Written by Marco from Phuture Noize.

As Phuture Noize, we recently asked our fans via Facebook what kind of production subjects they want more information about. After reading a shitload of begging responses such as “mixdown plz” and “proper mastering,” I thought it would be a fantastic idea to cover some of my personal mixing tricks that I use or have been taught by other producers.

First of all I want start off with explaining the difference between mixing and mastering. I still see a lot of people saying  “Yeah, my mix is shit because I didn’t master it yet…” Well, that just doesn’t make any sense, so let’s get this straight!

Mixing is how your track actually sounds in terms of EQing, volume levels, reverb/delay useage and so forth. Mastering (in Electronic Music) is trying to make your track as loud and as ‘colourful’ as any other track. This is done so that your track doesn’t sound strangely quiet or out of place when you play it in a DJ set.

Secondly, let’s just clear this up – There are no rules to a good mix! It will sound good or not-so-good to your ears. As a personal example, I love extremely loud and punchy mixes with not much reverb, however a lot of other producers in the scene love really spacey bassy mixes.

So now that we have clarified the basics, let’s get down to business!

Mix tip 1: “Sidechain bitches”

One of the most important things about a loud mix is proper sidechain useage. I sidechain all of my stuff once the kick is going. Sometimes I sidechain quite a lot and sometimes just subtly. This method makes your kick stand out more which of course is an important component of every hardstyle track. You can also use a few more dB’s for your kick, since you created space for the kick with sidechain.

TIP: Xfer’s LFOtool, easy and quick sidechain.

Mix tip 2: “Use proper headroom”

Personally, although using proper headroom has always resulted in a shitty mix for me, I found a really easy way to create headroom while you can still mix at clipping point (which I love). All you have to do is put a brickwall limiter (for example: Oxford Sonnox Inflator) on the master channel and boost the input by +12dB. This way, all of your channels have huge headroom while you are still able to mix really loud and don’t have to break your head on the -12dB headroom “rule”.
Some DAWs (like FL) do not handle clipping mixer channels very well and in turn, slightly compress the sound, so using proper headroom will result in a better mixdown.

Mix tip 3: “Don’t make your mix sound to wide”

One of the things I learned myself is that having a really wide mix results in the overall mix sounding less impacting and too thin. So before you flick on a stereo enhancer, make sure it’s actually improving your sound.

Mix tip 4: “Fuck dynamics?!”

I hear a lot of music production hipsters all like “Make sure that you pay attention to your dynamics in your sounds!” and I’m all like “Why the fuck”?!
Guys, we are making hardstyle with the main purpose to melt faces and one of the things that melt faces is extremely loud mixes. So one of the most important tips that I can give to you is to use compression as much as possible. Make everything sound punchy and crispy so that it has the ability to slam in your face when showcased live. Don’t overdo this though, it will result in a really muddy and overcompressed  mix . It will take quite a while to get the right balance in this, however it’s really worth in taking your time and energy to get this right.

Mix tip 5: “Use the least amount of EQ as possible”

One of the things that I spent most of my time on when I was still quite the newbie was EQing.
I guess that you all know the story – You’ve made a cool sound but you can’t get it right within the mix.
My advice is to simply delete it and start over. If you want to achieve an easy-to-mix track, then you should use  the least amount of EQ as possible. Just create a new sound and try to make it awesome already without having to EQ the shit out of it.

Mix tip 6: “Use reference tracks”

Maybe the most important one, using reference tracks can really improve your mixdown with almost no effort. Play your favourite professionally produced tune next to yours and you will notice right away what’s wrong and what’s good.

Huge thanks to Marco from Phuture Noize for those handy tips and tricks for all of the producers out there! We are absolutely itching to hear what these guys come up with in their upcoming album “Phuture Propaganda!”