THE 99% MIXING AND 

MASTERING EBOOK 
ProdbyJack & MG 

Written by MG 

 
INTRODUCTION 
Mixing can be so fun, yeah right, right? Mixing and fun don't belong 
in the same sentence for some. So let this book guide you to get that 
sorted. Im explaining it in my own words as a hip hop 
producer/engineer and beatmaker to other hip hop producers and 
engineers. This guide will break down the important sides of the mix 
and how you can quickly adopt a mixing workflow that will make you 
a better mixer and a quicker mixer working smarter to keep making 
beats rather than mixing them. There isn't a one size fits all for all 
mixing techniques so it's time to break some down so you can really 
begin to learn exactly what it is you're doing. Mixing isn't a race. Take 
your time and give your ears plenty of rest. Everything will fall in 
place after implementing some good practices. This Ebook is designed 
to pave that for you and place you on the road which seemed foggier 
before. 
 

 
 
 
 

1   
EQ 
EQ is one of the most integral components of a good mix . Many 
sounds and sound sources we use in production have unnecessary 
frequencies within them which create overlaps, phase issues and a 
host of other problems that if not correct, will ultimately cause issues 
further in the mix when applying other effects and processing. The 
foundation of most good mixing is EQ. I would always advise 
someone to start with a reductive approach to their EQ , just cutting 
out frequencies that are if no relevance or importance to a sound . 
For example, a piano will have present frequencies over wide range a 
cutting out overly apparent bass and high end with simple low cut 
and hi cuts will balance out the mix to start with. I would stress that 
each of the mixer channels start with an Eq, even if it only has a very 
simple reduction occurring , so long as we priorities cleaning up the 
mix first , the rest of the process will feel a lot easier. Mixing with Eq 
is particular to each sound and there isn’t really a recipe so to speak 
that works perfectly. It isn’t a one size fits all process but there are a 
few general pointers that will really help to improve the tidiness if a 
mix.  

Reductive EQ 
In any Eq that has the ability to isolate the frequencies we affect, we 
can carve out unwanted mud or piercing top end. Take pro q2 for 
example - by pressing the headphone icon on a frequency band it 
allows us to listen to the target frequency we’re cutting. It usually is a 
low boomy sound in the bottom or a hissy incoherent noise in the top 
end. I would suggest you don’t get too used to boost and sweep 
methods because they can really annoy the ear , highlight a specific 
frequency that is annoying by itself at a high volume but is sometimes 
an actual characteristic of an instrument. Reductive Eq should be 
simple 
 

2   
Most of the time if the sounds we are using are initially produced 
well. You shouldn’t need to dip 500hZ on the snare drastically or take 
out too much high end with tight bell shaped Eq unless the noise is 
obviously harsh and annoying . listening to an isolated channel 
without the rest of the mix to actually provide a reference point is 
equally detrimental at times . Spending 30 mins on a snare by itself 
then unsoloing it to find it’s gone missing and lacks punch etc isn't 
exactly a great thing for your morale! 
 
 
Mid/Side EQ 
Eq on the face of it, as we mostly know it, loads up and you get a few 
things to play around with, moving the bands about, the shape of 
them etc. but one powerful tool often overlooked is splitting your eq 
channel between mid and side. Unlike the conventional eq curves we 
mainly use, mid and side EQ allows us to effectively look at our 
speaker and divide frequencies between the areas we prefer. For 
example, removing the side of a bass or low element equates to you 
narrowing its stereo field and bypasses you from including bass end 
in stereo end of your mix.in the high end, it is useful to roll of some 
frequencies at times front the mid and side channels just you you get 
more high end into the tweeter side of your speaker, which is 
responsible for producing most of the high end. Here is an example to 
set your mind at ease when reading this for the first time 
Look at the mode section of the stock ableton 10 eq, M/S is what you 
need to find on your eq 

3   
  
Here is a screenshot of me taking out some low and his from a chord 
leads of the mid channel 

 
And one of me taking out the bass from the side and boosting a touch 
of high end. 

 
 
 
 

4   
Sometimes if you can't find a way to make that top end sparkle and 
just keep adding more and more eq curves and volume to a top end 
sound without the desired effect, try this! This will really help you cut 
back on wasted frequency spectrum if you’re finding it hard to 
position things in the mix in general.  
 
Mid and side is so good in mastering because it can really help you to 
select exactly what portion of the speakers you're affecting. In the 
master section , i'll go through my mastering chain i use and how you 
can adopt those methods for yourself  
 
Great third party eqs to add to your arsenal, amazing for reductive eq 
and generally too 
 
Fabfilter PRO Q2​ - literally the only one i use for reductive stuff 
Fabfilter PRO Q3​ -upgrade of 2 that i haven't found too much 
love for, 2 just seems like the one for me but there is a handy 
brick wall eq for really hard cuts if a sound is really bothering 
you  
Your Stock DAW eq​ - you can get by with this. You actually 
don't need anything else most of the time. This thing will low cut 
and hi cut like everything else. Try not to use this to add 
anything though , like boosting with one of these often makes 
the sound a little less satisfying. 
Sonible Smart EQ2​ - if you're starting out this one here can help 
to teach you different eq curves. Its algorithm based and works 
via an A.I to get the most out of a sound 
Waves REQ 2-6​ - T ​ his series of eqs are so simple and classically 
designed and work great on vocals. They are a bit trickier 
because they don't display the pre and post analyzer but sound 
great. So anyone intermediate/experienced with access to this 
start using asap 

5   
 Waves F6​ - ​F6 is particularly unique because it has an inbuilt 
compressor into it. Which makes it powerful for squeezing out 
the sections of the sound you need to have more prominence. I 
use this on the kick top end a lot to give a greater impact 
anywhere in between 2-5kHz 
 
 
Additive EQ 
Signal chain​ ​wise itd go after compression and tidying up the sound 
but before reverb or any effects amazing eqs for this are: 
 
Waves PuigTec EQP1A and MEQ5 
Any Waves API unit 
SSL G Channel, SSL EQ, SSL Channel 
 
Additive eq is about the character. Most of these are modelled on 
vintage equipment to bring back that gritty saturation or presence of 
an original hardware unit.  
 
