Hello Lovely people!
We have had such a wonderful response to the 5 Quick mixing tips series! Thank you for watching and leaving so many comments and questions below the videos. Today I want to continue this series with 5 new saturation mixing tips.
Adding saturation to your mix can help to smoothen out transients and thickness to the sounds that you apply it to. You can use it on just about everything too, drums, bass, guitars, or keyboards. If you’re looking to add some new flavor to your mixes, look no further. Here are 5 tips to get your started.
- Use Saturation on Snare. – Adding a little saturation to a snare drum close mic can bring out the sustain of the drum and at the same time make the hits a more consistent. The end result is that the drum will feel louder, but the peak levels will remain the same!
- Saturate the Bass Guitar – When you record both the bass guitar amp and the DI track. Low pass the DI and hi pass the amp. Then add some subtle saturation all or go crazy and add a lot of distortion. Adding the distortion might bring out a little hum from the amp’s track, so you might have to add a gate. You can see this in the video example. This is a great trick for adding some high end energy that will help the bass guitar cut through the mix
- Saturate the Guitar DI – If you recorded the electric guitar and tracked a DI for reamping you can also also use the DI track as something you can create an effect with. Saturate the DI and go really crazy with it. Then add some reverb. You can then blend this in with the guitar amp sound that you recorded to create a new guitar sound!
- Use saturation on Piano – A acoustic piano can have a really sharp transient. Adding some saturation to the piano can help you to smoothen out the transients which and add consistency. Now your piano will sound fuller and sit better in the mix.
- Saturate to remove harshness – Last but not least, you can use saturation on a drum overheads or room mics to remove cymbal harshness. Just the smallest amount of saturation will roll off the high end and tame those bright splashy cymbals, but the top end of your snare drum in the mix will still be bright and crisp.
Check out the video below to see me demonstrate all of these tricks. If you have any comments or questions be sure to leave them below! Have a marvellous time recording and mixing!
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