Beginner’s Guide to Mixing EDM To Help You Get Started
Today’s electronic dance music (EDM) is a far cry from the three-piece band or the jazz quartet or even the five-man rock & roll band. Music recording today is, likewise, far removed from the old method of the multi-track 1-inch reel. Today it is digital audio workstations and synthesizers that feature in the production of EDM and with so many permutations; it becomes difficult to arrive at the perfect mix that has timbre, depth, tonality, funk separation, and balance. To create or mix EDM you would have to practice and become an expert in manipulating and layering music tracks just right. You can do it on your own if you have sound knowledge of audio engineering, how the human ear and mind work, about music types, instruments, and listeners. That is quite a lot. At least you can get started with these tips even as you join EDM mixing Bangalore institute to become an expert.
Tracks
You may have anywhere from 5 to 25 tracks you will use for EDM mixing. Before you start mixing prepare your tracks. This could possibly involve listening to each track, removing noise, checking for dB levels and generally cleaning it up. Then you give each track a name and color so you can identify it when you start the mixing process. If you have tracks in different audio formats, convert them to one format, possibly lossless. Its a very important step selection of tracks for a Beginner’s Guide to Mixing EDM. Create VCA and assign it to the tracks. If you have many tracks then create groups of tracks.
Focus on the most important instruments
With all sliders at zero, you pick the most important tracks and push sliders up to set a suitable level. The main components are likely to be bass, drums, vocals, and synthesizer. Next, you consider the sound stage or how far apart or close together the instruments sound. You must know about frequencies and directionality. For instance, bass frequencies have little directionality compared to mid-range and high frequencies. Know this and you can push an instrument to the left, center or right. Adjusting dB levels is an art that takes time to learn. Give a listen to the tracks and adjust. Now you can add chorus, reverb or echo effects or even overdrive fuzz if you think it adds to the impact. It will take time for you to develop judgment in EDM mixing but when you try and then refine your knowledge through training in EDM mixing Bangalore institute offers you are on your way to becoming an expert.
Equalizing, compression, expanding
Make an instrument sound brighter, sharper or heavier so that it stands out and sounds great. This is done with equalization control. One can overdo it and one can ignore the effect of other tracks when EQ is applied so you will be tweaking it a lot. Then there is compression and expanding or companding that you will learn to ensure drums sound loud and have an impact and the bass notes have depth but do not go into overdrive with waves flattened at the top that will result in distortion and possible damage to speakers at loud volume. A singer may scream one moment and then drop to a sibilant whisper. Companding takes care of maintaining levels.
Tune and fine-tune
Once you have taken a few steps you will need to listen to the EDM mix. You will, of course, view waveforms and levels that will give you some idea but there is nothing like listening and then judging the effect of fades, effects, volume and separation as well as enhancements. In the initial phases (and later on too) you will be doing back and forth with your edits but it will help you gain a feel for EDM mixing. Training at Audio Life helps you become an expert quickly and gain insights.