I use additive eq separate to reductive eq because i mostly Compress 
directly after reductive eq, meaning when I add something to it wth 
the listed analog units, it can help accentuate the clean and 
compressed signal, rather than the muddy un treated signal. what I'll 
do is I'll load up one of my favourite EQs which I've listed to basically 
amplify the sound further or bring out a certain characteristic of it 
that I like. I use the waves API units most of the time for mostly each 
element in the mix because it just has a really nice sound. The Pultec 
EQs which are the PuigTec EQs in Waves are really powerful because 
they have what's called the ability to make a resonant band. A 
resonant band is where you increase the volume of a frequency then 
decrease it simultaneously bringing about a presence and width to an 
element, which can be really useful for the bass. Using the PuigTec 
EQP1A on an 808 boosting 60hz by one on the boost section and 

6   
attenuating 1 in the attenuation section it will actually create this 
resonant layer in between the boost and cut and achieves this thick 
sounds that a lot of us try to achieve. Creating a big bass with just a 
couple of steps 
 
Equally proficient on hi end information. You can actually use it to 
affect spectrums with really wide band EQ bringing out a total 
character of the high end information on a lead or snare without 
relying on an analyser like you see on a stock EQ with the graph 
showing you all the frequencies. You can really train your ears to 
‘hear’ using this. In this way your ears become more trained to 
calculating what you are hearing and what you need to add and take 
from am mix instead of relying on your eyes seeing the eq 
graph/analyser change. It adds a level of excitement to your eqing and 
can bring about some really great results going in blind like that. 
Separating the additive EQ section like this really helps your 
workflow because you can go back to the compressor and reductive 
eq separately without having to affect something in the chain by 
changing it . What I Mean is, when you boost after compression, you 
bring in new elements into the sound with your new clean signal. You 
won't lose all these boost but would have if you included all your 
EQing in one plug in. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

7   
Compression 
 
With modern day kits we use in our production etc, a lot of the 
sounds are either heavily compressed already or have limiting 
applied to them to finalise the sound. For us that basically means that 
there isn't too much of a dynamic presence in the sound to start with. 
Meaning that if we continue to add more compression, we lose the 
character and body of the sound and the natural texture , and we end 
up having a block of sound that overall isnt too good sounding. 

Basic Compression Principles 

Now compression can be useful and is a very powerful tool that can 
help elements in a mix stand out, I mainly use it on leads and vocals 
that have a lower volume and need some oomph. Compressors 
basically bridge the gap between the loudest point of a sound and the 
quietest. Without any auto gain or make up gain on a compressor, the 
sound becomes a lot lot quieter. Take for example a soft piano sound 
that intensifies. Let's say the quiet bit of the piano is -12dB and the 
loudest point is -3db, what compression will do is bring down the -3dB 
level closer to the -12dB level based on what we out into the 
compressor. The ratio is really important in maintaining a dynamic 
sound. Briefly, a 1:2 dB ratio means for every 1dB you put into the 
compressor, you take of -2dB. So if we have a kick with a compression 
ratio of 1:2 then we actually lose 2 decibels per 1 we put into the 
compressor. This would suck if we couldn't amplify the signal again. 
But here is the question. If the kick is sounding good, why compress it 
further. It'll just reduce the energy it had. The threshold is the next 
important area of the compressor which determines when the 
compressor acts. For example your compression threshold is 0 and 
your sound doesn't get louder than -5db, you aren't gonna reduce 
practically anything. Some compressors, especially vintage model 
ones have some character boost when you just put them on the sound 

8   
without touching anything but a bog standard DAW compressor will 
do mainly nothing to the sound until you take down the threshold so 
the compressor can actually have a sound to act on, reducing the 
threshold here therefore will get the compressor to start acting. Now 
let's say your -5db sound is playing, you put your compression 
threshold down to -9db, it'll be active and reducing enough gain to 
even out the sound. Let's pick up the example of our piano again, let's 
say we take our compressor and put it on the piano and take the 
threshold down so it takes of -6db of gain reduction, you'll see this 
occur in the meter section of the compressor. Now the loudest and 
softest point will have a smaller gap between their dynamic range. 
Retaining this in a modern mix is really important but evening out 
the sound is equally beneficial, you'll now never lose the piano in the 
overall beat. 
 
Here is an example using fabfilter pro c-2. I'll show you a lead here 
which has a quiet and loud point and how we can even it out so it 
overall has a lower dynamic range but better presence.  

9   
 
Here is the sound. As you can see, the start is quiet and it gets louder, 
considerably, about 12db. Now let's grab a compressor and i'll show 
you how it acts.  
 

 
You can see roughly the same shape in the compressor as you can in 
the waveform , basically no reduction is happening, nothing much 
going on. But with the metre over the threshold dial, you can see the 
peak of the sound and how much threshold to roughly apply here it is 
at the quietest point. 
 

10   
  
So if we set our threshold to around 10 o'clock , we can even out this 
sound quite nicely 
 

 
 

11   
You can see from the diagram that the new waveform is a lot closer 
together, and in the background , in dark grey you can see the 
original , so this signal is now compressed and quite close together, 
losing the difference between the loudest an qualitest is spot. Now the 
attack time here is quite quick. The attack time in a compressor 
basically tells it how fast to act, so you more or less instantly duck the 
sound as soon as the compressor hears it. If you set this higher, the 
compressor will take longer to act, for leads and synths this can be 
quite nice because it'll allow the instrument to breath and you won't 
choke out all the dynamics, plus when gain is applied and you're not 
just reducing it with compression, you'll see why it's important, it'll 
appear more natural and steady rather than abruptly killing the 
quality of the sound  
 

 
Here i moved the attack longer. The release longer and added 
lookahead. OMG what are all of these aadhgpojlketlkjbd! 
 
 

12   
Attack and release settings are very subjective and are really a 
preference of the engineer. It depends how harsh you want the 
compression to be. Here are the basics of all the parametres. 
Threshold we've been through, ratio we have covered. 
 
Attack​ how long it takes for the compressor to start compression, 
quick attack settings are more useful for drums to lock in the punch, 
sowere ones retain the dynamic information so are great for leads 
and synths etc.  
 
Release​ When the compressor turns off, how long it takes for it to 
stop compressing. If it's a pluck sound you'll want it to be shorter, just 
so it isn't holding any empty rumbly sounds or hissssss .For pads and 
pianos and evolving sounds, you might want to slightly longer, to 
enhance a portion of the tail of the sound to bring it out more if it has 
a unique character 
 
Lookahead​ will let you compressor check what it's compressing 
before the signal hit, it'll check what and when to compress, way 
more taxing on the cpu but it'll help to really retain character of 
drums etc.  
 
