Just Do This One Thing...
Have you ever been mixing a song with layers and layers of thick guitars?
You know the guitars sound awesome on their own, and you want them to sound huge when played together. But what's coming out of your speakers is a muddy mess of nothing.
You can't distinguish one guitar from the other. There just isn't that clarity and focus that you hear on pro records.
So what do you do? You grab an EQ and try playing with things. You boost, you cut, you carve, and you filter.
But did you make things better? Maybe. Maybe not.
So how can you KNOW that you're actually making a difference? How can you guarantee that you're clearing up the clutter and getting a more focused and powerful wall of guitars?
One word: mono.
You need to flip your mix to mono and THEN do your EQ.
Don't tune me out just yet. I'm dead serious about this. Mixing your thick wall of guitars while listening back in mono is the guaranteed lazy way to force the clarity you need.
Why does this work?
Simply put, mono makes it hard to distinguish one guitar from another (and the guitars from the rest of the band).
Why is that a good thing? Because it forces you to make the right EQ move.
Simply start EQing as best you can until you hear clarity in all the guitars. EQ until you can perceive each guitar part. Once that happens, you're done. Your EQ is set, and you can pop your mix back to stereo.
If you can't seem to get clarity in mono then you aren't done yet!
Just keep playing around until you find the right frequencies to cut or boost while in mono and you'll never go wrong.
In fact that's how I just mixed this month's Dueling Mixes song "Sanzu". It's a hard hitting, aggressive rock tune with TONS of distorted guitars (I think over 20 guitar tracks!).
I got great clarity and power out of the guitars with my simple lazy mono trick.
Wanna watch how I did it and how you can do it to? Sign up for Dueling Mixes before the month is out and you'll be able to download my tutorial AND the raw tracks to the song so you can practice yourself!
Dueling Mixes |
See you on the other side!
