Masking 101: Three Techniques To Create More Space In Your Mixes

[@audioproductiontips]

Do you have any desert island plug-ins for helping eliminate masking? Or tried and trusted techniques? If you would like some free custom rock and metal drum samples you can get them here: www.audioproductiontips.com/free-stuff

[@lamborghinimiura7625]

This was very helpful. Thanks.

[@SteveStockmalMusic]

Another question: At 12:01 you switch multiple plug-ins on and off, may I ask how you did that?

[@audioproductiontips]

Make sure you select the tracks you want to disable inserts at the same time then: press "shift + a" at the same time to disable all the plug-ins or "shift + option + cmd" and select a specific insert to disable just that row (like I do in this video). Cheers

[@SteveStockmalMusic]

Very cool, thank you 🙏

[@SteveStockmalMusic]

Hey great job and great explanations, thank you. So would you recommend mixing with trim as opposed to faders? Or was that just for this example Part of my brain wants to think that having the faders all at zero would be better for the actual audio. Does that make sense?do you think that’s true? Thanks again 😎

[@audioproductiontips]

Hi Steve, That's not the case, turning the fader up or down is as simple as a mathematical multiplication. So it does not degrade the signal at all. The only reason to adjust clip-gains or trims is to keep the fader at a point where it is easily fine-tunable as the fader is logarithmic. Put another way the amount of movement to change the gain by the same amount is different at the top than the bottom.

[@SteveStockmalMusic]

Thanks for clarifying !!

[@dannysonproduction88]

Thx so much, that was very instructive.

[@briancase6180]

Thanks, this is a helpful video. I think the first part--simply getting the levels right--is the most important. Anybody can slap a sidechain compressor on a bass. ☺️ I wonder if you would also consider basically ducking one synth against another in certain frequency ranges. You could use the multiband again, or even a dynamic EQ....

[@loubot3332]

Also panning decisions can often greatly affect whether eq even needs to take place or how it ls tweaked ;)

[@briancase6180]

@@loubot3332 Excellent point. In the same category, encountered a mix where different notes in a chord were distributed between mid and side. I didn't notice until I tried to manipulate the side image (just for fun; this was a commercial song) and the high note got louder. Then the light bulb went on. "Oh wow, that's a thing? Wait, that's a cool idea!"

[@loubot3332]

@@briancase6180 yeah that's one reason why I pan prior to eq and compression these days.. can reduce the number of eq moves needed and that's always a good thing!

[@rapidfiremuzik_official]

FL Studio doesn't have a trim plugin 😭😭😭

[@audioproductiontips]

I don't use FL Studio but you can use the input volume on the channel rack or the output of any plug-in with an output gain knob. :)