How do i know what settings to use. Use your eyes and ears really. If 
the sound start sounding stupid or dull and you've done a crazy 
compression on it, you can see why, take the threshold and move it 
close to 0 so it's not so active; is your ratio on 1:infinity? try aim for 2 
or 3 to 1 or in between there for most sounds, you want to retain as 
smooth a sound as the original. 
 
Are there any other compressions about?  
 

13   
Well multi band compression is a similar beast to compression but it's 
mostly more useful for overall sound enhancement, like the complete 
mix.  

 
This is pro MB over a complete song. What it aims to do is be a level of 
mastering before mastering. Like a pre master. This specific 
compressor looks at each individual segments and helps to compress 
and meld areas together. If you look at each crossover section it 
carries a certain piece of the frequency spectrum, the pink part 
corresponding to the bass end, the green mostly to the kick and low 
mid area and so forth. Multi-band is a great finalisation technique but 
equally but needs to be fairly soft or you destroy the mix. 
 
Side chain is important in compression because it can really help you 
kick and 808 to sit together better. Now it isn't the only method of side 
chain, like you can side chain anything to anything but it's mostly 
common on kick and 808, it's becoming less and less used because you 

14   
can achieve the same effect with an eq etc but if you want to, it's still a 
great way of making room for the kick. The compressor basically 
takes the kick and says to the 808, everyone this thing hits, you lose 
this amount of dB. Because the kick and 808 have so many similar 
frequencies, they mostly clash otherwise. It is a great beginners tactic 
on improving the relationship between the two, hell even a great 
technique to use in advanced ways as a seasoned engineer. I still use 
it , softly, but i do.  
 
I load my kick and 808, eq them etc, level them up etc and then send 
the kick in to the sidechain section of the compressor. I use a ratio of 
around 1:1.5 - 2 and a threshold of around -7 to -12 depending on how 
much kick i want, attack on 0.2 and auto release. Not much more than 
that is really necessary, depends how heavy you want the side chain 
to be.  
 
Compressors i love are 
Fabfilter Pro-C2 
 
And that's it... I use the stock one and C2. it has everything I need 
from a cleaning up the mix standpoint.  
 
Additive compression  
 
Now this might be a bit weird but some compressors have a lovely 
character and are hard to overlook. I rarely use these on the beat side 
of things but sometimes slap them on a lead or 2 to make them get 
that oomph, but on vocals they are amazing. 
 
JST GR  
is the best thing since sliced bread. It's a crazy aggressive gain 
reducer, super heavy compressor that hits like no other. It can take 
the sound and amplify it like mad, leaving the sound super 

15   
compressed but very even. Using it lightly is sick because it means 
you can really get that gritty slap out of it. But again, I use this on 
vocals mostly so i'll cover out there but experiment with it equally 
rewarding. 
 
660/670 fairchild 
The mono and stereo version of an old analog unit i use is the waves 
Fairchild 660/670 to give the sound more character. It's a great 
compressor for vocals again but if you're looking to finalise one of 
your sounds this one is sick. 
 
Any SSL comp, channel rack etc 
These things are modelled off of the big desk so speak for themselves. 
You aren't losing out too much if you can't get your hands on the plug 
ins but they are really intuitive and if you use them, they can really 
help your mixes.  
 
Smart Comp  
Just like smart eq, it's an a.i. based comp which can help set you up as 
the best compression for your individual elements. It Can help teach 
you all you need about certain instrument even to carry over to other 
compressors when you learn enough to do it manually. 
 
CLA 2a, 3a, 76  
These are waves plugins but equivalents exist . they don't do too 
much more than your regular compressor and you can achieve a pro 
mix without them but these are generally better sounding and analog 
modelled which pack a punch for your drums and are really effective 
for gain reduction . 
 
Learn the difference between the type of compression you're doing. 
It's useful to know about gain reduction and compression. Take a 
compressor with a VU meter, if the needle slams down hard and 

16   
doesn't really move, that's gain reduction, if the needle is moving and 
wavering about, that's compression.  
 
 
Gain Staging and Leveling 

Levelling and gain staging become way more simple with clear cut 
positions in the frequency spectrum for each sound. It opens the 
ability to have a well placed and balanced mix , even if done quite 
quickly. Here are a few pointers and what to look for.  
 
I love these two components because they can literally make or break 
a mix. I went through years of shoddy levelling and gain staging to get 
to the position I’m in now which is pretty good. The hell of deciding 
how damn loud my snare should be and where i'd put the kick etc. All 
in all , in bassey music, we all get high on the driving 808 and 
knocking kick but often over egg them. Here is literally the most 
simple levelling tutorial you'll ever get in an ebook that you can come 
back and refer to however many times you want to and go out and 
adapt it to your own workflow. 
 
Without even touching on gain staging, you can get your mix 
sounding 50 times better with a little bit of levelling. Here are a few 
methods to this in production. Our kick is the life of the beat so we 
level everything off that. 
 
Kick: 0dB 
Snare: -3dB 
Perc: -7/5db ish  
808: -6dB 
Hats: 11/9dB 
Instruments and synths, varies but -14 to -9 dB 
 

17   
This will get your beat sounding sweet. Slap a limiter on the master 
and you've got your working mix in order. You and your people can 
enjoy it sounding crisp and bassey. Now to save time you could 
literally just take another 6dB off those levels and have your levels 
literally sorted. So kick at -6dB, sanre -9dB etc etc. That'll give you the 
levels you need before adding your own touches to make it how you 
want. The important thing here is that that is a rough guide, if you 
think your kick is lacking, find a way to give it some extra punch. EQ 
it, saturate it; all of that good stuff and that might get you to where 
you need to be,  
 
Now it's all well and good mixing at those levels but let's say you want 
that extra professional touch. Most mix engineers will decide to 
actually gain stage the music before starting on the levels. So strap in 
and lets go.  
 
Set everything to zero/unity . take off all your mixing etc apart from if 
maybe you halftimed something for the entire track, leave that on 
because that's what we’ll be mixing but, generally take everything off, 
and set the mixer meter back to default. Don't press play because 
you'll break your eardrums. Take the master level and decrease it 
significantly like -12/-19 or whatever so that we don't kill our ears. 
Here is my kick from the example.  
 

18   
  
Looking at it it's averagely what we see when we see our kicks wave 
form. Looks beefy but to get this properly gain staged we need to take 
out some volume . This is what the kick peaks out without me 
touching it. Literally what the meter reads when i drop it into ableton 
 

 
it doesn't really take a genius to figure out why this isn't ideal. We are 
losing so much headroom it's untrue! It peaks at +4.91 dB. That's over 
our production level mix and is superrrr hot. Even if you just turn 
down the fader the original sound is already too loud so… get into the 
sound source and turn that down until we see that meter at -12dB. 
That's right , for every instrument , effect perc etc. get it to -12dB 
without the fader being touched . Keep the fader on unity and turn 
down the original sampel like so, here i took off 17db. And here's the 
new meter. 

