Mixing stupidly loud EDM

[jpbear]

So lately I've set up a workflow for mixing things really loudly, and I think I've nearly perfect and would like to know yalls thoughts on it and how yall get loud powerful EDM mixes.

So the basic idea is that you have two big send chains,

- one for ALL drums except your snare.
- You route everything else into another bus (except the snare again), and then send the snare and everything channel into a send together.

Sidechain the everything(minus snare) channel to your snare.

Automate your EVERYTHING(except drums) send's volume to sidechain with the big drum hits.
You automate instead of sidechaining so you can be more detailed and not clog or lose a millisecond of free headroom.

Automate the volume of your big tailed kicks to not get your drum send with your everything else send intertwining.

The basic idea is that either your drums are at 100% headroom or your everything channel is at 100% volume, they NEVER coincide. You put a limiter and compress accordingly on each bus to get things to the proper beyond loud level

Master to your liking, but nearly no mastering is necessary when mixing like this since your levels are perfect going into the master bus.

This process is intuitive for a lot of people, but I thought people struggling with edm mixing techniques could get some help with this tutorial/demonstration thing

[jpbear]

Also regarding mastering again, I like to just turn down the gain on my master multibuss compressor and then boost what i want needs to be

The picture is from this song clip, http://soundcloud.com/masqofficial/masq-the-brigade-clip

Which is just about the most professional sounding mix I think I've ever achieved thus far.

[jarrydn]

this is good man, thanks for the insight. it's a killer mix btw :)

[Buoy]

Does this result in the snare drums sounding as comically over the top as in your songs?

[jpbear]

At 4/27/12 01:36 AM, Buoy wrote: Does this result in the snare drums sounding as comically over the top as in your songs?

Well a 100% sidechain for the snare is the standard :)

My snare processing is a non-mixing related process lol

[AeroMusic]

Thanks alot for this! I love not having to master, so doing everything in the mix is perfect for me :)

[Xyresic]

Read first post
Understand nothing
I'll just stick with to being a noob kthx

[HyperTrough]

That track was pretty sweet (AND LOUD). The technique you're using looks fairly time consuming.

What do you mean by compress accordingly? How much is the compressor supposed to shave off? And at what ratio? I've never fully understood compressing the master. For me, if I try to tame the odd spike on the master channel at a 1:1.1 ratio it sounds soooo compressed...

[jpbear]

At 4/27/12 06:42 AM, AeroMusic wrote: Thanks alot for this! I love not having to master, so doing everything in the mix is perfect for me :)

At 4/27/12 09:34 AM, HyperTrough wrote: That track was pretty sweet (AND LOUD). The technique you're using looks fairly time consuming.

What do you mean by compress accordingly? How much is the compressor supposed to shave off? And at what ratio? I've never fully understood compressing the master. For me, if I try to tame the odd spike on the master channel at a 1:1.1 ratio it sounds soooo compressed...

The MULTIBUS compressor on your master is used in an EQ fashion tbh, use it to boost what areas of the track you want boosted, dont even really mess with the ratios, the occasional fly off dynamic will just get limited.

Just make sure you lower your GAIN IN on your compressor accordingly to what you boost because your input is already at 100% volume.

But compressing definetly is not my forte, and mastering in general definitely is not.

[loansindi]

This is a critique on your writeup:

Assign clear, obvious names to things you'll be referring to in the future. If you want us to have two sends, tell us that the snare will be in send #1, and your other perc will be in send #2. This saves you from using somewhat ambiguous words like 'everything' when referring to an item in your writeup.

[jpbear]

At 4/27/12 02:24 PM, loansindi wrote: This is a critique on your writeup:

Assign clear, obvious names to things you'll be referring to in the future. If you want us to have two sends, tell us that the snare will be in send #1, and your other perc will be in send #2. This saves you from using somewhat ambiguous words like 'everything' when referring to an item in your writeup.

Yea its kinda sloppy overall, it was a about 2 am when I wrote and I should have been a lot clearer

But i thought i estabilished what the "everything" send was tbh.