If there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the last few years of production it’s that the only thing you really need on the master track (see image to see what that is) during the mixdown phase of the production process is a spectrum analyser. I used to have all sorts of things on the master thinking that this would make my mix louder or ‘bigger’ as it seemed to give that extra volume or ‘boom’ EDM is about. However, after months of toiling and speaking to other producers, I discovered that this was only leading to shortcomings in my mixdowns, and I would spend hours on in trying to figure out what it was. Why dont want a limiter or anything on the master during most, if not all, of the mixdown phase? Firstly, it immediately sets the levels inaccurately, whereby the levels you are monitoring are not the actual levels being played by each individual track. Secondly, you also lose a lot of your dynamic range by squashing the amplitude of the ENTIRE waveform, therefore also causing inaccuracies in monitoring and also limitations to the dynamic potential of the track. When first starting out I know it seems like an impossible task to sound like your favourite tracks and so this is one quick way of getting there. In fact, I used to chuck the T-SLEDGE limiter with the ‘More Beef’ preset from the get go on all my tunes! Where did I get this idea? Some troll on an audio production forum! You can imagine how bad my first few mixdowns were! However, like most good things, it doesn’t come easy and it is paramount to see writing as a process rather than a means to an end with that end being a louder, ‘bigger’ track. My advice is to keep it simple, think about the rationale for using your tools, and let the collation of your chosen sounds do the talking.
Matrices Music 