19   
 

 
 
 

 
 
-12.1, working with a little more room than minus 12.  

20   
follow the same step for every sound until everything is at -12. This 
will give us that head room and we can start to get our mix done turn 
your master to +6, just max it out basically and nothing should clip 
over the top because its all quiet etc. From here, with -12 as the start 
position of the kick, we can take the 808 and level it -6dB approx. 
from the kick. Just use the initial mix guide above to get everything 
sitting tidy. No sound will be clipping from the get go like our kick 
was initially, and everything might sound a bit quiet at first but 
adding that extra 6db to the master should help. Once that's all done 
your mix is fully levelled and gain staged. Thats it really. This will 
double the quality of your masters and don't forget to take your 
master level back down to 0. 
 
BUSS and Sends+Returns 
 
Mix is done right? everything sounding good? levelled nicely crisp etc. 
Not necessarily done though! In come buss effects and sends and 
returns, holy grails of cpu saving and holy grails of mixing in turn 
too! Why? Simple, they utilise the same plug in for multiple channels 
and her is how! 
 
This will save you bags of time if you try to include this method in 
your mix. Instead of loading your reverb on every channel under the 
sun taking up resources, and you practically load the same sound into 
every channel. Then pop it on a send and the job is done, exactly the 
same as buss routing. We've all heard of NY compression or parallel 
compression tech quest and if you haven't then crawl out from under 
the rock you've been living under because it can be one of the most 
useful tools you'll get. Instead of loading up a compressor on each 
channel , load a ridiculously heavy compression on a buss and send 
bits of signal to it that you want compressed. For example, all your 
drums could rout over to a compression buss which could glue them 
all together and have them sit nice and tightly together, this one buss 

21   
could have some crisp saturation on there and a very short reverb 
where you could send you claps, snares hats etc to get them more full 
in a mix . 
 
Here are compression setting i use on 2 different buss channels which 
help beef up my stuff. Generally speaking i send the bits of signal that 
i feel lack punch into it and they come out monstrous. 
 

 
A simple h comp like this can get those drums knocking like crazy, 
and because you're only blending the compressed signal into the 
orignal, they stack on top of each other and make for a really clean 
hard hitting piece of percussion. I love this one on the kick because it 
can get the pio out of it more and bring that knocking sound into it . 
Really and truly you can adapt all of these busses to be whatever you 
want them to. For instance, if you have a compressor like this maybe 
set to 50% wet and then add a saturator afterwards, it could compress 
then saturate whatever signal you run through it. This is quite 
powerful because you'd be able to experience the benefit of both 
plugins on multiple different channels, which means ultimately that 

22   
although all of your instrument and drums are separated, if they all 
fed into this and came out the other end together you'd create a 
really nicely blended layer that would help to gel the mix through 
together. The way you can do this on ableton on a send and return 
like i explained or on a track group. Now I know pro tools has track 
grouping as well and i'm sure FL Studio and Logic Pro do too or you 
may have to adapt a method of doing it but this is an example which 
works slightly differently to send and return which could equally help 
your mix out. Say you group all the tracks of the drums together, you 
have them all levelled and hitting hard af, you can affect them all a 
stage before a send and return merging the sound more to make it 
more wholesome and fuller. 
 
This is the example, I threw some drums out to a chopped loop, and 
you can see highlighted in light blue the group of drums. On this 
group is the solid state logic meter acting as the glue for the drums. 
The settings are simple, super slow attack, super fast release , no 
threshold and a touch of make up gain. This combines all the drums 
together and sounds super rewarding to the ear. It is literally 
discernible instantly that it is active. From this stage I can parallel 
compress further using the method described earlier if im doing it for 
a certain characteristic. The important thing here is not too much 
compression!! Just gentle touches here and there will bring out some 
life and character.  

23   
  
 
Everything described here can equally be applied with different 
plugins. let's say you seperate the kick and 808 out to a different 
group because you want your claps and hats to get the same reverb 
and delay settings. Here's how it would look. The overall group with 
the ssl would stay the same and a new group within that group would 
be created with just the high end percussion and drums 
 

24   
  
As you can see 3 new plugins are affecting just the hi percussion 
group and the kick and 808 have gone into their own low group 
within the overall drum group. So the initial SSL is still working on 
top of all the new processing.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

25   
Signal chain  

Once the sound is cleaned, up any post processing things like effects 
saturation ete come in to play. The signal chain is very important 
here because depending on where you put certain plugins affects the 
sound. 
 
For example, saturation before reverb means that the sound is 
initially saturated then reverberated which may appear cleaner. 
Saturating after the reverb: you're saturating the reverberated signal 
meaning there is more chance for it to have phase issues etc or you 
may have actually created a more desired sound. The sound is 
consequently ;altered and differs from ​sat>rev vs. rev>sat 
Once you have the sound the way you want it it's time to re-level it 
against your original sound. For example, if you had your snare 
levelled to -9dB and it sat well in the mix at that volume, then now 
with all your effects the snare grows to -2db, take of around 6db again 
to put it back in the same place as you had it before for it to not cut 
too sharply in the mix 
 
This is my processing chain, and how I do it varies at times but this is 
how it goes 
 
EQ​>​SATURATION​>​COMPRESSION​>​ADDITIVE EQ​>​EFFECTS​ - 
HALFTIME, PORTAL, CHORUS, RC20, REVERB+DELAY LAST> ​FINAL 
EQ ​(USUALLY LOW CUT)  
 
Signal chain is effectively like a jigsaw puzzle which you can put 
together in multiple ways and the way you put it together is how 
pretty it comes out (ie what plug in follows the other). It can be really 
effective to put different effects plugins in different orders and 
experiment with the sound that comes out but you'll generally want 
to do all your tidying up work, EQ and compression first, and time 

26   
based effects like delay and reverb at the end. It's quite subjective but 
at times its better to compress a sound first and then eq it if the sound 
of it is extremely low or has really wavering dynamics.  
 
What you won’t want to do is calen up a sound , add reverb and 
saturate it, add portal and halftime because effectively you start to 
half time the mushy spread out widened reverb layer too, not just the 
instrument or drum. It may be helpful to you if you struggle with mud 
in the mix to do this.  
 
