Is Mixing More Important than Mastering? (For EDM & Bass Music) 

You're the first producer who really explained and has demonstrated mixing techniques in order to make my tracks louder! Thanks so much. I'll be buying your racks. Also really enjoy your tunes. I've been playing them in my car regularly.

I can push my master to be - 2db with barely any distortion in the saturation/clipping process in bass music. If you watch any big name artists stream you'll see that they barely do any mastering at all. What they do is a technique called "Mixing hot" What most of them do is mix with their mastering chain already enabled. So yes, it is "in the mix" because they barely touch mastering. It's a very simple mastering chain in most cases. It usually just includes an EQ and either a soft clipper or saturation to stop anything going past 0db. You then shove your drums as loud as you possibly can until you get extreme distortion. This distortion will likely be because of the low end in your kicks. We know that the low end distorts much easier, and is much more noticeable the harder it's clipped/limited. A pretty easy solution is to just EQ out some of the really low portions of your kick. This allows you to push the drums even harder into the compressor/limiter with little distortion. It leads to a much louder sound. As far as everything else goes, you just do what you can to increase perceived loudness of your sounds. You can increase perceived loudness by things such as compression, saturation, and distortion. A combination of all of those will lead you to a much louder mix. Your high end can also distort pretty easily, but if you sub and lower frequencies are present enough, they will actually drown out the sound of distortion. The trick is to make everything as loud as you possibly can with little to no distortion. As I mentioned earlier, most distortion is first noticed in the low end so you need to watch for that.

span, the vst of legends

Your truly the only artist that made it and actually gives back. I seriously hope you find success on like a Tiesto level, your prolly like the only one who I feel deserves that kind of success. Your content and tutorials are top notch and they aren't just for beginners like just about every other resource out there. Thanks and peacee

So very generous of you to share your way of getting stuff done. I hope you get a lot more support!

I love that you include your notes on the side man - thanks for another useful vid

THIS! Was seriously an awesome and helpful tutorial. Great commentary and well-spoken.

yo watching your youtube channel evolve into what it is today is amazing, thank you for these insanely helpful tutorials

Absolutely loved this tune when it was released. Such a good collab. Both your styles come through so clearly! I wish K+Lab made tutorials because his tunes thump so hard and have such manic energy. He is only getting better too

Bro you seriously have by far the best tutorials THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH

This is great! Thank you! That track is sick!!

This is everything ive ever wanted in a tutorial thankyou!

Thanks for all the great info!

Thank you for everything you do. You’re a real one my guy🙏🏼

Baller. Thanks dude!!!

one of your best videos! I have hearing damage so mixing with SPAN and Pro-MB is a super helpful visual for me controlling dynamics! Thanks

5:55 what you said here, made me decide to go through a bunch of my tracks, Dip all the bass, low and low mid sounds around 1k as well as a sub boost in the master eq and everything sounds so much cleaner and fatter. For whatever reason, the way you worded this and visualized it made this click for me. I am thankful for this video.

Thanks yo! alway tons of helpful info

Hahaha "thusly", great vid man the visual approaches to mixing are very helpful

Dope man! Keep up the good work. xxxxxx

Thank you for exactly how explain using span and comparing them in the eq , to sound the more professional and more punch I certainly try your method as the last video helped a lot, and I love span and my last track sounds amazing now

Dude I've been producing a year now, very intensively, and my mixes have been getting a lot cleaner, but this tutorial EASILY improved them from what I learned within 6 months! Thank you for this.

explanation of how to use EQ to build your bass to how you want was amazing, thank you

Swish! haha Thank you for your wonderful insights on production, you really go in detail about all your groups working together in frequency spectrum. I have much to learn but you're a HUGE help. Hope people take notes, valuable stuff!

also i bought the racks a few weeks ago... i use them on everything!

Have to agree with all the other comments here. You have explained why, where so many others fail to do so. Could you maybe breakdown the bass processing or synthesis on the be this funk track as well?? love the smoothe tone!

You know how to explain and what to explain so good keep doin you

I have been waiting PATIENTLY for a mixing tutorial for this style of bass music. T H A N K Y O U

thanks! cool tutorial

Very golden video 🎉❤

Superb again mate. Great tutorials and really well explained. I purchased your racks the other week. Not had a chance to use them yet but looking for ward to it 👍

The more watch you videos Ahee, Makes me see how clueless about music production I really am, I've made tracks and and I'm pretty embarrassed now haha Thanks for the video's and pro insights into what really goes on under the hood of production.

my brain is fried! you are a God man it will take me years to get to your level

I have been really struggling to try to mix and then master an album I'm working on and I kept getting stuck. But I think this Video and your other video on using the Span spectrum analyzer was really helpful

Nice content bro 😎

I love this guy

I would love to see an in-depth tutorial on how you sidechain everything to the kick and snare. Thanks AHEE, your and those racks are killer!

