Common Mixing Mistakes – Too Much Compression – 7 of 12
- Common Mixing Mistakes – Boomy or Thin-Sounding Mix – 1 of 12
- Common Mixing Mistakes – Edgy, Fatiguing Sound – 2 of 12
- Common Mixing Mistakes – No Sparkle and Bottom – 3 of 12
- Common Mixing Mistakes – Large Swings in Spectral Balance – 4 of 12
- Common Mixing Mistakes – Insufficient Detail – 5 of 12
- Common Mixing Mistakes – Not Enough Punch – 6 of 12
- Common Mixing Mistakes – Too Much Compression – 7 of 12
- Common Mixing Mistakes – The Chorus Doesn’t Climax – 8 of 12
- Common Mixing Mistakes – Washy Sound with No Depth – 9 of 12
- Common Mixing Mistakes – Collapsed Stereo Image – 10 of 12
Too Much Compression
These days, many mixes are so overcompressed that they become irritating and fatiguing to listen to after only one or two minutes. Overcompression is like a plague contaminating our industry. Make no mistake — I love stereo-bus compression, and I like my mixes loud, but there’s a big difference between pumped-up, exciting dynamics and just plain annoying noise and distortion.
The old saw about using your ears when determining how far to push mix-bus compression is all well and good, but I have a more practical suggestion: watch the crest factor on your stereo-bus meters. The crest factor is essentially the difference between peak and average levels, and keeping tabs on it is a good reality check against what ears addicted to volume might otherwise be pushing to accomplish.
Spend time listening to your favorite records — particularly those that have dynamics you’d like to emulate in your mixes — patched through the 2-track return of your mixing console or DAW, and keep a close eye on the meters. (Make sure that the meters are peak reading and set to prefader listen, and that all processing is disabled.) Note how much the meters rise above average levels during transient peaks throughout various sections of each song. Then shoot for roughly the same crest factor in your mixes. You can learn a lot by being a good meter reader.