Anything you do to your instruments think of the clarity and the 
purpose of it first. It might not even need any effects and you're just 
adding them because you think that's what needs to be done.  
 
Once you have your sound cleaned up, think of it like this.  
 
What kind of sound is this?​ Bass Element, percussion, main lead, 
small recurring melody.  
 
Does it need to be wider or spacier?​ if yes, reverb and delay along 
with chorus are great, stereo width plugins like ​matthew lane stereo 
delta​ or ​JST Sidewidener, echoboy, panman, timless2. ​Panning 
really helps with this too and is mostly used on leads and percs. 
 
Does the sound need to be thicker?​ if yes, compressor, clipper, 
saturation, overdrive, ​oneknob pumper, decapitator 
 
Does the sound needs to be clearer?​ maybe a volume thing or try a 
boost in hi’s or low’s, alternatively scoop out some mid>maybe it's just 
some left over mud- best thing is nothing is set in stone so go back and 
change it if you don't like it. 
 

27   
Is the sound clashing with another element in my mix?​ Grab 
another EQ, put it last and take out some bass or eq out some hi’s. 
 
 
Harmonics 

Saturation: adds frequencies above present frequencies in the sound, 

helps to intensify and crisp the sound, 
 
T Racks soft clipper, 
Soundtoys saturator 
Kush ubk-1 
Waves Apex  
 
Sometimes initially saturating a sound before eq and anything else 
can enhance the natural character of it without being detrimental to 
the mix. Sometimes saturation after initial eq can help to bring out 
the character of the sounds you kept. It is quite subjective but try 
making the decision whilst your mixing, what do you prefer the 
sound of. What sounds closest to the record you like to listen to ?  
 
harmonic processing is effectively doubling frequencies at the octaves 
or depending on the algorithm at different frequencies. It makes the 
sound harmonically richer increasing the character of the sound 
whilst retaining good dynamics. Effectively, the sound gets louder 
through harmonics but often it doesn't have an overall effect on the 
meter so the sound only appears to be louder to the ear. This can save 
us masses of headroom.  
 
The best plug in for this is sound toys decapitator. It has an auto gain 
reduction feature which depends on how hard you push up the drive 
of the plug in. All the settings on decapitator are based on the old 
school desks and you have 5 profiles to choose from. The E setting is 

28   
especially good on drums really bringing out the knock of the drums 
and making them very well rounded but punchy. The A setting is very 
well balanced and coupled with the light and dark tone switch, it can 
really help to shape your sound. If you want a duller sound, go for 
dark, and something a bit higher and sharp go for bright to crisp up 
that high end. It’ll give that extra Edge and sharpness that it might 
lack otherwise. It acts as an alternative for just boosting with eq or 
making a sound louder with a fader. With this plug in, or most 
saturation in general, you don't really lose the original sound too 
much and don't have to mess around with your mix too much more 
levels wise.  
 
This can really be effective in Buss routing or group effects. You can 
apply saturation to the drums overall or the leads overall and have 
them gel together alternatively to compression. The sound will go 
through the decapitator and saturate together blending the 
harmonics nicely. If you're missing the blend on two seperate 
elements, try it, it's saved me hours faffing with EQ and compression. 

Effects 
 
Some of the best effects that you can use are effectrix, portal, halftime 
gross beat and I'll mention some great chorus, delays and Reverbs.  
 
Halftime​ and ​Gross Beat ​are 2 powerful units which can provide a 
variety and a natural ebb and flow in a mix. The way a mix works 
really is to have the ability to continually engage the listener . If 
elements in the mix are changing and morphing tastefully then 
ultimately it makes a beat or track more interesting. It’s purpose is to 
guide the listener through the track and adding a variety of darkness 
or glitchiness to a certain layer in the beat really achieves that; 
modulating the music in a way that enhances elements of the mix and 
effectively makes it way more appealing to the ear. Think of mixing 

29   
as a creative element rather than just cleaning up the sounds. Sure of 
course you want to get it all sharp and punchy but sharp and punchy 
all the way through becomes really boring after a while.  
 
Try grab a halftime and throw it on hi hats for a bar with the mix at 
10%. Mess around with Gross Beat the same way, use the complex 
section of the presets and really trip up the main lead.  
 
SugarBytes ​Effectrix​ is another staple to add to the arsenal. It is 
essentially a multi effects processor that enables you to use certain 
effects and trigger them to start or stop with in a period of time in the 
beat. Now you can do this with multiple effects to get some real crazy 
and unique sounding stuff. Automating when it turns on and off can 
really help you to achieve a contrast in your music you haven't 
reached before and using this subtly would be insane on your 
productions. Think about the arrangement of the beat and ask 
yourself, is this instrument doing the same for too long?; is there 
something i can do to vary it up slightly?; I even used gross beat on 
vocals to chop and screw them like crazy for like a mega effect section 
which is a thing I would say experiment with. You may surprise 
yourself with the things you find and might make a little signature out 
of it! 
 
GrossBeat + Halftime- incredible tools but side note;​ eq after 
pleaseeeee. When you halftime the sound, it gets bassier, look at an eq 
graph after you apply a halftime on to it . Take those lows back out, 
don't let it crap your kick and 808 up. 

Automation 
This is one of my most underused techniques really but is so so 
powerful. You can mostly automate all parameters in a DAW so to 
create further contrast in an instrumental, you can take the mix dial 

30   
on a halftime plug in for example and automate it to go from 0-100% 
in a transition section, or automate the drive on an overdrive to 
intensify over time. Think of a static effect you love. Lets say its delay. 
Imagine the delay feedback increasing or the intensity of the delay 
increasing at the end of each bar on a pluck or synth. This would add 
a colourful texture to your stereo field and be way more captivating 
and creative than just using it standardly. You can even couple this 
with buss effects for some crazy results, like have the whole mix drop 
into a lofi section or filter it out the top end with an EQ. Just those 
little nuances would kick your mix into life. 
 
Here are some of my favourite PlugIns you could start using that you 
may have not heard of just yet. 
 
Effectrix 
Portal 
RC 20 
Air Music Technology - effects pack. Sound broad but these are so 
wide use and so sick. They have the OVO 40 lofi unit, some neat 
chorusses , reverbs , padmakers 
JST pixalator, ridiculous bit reducer/ lo-fi maker. Sounds so sick 
 
Reverb 
For me there is only one reverb company and that's Valhalla DSP. 
These guys will take your mix from good to great. Just using its simple 
interface makes it so rewarding to use, and flicking through the 
presets and adjusting the mix dial to taste can really spark some creat 
creative results. Try short wide reverbs on snares, Thick reverb on 
vocals or play around with experimenting with reverb on a bass 
element. Sounds crazy i know but with the valhalla plugins you can 
take out the bass end so you only affect the top end stuff that can be 
reverbed and stereo. Sometimes it provides some eerie sounding stuff 
or helps gets some width into areas that would feel otherwise flatter. 

