How to Mix and Master YOUR Track | Ableton Live 10 Tutorial 

Thank you all so much for taking to time to watch :) To sum up a lot of the information in the video, here is an oversimplified list to guide your process: 1. Mix Down via Gain Staging 2. Apply compressor to Master Track 3. Apply EQ Eight to Master Track 4. Boost/Cut frequencies in MONO 5. Boost/Cut frequencies in Sides Only 6. Apply Limiter 1 to boost DB 7. Apply Limiter 2 to boost more and Limit Final Output to -1 Db

This was so helpful! Thanks a lot, Okkii! I took some notes in case anyone wants a visual breakdown of this video: How to mix and master by Okkii on RU-vid -Start off by gain staging -set a target decibel limit for all of the elements within your tracks to hit -negative 18 for most of them, while setting your drums (mainly the kick/snare for negative 12) and your bass for negative 16 -goal is to make everything audible & prevent sounds from clashing/ becoming one big reverb muddy mess 1.) go to every track and add gain stage audio effect rack 2.) Solo the bass and loop it at its loudest part Ex: his bass hits negative 6 decibels, so all he does is lower the gain knob on the utility audio effect until it reaches around -16 decibels -goal is to balance everything to make sure there's a "flat surface" for when you start mixing 3.) after you've balanced all other tracks, go to kick, snare, other percussive elements & choose between what you want to pop out more than the rest -ex: he wants the kick and the snare to pop out more/ hit really hard -anything extremely loud (people cheering) he puts down at -24 dB or lower 4.) after all the, play track -ex: his full track is maxing out at -7.5 dB, which gives him about 7 dB to work with when mixing 5.) go to loudest section of track and loop it on a continuum throughout process so we can manipulate the sounds to the way that we like it 6.) go to the master track; Billy's simple master which consists of a couple audio effects that are stick plugins in Ableton -pull up a compressor: this recognizes the frequency and squishes the sound down so if something passes the thresholds and gets too loud, it will squish it so it doesn't hurt anyone's ears/ speakers; prevents clipping 7.) put track down to about -30 and play around with it -too much compression will make track sound really thin -UNCLICK THE MAKEUP BUTTON when playing around with threshold level knob Bc the more you put your threshold down, the louder your track will get and details everything else you're about to do 8.) turn on EQ button: allows you to select a frequency that you want the compressor to focus on -ex: if anything within this frequency range of 900 (mid range) passes the threshold of -25 dB, it will compress the sound -when playing w compressor, be sure to mess with the release and attack (He doesn't personally touch the 2:1 compression ratio) -Attack: affects how clicky the sounds are gonna be (9-20 is a good range) (fuller, thicker: around 28-30) -release around 30 9.) now focus on the frequency boosting and subtracting within your track -basically when you have a lot of audio, you'll have certain frequency ranges where sound tends to collect (mainly in the midrange or around 3k) bad sounds 10.) go to audio instruments and click on utility -turn on Mono button: allows you to master in in mono (mastering for the people using phone speakers, Bluetooth speakers, laptop speakers) -turn EQ Eight in audio effects (double click to pop up at bottom) -snoop around the track to see if anything sounds bad -cut anything under 20 Hz and anything over 19 kilohertz (human ear cannot hear that anyways) -type "20" to be precise and do a x4 hard cut -start sweeping back n forth throughout the track & listen for muddiness/ shitty whale sounds -put the cue at about 1.4 & once you find a range you wanna cut down, just drag the gain a bit down (-2) -boost the bass by 2 -search around 3000 range for other unpleasant sounds -check for clean sounds, no distortion, everything is much more audible -make sure mode on EQ is in m/s 11.) now just raise the volume to see if we end up clipping on any of the sounds -put look ahead at 1.5 ms to hear any audible distortion quickly -start at 0 and raise the volume til we see that the limiter is working; then tone it back so that at no point throughout the track this limiter on the left is doing anything other than raising our volume -ex: at 4.4 dB gain on his track, we noticed that the limiter on the left was doing some work so he just toned it back a little bit so nothing is going to activate the limiter on the right -now turn on second limiter; set look ahead at 3 ms -Trick: 2 diff types of dB info were receiving: light green and dark green. We want the light green to hit 6 dB on the master track -raise the gain all the way up til we see the light green hit around 6 dB Hope this helps!