This is a wild tutorial 😮

thank you sensei! :O

Nice video. Sounds like those snare samples have some pre production on them. I could be mistaken. Lots of EDM drum samples that people use tend to have lots of processing baked in which kinda helps in some cases.

Love that snare

I make bass music and I've been putting limiters on everything. It definitely felt wrong but sounded better and allowed me to get louder cleaner mixes. Def need to get my leads mo' better, too many hobbies some days.

All hail lorde Ahee!

IF YOUR READING THE COMMENTS TO SEE IF YOU SHOULD GET THE RACKS OR NOT. YES DO IT. these racks are phenomenal. Amazing content for the price. 10/10

Awesome vid my dood. Lots of goodies. Looks like Soothe by Oek would save you a buncha notchin' time. I'd imagine we'll play some shows togethz soon. BlessUp

I havent really looked too deep into you cause im flat out soIm not sure how long you been on the go with videos. I have been using the internet to teach myself for a good 15 years. The last 10 been pretty heavy into DJing and music producing, I put myself on a "when Im thirty-five Ill have my music on lock down." Im turning 32 this year and I got some shit coming down the pipe at the end of the summer-a little time in the can, its all good. just trying to make the most of it or whatever. hopefully gunna complete the goals I have. blah blah blah, just trying to give some substance to wha Im about to say. When your the youngest of padawan with a fresh lappy , ableton installed, you get on the internet and before long if your good you find Mr. Bill. Mr.Bill, to me, is the guy who teachs ya to ropes, hes your first slayer master. You my friend are a slayer master! You will go on to be a legend like Mr. Bill Im gunna get your racks next money download I receive. The knowledge you are giving me and have available for me completely transmute the negative emotions I experience in regards to the tribulations of the future. Please if you will, sit down and take a moment to actualize the gratitude I have for you. I am Techno/House music guy and I had the whole Steamy Ray Vaughn thing happen with Dubstep and sequentially "Bass Music." Your tracks Your tracks are WMD bro. I am grateful of your existence. AAAAAAAHHHHEEEEEEEE

I particularly like the break down video of 'Be that Funk', So many light bulb moments....haha

siiick

wow amazing trick with the lo and hi multiband sidechain thing. def gonna try that and look into your racks! also, why is it you look at -30 in span? why that number specifically ?

Do you think you could do a video where you show what the limiters are doing?

Mix your song very beautifully than its not required to master

Could you possibly make a video breaking down exactly how you’re side-chaining to your kick and snare with that hi/low splitter? That sounds like something I should probably be doing... lol.

Hey can you guide me, when I put Span on my master channel it doesn't hit -30db. How do you achive that without mastering? Do you make your kick hit 0db from the beginning? I couldn't figure it out

Ahee, do you ever break production into a writing phase vs a mixing phase ? Do you export normalized stems and re-mix once the track is "written"? Or are you of the school of thought that you can do everything all in one "framework" , or box, by working on what is going to be your final mix from the beginning? Also, do you ever use clip mode to arrange tracks?

Do you recommend saving your into WAV first then Mastering or Mastering it in the same place you made it?

Hey ahee, I know this video is a couple years old.. but I have a question.. what’s the difference between EQing MIDI clips and EQing audio clips? Is it better to flatten midi??? Thank you!

Do you not do surgical EQ on your tracks to clean up phasing and other muddiness? It looks like you’re just doing a cut at 100-250 hz for stuff that’s not sub bass related.

whats the settings of the last last Pro- L on your master

Tl;dr: Yes.

Yo where do you guys get your vocal samples from?

7:08 Don't you level the kick around negative 30 like the sub? thanks a lot for your videos AHEE

tl;dw = YES

how do you put limiters on each bus? dont you get latency problems?

Do you offer lessons?

Ahee do you ever do Skype lessons?

limiter inception

seen san holo and peekaboo just send their drums into send tracks basically doubling the volume output while letting it clip so it cuts thhru

Would you like to make some tutorial for beginners This stuff is little bit advance for us

Zeds dead baby

Is Ozone worth the $500 for mastering?

First

the song says "nibbas fault"? (°ー°〃)

Didnt come here to watch the video, just to answer the question. Mixing and mastering is like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You need both of them. You can make a jelly sandwich but it's not that good. You can make a peanutbutter sandwich, but it's not that good. You need peanut butter and jelly.