31   
Obviuosly dint throqw a reverb on the basss and think why does this 
sound stupid but you can experiment with some stuff just to see how 
it sounds. You might find a use for it other than using it as a bass. It 
may become more useful as an effect etc etc. Just some things to think 
about really to help you spruce up your workflow and get used to 
using more creatively . Valhalla make a few different reverbs but: 
 
Vintage Verb 
Plate  
Room 
  
Are the ones that you’ll find so much love for. 
 
Couple of honorable mentions are 
UberMod 
Shimmer 
Delay 
 

32   
Mixing the ... 
I wanted the mixing the ...Part of the book to be kind of the lowdown 
on how Mix the big power players in our beats that people often ask 
about. 

808 

Mixing the 808 is one of the most important things in a hip hop or 
production track. You want it to be thick and bassey but not 
overpowering as such. How do you achieve that? Initially you’ll want 
to prep the sound with some EQ, low cutting anything under 25-30Hz 
being a general sweet spot. Not a lot of speakers can actually 
reproduce that sound very well and therefore it isn't necessary in the 
mix. Plus in bigger speakers this can get really boomy and 
overbearing so not really a characteristic of a bass that you weren't. 
It’ll sound like it's making your mix more shallow and like it 
swallowing all of the available are for everything to breath.  

My favorite additive EQ to use on this would be the aforementioned 

EQP1-A. Once again , boost and attenuate by 1 at 60hz to get that 
resonant band which appears fuller and wider across all speakers 
and headphones. This trick you can really feel and hear. Sadly it only 
really works with this specific EQ unit because of the way its coded to 
match the original hardware but you can achieve similar effects with 

33   
a standard eq and a little saturation. use one EQ to dip out 60hz by 0.5 
of a dB ish and one to raise it by the same and apply a little 
saturation. 
 
One of the best 808 tools ive used is RBass from waves. You get this 
really simple interface and really clean big bodied intensity from the 
bass which enriches its harmonics and blends it into the orignal 8080 
signal. It's like a slight compressor, touch of saturation and 
expansion. It's an amazing tools to boost out that bass and make it 
feel super fat. Once again, it can equally be achieved by saturation 
but the fact that this is specifically built with bass in mind gives it that 
edge in class for me. 

 
An amazing way to heighten the stereo effect of your 808 whilst 
maintaining the bass in mono is to duplicate the channel. High Cut 
everything on the main 808 that goes past 350-500 hz (find that sweet 
spot for you) and low cut everything on the new duplicate to the same 
frequency. On the duplicated channel with the low cut on it, take a 
stereoizer plugin like​ matthew lane delta​ and crank up the dry wet 

34   
for that element and literally hear it grow. It’ll evenly spread nicely a 
little bit wider and in turn create this sound of an overall thicker bass. 

Now this doesn't work for all 808s but its amazing for R&B ones and 
really good on anything that has a little growl in it . It helps the 
harmonics and more melodic areas of the 808 to break through the 
mix a little better and will help to make it become more audible on 
crappy speakers, in turn enhancing the quality of the bass on big and 
good speakers. This effect is significantly more noticeable in 
headphones! 
 
I don't tend to compress a lot on an 808 because mostly, it is already 
compressed sound when out of the box. The only time I would would 
be on more of a pierre/zaytoven type 808 where it has that unique 
character at the start of the 808 sound. Now i'll set the attack really 
high so that it doesn't affect this area but has an affect on the 
remainder of the tail end of the 808 making it fuller and tiger. Keep 
the release time relatively short too and the jobs a good`n. You get a 
bit more 808 out of it and it feels a good bit more basey and mean.  
 
 
 

35   
Kick 
 
When You're ear identifies a kick, especially in an instrumental it 
looks for certain characters within the sound.. Many of us think that 
just by boosting bass ends, we’ll achieve what we want from the kick 
but often it gets lost in the mix. TRY THIS! Take a slight EQ curve and 
boost somewhere around 2.5khz to 5kHz. This will simulate the skin 
on a real life kick drum being hit by the beater when a drum player 
presses the pedal. The slight tap sound there can really help your kick 
jump out in the mix and be more present ever you feel it lacks that 
little bit of character but you've boosted crazy amounts of bass 
already and the mixing the kick is just driving you insane. 
 
The SoundToys decapitator i mentioned in the saturation section is 
amazing on kicks. Any saturation is really done correctly. Just gentle 
touches of saturation can amplify the boom and hit of the kick, that 
coupled with some tone control so you don't saturate too many low 
frequencies and too many high ones really helps us get that extra 
volume out of it. 
 
Depending on the kick, may sure you low cut enough room to allow 
the 808 to carry thoise sub and low frequencies. Getting a tighter kick 
is really eq choices and cutting from around 50 Hz to 70 Hz will help 
you get that slappy nature in the kick and it’ll have less overlapping 
frequencies with the 808, the less frequencies they share, the better 
you’ll hear each individual element. That's why sidechain became 
very popular, because it literally let the kick move the 808 out of the 
way for a brief amount of time to get it that punch. With some good 
EQing and practice, you’ll find needing to rely on sidechain will be 
made more obsolete and you’ll be finding ways to use it more 
creatively than as a saving grace in your mix. If we can make the 
room in the frequency spectrum ourselves, why rely on the computer 
to automatically do it, it isn't always as accurate as it seems.  

36   
 
Ultimately, don’t do too much. Keep it simple and sounding clean. 
 
Snares and Claps 
 
Snares and claps can be stressed a little more with processing. They 
can have reverb delay etc. applied on to them with less effect on the 
overall phase correlation of the instrumental meaning that the mix 
will stay clean and correct even when you manipulate the snare 
around. I like to use both hi cut and lo cut in the snare to make room 
for the hi hats and stop it from overlapping the bass and hogging the 
middle of the mix. Try Mixing in mono to get this right , it’ll stop you 
from hearing the stereo and help your ears to discern the frequencies 
better. Because the snare is usually placed mono with the kick and 
bass, it'll help you find the pocket of sound to put it into . 
 
Saturation can help make the snare a lot more dramatic. It'll crisp up 
the top end further and amplify the role of the clap or snare. Once 
again you won't rely on a volume fader and can get a little more juice 
out of the snare. 
 