Dude this video helped me tremendously. I just reached a new stage of musicianship. Thanks for sharing the knowledge ✌🏼

Man, this video is so helpful, so thank you. I'm going deaf and blind, and trying to get my music out there before I can no longer write. But I was struggling with mastering and this was a huge help

Well detailed and explained. Honestly I know NOTHING about mixing and mastering and I’ve been watching multiple video on how to get my beats sounding better and louder. Imma try your method thanks to you!

okkii you are awesome you kinda remind me of a Disney character because of your very enthusiastic and educational nature

legit your tutorial needs to be in an audio museum

This was the EXACT video I needed to see, you have no idea how much I'm smiling right now. I liked and subbed and I'll share with my friends but seriously, thank you.

EXACTLY the video I needed, this really helped me figure out general mixing and mastering for Ableton. I do have a question though if you can, please help. :) I'm still learning so any help would be appreciated. A: Should I freeze and then flatten all my tracks on a new save file and then master on those files, following all the basic steps of mixing and mastering. A problem i run into btw is on tracks that are grouped with an effect like RC-20 how do I flatten that effect to each track that is under that group? The pro in doing this is if I have returns for reverb and delay already set up I don't have to fix that sine they are already applied to specific tracks. B: I stem out all my tracks bring it into a new Ableton project file to mix and master. The problem I run into this, is that I have my Returns (reverb, delay, other sfx returns) in separate export and so now a lot of my instruments and vocals are flat so I have to reapply effects to get it sounding similar. I can fix with problem by applying the returns to each track individually but cpu usage goes up a lot doing this.

Just happened into this video via a Bing page indexing answers to "should I mix and master Ableton songs in another Daw". Glad I found this, and you.... Great info, communication skills, examples, and vibe. Subscribed, thanks so much!

Man this is fire! The difference actually shocked me, thanks for this one!

Hey I really loved your video ! thank you so much for introducing me to the mixing world

great video. Can't wait to give this a try. One of the best yet simplest mastering tutorials for beginners I've seen on here. Thank you!

DUDE!! thanks so much for this video. I was getting so lost, with no structure. But how you explained things made more sense than most of the youtubers that i have seen. Truly thankful. Hope all is well with you and please keep posting. You are awesome :) !!

thumbs up because your track that you used for the video was fire

Cool track bro! Thanks for your video!

ADAM DRIVER!!! You rock

Thank you so much for this! I'm also learning from RU-vid and its AMAZING to find a video that explains EVERYTHING in one on a topic! There are some great teachers on RU-vid and i'm grateful to all of them but I wanted to let you know that taking the extra time is REALLY appreciated from this beginner's point of view. Thanks again!

thank you so much man, this video is the best on youtube!!!

Back here again! You are goated !

a true g. Thanks man. I love you okkii!!!

Thanx Okii. Really helpfull tutorial!

You had a lot of relatable information here. Perfect! All the audio terms you used, you also explained perfectly ! Thank you!

One of the best videos on mixing and mastering I've ever seen. No bs straight to the point. Thank you

GREAT tutorial! Now it's time to go mix. Thanks!

Thank you so much for this Okki! I put off trying to mix and master my songs before watching this video. Now I have the confidence to mix and master them myself. You made the process very easy to understand as well as entertaining to watch. Thank you again!

yo that tune is so good !!!

Amazing tutorial for beginners It was a great help for All ABLETON LIVE Music PRODUCERS Thanks! 😊🎼

Awesome tips! Gonna try some!

Just started with Ableton. Been working with FL for 5-6 years. This tutorial really helped out in my mixing alot!! Thank you !!

This video deserves more attention. It was very helpfull. Amazing work !

I saw aee make a video about gain staging but didn’t understand it because it’s been a long time. Thanks for this video. Helps out tremendously

Hi Okkii, I followed your tutorial and implemented all in my track. It works!! What a great tutorial. Thanks a lot

Man i took my time to stay until the end of the video and glad i did, learned so much, bless

Never give up, thank you so much this video! :)

Thank You Man!! I first read the comments and wow you helped a lot of people , Awesome!! This helped so much

Bro this helped me so much thank you

Really nice video bro good job.

Great video! The release on the compressor is the rate of the compressor letting go signal as it drops below the threshold. I think. I’m pretty sure. 🙂

This is one of the best music tutorials out there. Thanks for sharing your wisdom along with some easy to understand explanations!

wow I will use this video as a guide from now, I have wasted a lot of time following procedures , in wich I did not fully understand why I was doing some of the processes, really really useful, thanks

🤘🏾🤘🏾🤘🏾 was totally awesome! Helped me a bunch

Thank you Okkii its very helpful !

