the Master and turn off one speaker.
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Piggy backing on the last one, purposely listen off axis. Sometimes this is when I realize that the snare is a 1-2 dB too loud.
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Make sure to have fun! If you want to just make a session full of weird sounds, then do it! (My personal favorite is spending an hour or two just making noise, I'm no Merzbow but it's refreshing to break the mold of intro/bridge/buildup/drop etc.)
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The best advice I have ever gotten from a producer (And when I say that, I mean by someone who gets paid to help people produce music), is "Well, let's try it out". This is even more applicable in the DAW realm. You can "Ctrl+Z" anything.