I love a short wide reverb on the snare . Valhalla obviously amazing 
for it , there is a really smooth preset which’ll just add some width 
and polish to the sound without sounding like a huge reverb 
smothering the snares sound. It’ll be really short and snappy, just as 
you want to keep it.  

37   
 
I often use transient shapers like izotope neutron on a snare to get a 
little less tail and a little more snap into the sound. It can be done 
manually by turning down the tail end of the sound 

 
 
 

38   
Hi Hats 
 
hi-hats EQ is really simple, take out a lot of the bass. 
I compress them with a higher ratio this time just because I want 
more of the tail of the hi hat. 
I often use​ Kush ubk-1 ​because it has a compressor already built into 
a saturator and has the ability to bring up the Punch and the 
snappiness of the hi-hats simultaneously. You can use the density dial 
to get the sound feel as if it has a little more pressure. 

Halftime or Grossbeat with the ½ speed setting and the mix really low 
can add and enhance your triplet hi hats and hi hat runs. Keeping the 
mix really low will darken them and add a layer underneath that’ll 
help bolster the variety hearing new sounds the listener haven't 
heard yet. It's Just a little piece of ear candy. 
 
A key to getting hi hats right is panning. I always separate hi hat 
channels in to multiple, and pan them slightly differently, the main hi 
hats staying close to the centre and any runs or triplets panned a bit 
more slightly left or right.  
 
 
 
 
 
 

39   
Panning 
 
Panning can be a fantastic way to create space in the mix and it is 
mostly under utilized it can really help ensure each element of the 
beat has its own pocket to sit in and helps to disperse the energy 
across the instrumental. One thing to note that when you incorporate 
panning into a mix, you often will need to relevel certain things 
because they will begin to appear audibly louder against their 
original volume and position as they no longer coincide with other 
frequency shared by other elements, for example, snare and hi hats, 
snares and instruments etc. Panning is a versatile tool which can add 
the extra clarity and dimension you may lack in your mix today. You 
can use some plugins like the Sennheiser Orbit and Boz digital poan 
knob as an alternative to using your DAW pan knob. 

 
 

40   
The inbuilt pan in the DAW is fine to use but these plug ins are a little 
more diverse and more accurate at pocketing the sound properly . For 
instance, the Sennheiser Orbit plugin is a 360 panning VST that can 
create and further dimension in the mix. You can use in line with 
automation to get a lot of movement into the mix and have elements 
swap place to create more interest. You can use it on 808 glides when 
the 808 is high and playing more of a melodic note, panning each 
slight left and slight right to give some direction and highlight the 
sound out to the listener.  
 
 
One main point is to keep the bass in the middle, don't pan out the 
kick and bass or snare for that matter to muo much. That's the heart 
really of the beat and otherwise you can risk the mix sounding a bit 
too hollow. Or empty. Panning i find quite fun to experiment with. I 
love adding different directions to percussion sounds and changing 
where they appear as the beat progresses. It catches the listener out 
in a good way and elevates the feeling of progression, protecting you 
from having a beat sounding too samey.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

41   
 
 
 
Vocals 
 

This is a working mix which helps you hear a finalised sound without 
touching too much 
Whenever I work with an artist I literally just use the ​JST GR and 
Antares Auto-Tune 5​ vocals and a couple of reverbs and delays and 
stuff like that really gives complete sound. GR gives such a clear tone 
that I use it even in my final mixes. It's very 
versatile but quite aggressive. Sometimes 
using the deluxe version instead with the 
dry wet mix dial really helps so you can tone 
down the aggression and just get that clarity 
out of the plug in. 
 
I  have  a  few  different  approaches  to  mixing 
vocals.  It  differs  based  on  the  vocal  but  I 
usually  start  with  a  Vocal  Rider  plugin  to 
even  out  dynamics  without  compression. 
Basically  it's  a  plug  in  with  a  fader  that  auto 

42   
levels  the performance of the vocals boosting super quiet sections and 
taming  the  louder  parts to an overall smaller range in vocals. Because 
rap  vocals  often  need  to  stay  in  one  consistent  stream,  this  tool  work 
fantastically  to  even  things  out  and  gives  you  a  foundation  to  build 
upon.  
 
EQ  is  the  first  most  important  step  in  mixing  a  vocal,  removing  out 
low  end  that's  unnecessary  depends  on  the  voice  but  look  out for any 
boomy  areas  in  the  low  end  and  anything  super  high  up  like  18khz 
which  is  not  friendly  on  your  ears.  Don't  do  any  boosting  just  yet  or 
keep  it  really  really  slight.  The  main  goal  here  is  to  correct  some  of 
the  things  that  bother  you  in  the  vocal.  The  next  stage  is  really 
compression.  Your  first  point  of  evening  out  any  dynamics  that  jump 
over  the  volume  threshold.  So  the  first compressor is to control. Use a 
heavier  threshold  to  keep  any  spikes  in  check.  Follow  it with a longer 
attack  higher  release  time,  shorter  threshold  compressor.  Like  the 

Pro  C2  has  a  great  vocal  setting  where  it  autos the ratio so you just do 

everything  through  the  threshold  dial.  This  should  get  the  vocal 
sounding polished and clean. So Far we have EQ>COMP>COMP lightly 
 
The  next  step  here  would  be  to  de-ess  the  vocals,  removing  any 
sibilant  sound,  the  sss  out  of  the  vocals.  I  often  follow  up  with  a 
lighter  ds  afterwards  after  processing  considering  a lot of additive EQ 
and  othe  [processing  can  add  this  back  in  to  the  vocals.  This  really 

43   
tames  the  vocas  and  keeps  the  sound  of  them  under  control  for  the 
whole song.  
The  next  step  is  really  a  case  of  taste.  I  like  the  Boz  digital  EQ  on 
vocals  and  the  fairchi;le  660/670  but  you  can  use  an  API/SSL,  MAAG 
EQ4,  or  any  of  the  Puig  Tec  Waves  EQs.  API  also  has  a  compressor 
which  has  real  nice  vocal 
settings.  You  don't  really want to 
slam  the  vocals  in  this  case 
because  you've  tamed  the 
dynamics  before  but  its  just  as 
an  extra  character  giver.  A  little 
bit  extra  pop  and fullness within 
the  sound.  Directly  after  this, 
you  can  start  to  add  more 
character  effects  like  saturation, 
parallel  compression,  reverbs,  delays  and  all  that  jazz.  Anything  to 
enhance  the  vocal  sound  and  that's  totally  discernible  by  you.  I 
usually do all the character processing on channels on Buss/Sends and 
Returns 
 
Scheps  have  a  really  good 
plugin  called  parallel  particles 
which  is  perfect  for  on 
grouped  vocals.  It  has  4 
different  parameters  which 
you  can  use  to  process  the 
totality  of  the  vocals  for  a 
rougher  mix  or  use  it  more 
lightly  on  a  final  mix.  It’s  a 
really  complete  tool  that’ll 
help  you  understand  how  to 
describe what your vocal need 
more  of  or  lack  and  help  you 

44   
think about certain sounds in a way that's a slight bit more visual. 
 