Thank you very much for this breakdown. I struggled a lot with mixing. God bless you man

This video was AWESOME!!!!

Thanks Okkii! I was looking for something like this 👌👌🙏🙏

finally a video where the music is good and within the realms of what i make. nice production man

much love!!! thank you bro

Thank you so much for this vid. You explain it very well, where others baffle, and I shall be going back over this info and adapting it to my tunes. Very much appreciated. Subscribed and liked.

so much helpful tutorial to me! thank you

This was such a useful video. I'll probably watch it back 5 times do to it properly myself, thank you for sharing this video. You're very talented! 👏🏻

You earned a subscription, bless you

nice vid and nice vibe man i'm staying for longer u got a new sub

Thank you soo sooo much.youre officially My new favorite teacher

i stayed until the end of this video and i appreciate your mentorship soooo much. Keep diggin!

Thanks bro. Awesome video on mixing and mastering. Watch a lot of these type videos for different DAWS, and yours was the best...

Dope vid bro. Thank you for the info

your house is on fire mate

Thanks for these valuable tips.

Really great tutorial man, well explained, well presented, well said. About to really take my time implementing these techniques! Def keep these kind of things coming! ☕🌱🖤

Nice and useful, thanks!

This was fantastic. thanks Okkii, I learned a ton

thank you so much for this!!!!!

very nicely done!

You are insane, thanks so much for these videos buddy

Very well explained and full of gems to implement! Thank you okkii!

Great vid, I'm a beginner trying to wrap my head around things like muddiness, compression, and gainstaging and this helped a ton!

What a great video! Thank you for such great tutorial man! I have done music years already but this helped much to understand how, why and when to receive ideal end result 👍 Great work man!

This was really helpful. Thank you for making this video!

This is soo good, thank you

Very informative video thankyou keep doing what you're doing 👍🏻

damn this track is so good! Thanks for the help!

You're awesome!! Thank you for the great tutorial. I'm struggling a lot with mixing and mastering esp. with Ableton, thank you:) Looking forward to your other videos and love your music too!

Humble, selfless, beautiful, person.

Excellent video!!! I learned a lot thank you for being simple and straight forward!

Thanks dude that was a great help, cheers man !!

thanks man! This is the only video I was able to understand how to mix and master

Thank you so much sir. Blessings to you.

Thank you so much man, it's so useful, it makes wanna deepdive into learning mixing and mastering, i might take classes online

u need more subs bro, very understandable and well explained

Great video! Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the content man. Now after that process of mixing, could you show us how to master the final mixed track?

thanks with infinite love

Thanks. Hopefully I can get my tunes sounding better on different devices. Sound is great in my headphones and crappy on speakers

Until you crank it up a little bit, you can’t tell if there is, or there is not a distortion. I would like to see another more advanced tutorial for us who do it for a few years now! Great vid 👍🏻

Great content! Thanks

Thanks for such a great and informative tutorial man! This has really helped me out! Mixed and mastered my first track following this tutorial! Keep on doing what your doing man :)

Super informative. Releasing my first EP in a month and the mastering on my 5 songs hasn’t been done yet🤦🏻‍♂️ thank you for this

Best video ever ..thanks bro 🤟🏾

Thanks man, I’m working on learning mixing and mastering as I’m used to just production. As a beginner this helped a lot!

cheers homie okii , very useful video 👍

U got one more subscriber here. :) nice tutorial. some questions 1.do u put compressor on each track or just master? 2.do u put limiter on other tracks also or just master? 3.do u think its better to have everything in audio before mastering? 4.do u also use chain compression on the lets say in kick/bass relation , to prevent the freq. from clashing and keeping the kick sound clear? Thank you :) peacee

Yeah man ... nice video ... explained a lot ... thanks for that buddy 👊👊👍

This was so helpful!!!!! :) thank you ! 👍! You explained everything so well!

Thanks a los man!

YOOOOOOO my guy thank you so much for this video really helped alot :)

Awesome insight...thanks man

The first tool you use you said that you like to get it to -16, is that what you would recommend for the best quality? Asking because I don't have a clue lmao and I'd rather trust your judgement

Keep it up bro 😎

Good tutorial. Thx!