A  lot  of  the  vocal  is  in  the  initial  recording.  You  need  to  make  sure 
you  don't  get  any  clipping  within  the  recording  so  that  you  have 
enough  room  for all your effects. It's better for the vocal to come out a 
bit  quiet  and  quality  rather  than  super  load  with  a  load  of  audible 
issues like distortion.  
 
 
 
Mastering  
 
Basic Mastering 
A basic master is simply achieved with a bit of limiting or multi band 
compression once the mix is done and complete. It can be done with 
an all in one solution like the izotope ozone vsts (which I'll mention 
below) or with a couple of limiters and a bit of dynamic processing. 
The easiest way to master a beat is eq out any left over bass, add a bit 
of top sheen with a high shelf and low end beef with a low boost ( just 
a touch on both) and let the limiter or multi band do the work of 
increasing the volume. You want to leave an ample amount of 
headroom in your mix so that you can achieve a better master all in 
all. Somewhere between -9dB to -6db of headroom is usually good 
enough but the more room the merrier. You have a lot more freedom 
to use those dynamic plugins and can even try a bit of tape saturation 
or a touch of standard saturation to softly energise the beat a little 
more. 
 
The Ozone Mastering Suites are really cool tools that can analyze your 
audio with an A.I. to help you master it. The best thing would be to 
learn how the parameters work and do it yourself yet it's a very 
powerful tool for learning how to master better . You'll learn the ins 
and out of all the plugins involved in the master chain , even by 

45   
loading up a simple preset . it’ll walk you through all the components 
you could use to master a beat. Once again, the simpler the better. 
You wouldn't want to drive things too hard and destroy the dynamics 
in the beat but you wouldn't want it to lack in volume in comparison 
to other beats or songs out in the world on the market or in the 
charts. 
 
Waves TG Mastering 
This  plug  in  is  amazing 
for  pre  mastering.  It has 
a  couple  of  different 
levels  to  it  but  it offers a 
really  clean  and 
customisable pre master 
sound.  Similar  to  just 
applying  a  multi  band 
compressor  on  the  mix, 
this  plug  in  can  get  you 
a  really  polished  sound 
and  if  you  have access to it, I recommend you try it out. You can use it 
to  complete  your  master  or  use  it  as  i  do  and  add  gentle  adjustments 
to  the sound. It lets you split mid and side channels like the m/s EQ we 
went  through  but  on  a  grand  scale.  Really  it’s  just  an  extra  touch, 
nothing  make  or  break about it (you won't have a worse master if you 
don't  use  it)  but  it  has  a  couple  of  parametres  like  inbuilt  eq, 
saturation,  compression,  stereo  widening.  To  learn  how  to  use  this 
one  is a little trickier but load up any Lu Diaz preset and you’ll be able 
to pick apart what's going on.  
 
Mastering with Clippers 
T racks soft clipper can add an edge to your mix. Using it instead of 
alimiter gives a louder sounding mix which you could choose to 
couple with limiting but for simple hard hitting master, any soft 

46   
clipper will do . A little touch of drive , (hell even crank it hard and 
dial it back down) will get you the elevation you need in a quick 
master that’ll give you the volume and body if you need to send out 
beats quickly but ready sounding.  
 
Mastering with Limiters 
Limiting is a dangerous thing if not done properly. You need to 
achieve a target threshold. Youtube spotify and apple music have 
made this easy for us. The basic figure here is , get your mix to -12 lufs 
(approx) in the master. This will ensure your master stays consistent 
across every digital and non digital platform. What is LUFS? LUFS is 
basically another word for dBs but has a slightly different algorithms. 
It is true that losing 1 lufs in loudness is the same as taking off a 
decibel of sound with a meter but lufs (loudness units full scale) have 
become the across the board way to measure and adjust the volume 
of sound. With the target LUFS in mind, you can use your limiter to 
reach that unit. You can use any of the metres underneath in the 
metering section to check the overall loudness of a track. If its going 
too high say -8/-9 lufs then your elosing dynamic quality and all major 
streaming platforms will turn down the master to match their 
threshold. So getting your audio closer to that target, sounding crisp 
and punchy is ideal. It was introduced to stop people's music 
sounding too loud or much louder than another track, and if you 
think about it, everytime you hear a good master on a track, you often 
hear it at a very similar volume across the board from track to track. 
It was a way to standardise how loud things hgo and to stop them 
from being squashed littles square looking waveforms here is the 
example. Take your master, master it to -12 lufs, and take the same 
master and master it to -6 lufs. -6 lufs will lose quality but appear 
louder to you at first. As soon as spotify or youtube recognises it it 
turns the master down by about 6-8 luf ( effectively dB) and for the 
-12 lufs counterpart, it keeps it at the same level. You’ll have 
maintained a lot more dynamics using the -12 method and overall get 

47   
a better sound out of it and keep in check all the work you've done in 
mixing, not sorting all those tiny intricacies you spent so hard 
working on.  
 
Mastering is the final step to get the volume up and accentuate all the 
good work, mixing is the bread and butter heavy changes you need to 
make to get it to sound better louder. Mastering won't just fix a 
crappy sounding mix, it'll make any problems more and more 
obvious. With the ‘loudness wars’ having been over the last few years 
if not more, music is being mastered more dynamically with less onus 
on turning music up as loud as possible.  
 
Metering solutions  
 
Here are my favourite master metres to make sure everything is a 
good level and balance. 
 
Mastering the mix Levels​ -​ Solid plug in that’ll help you to 
understand everything about modern mastering, and it really helps 
checking your mix too 
HOFA 4U Master Meter 
Nugen Mastercheck/ Pro​ -​ allows you to hear how audio would 
sound when uploaded to a streaming platform. 
You Lean Meter​ - ​Checks the LUFS of a track, really simple plug in 
Waves WLM LOUDNESS PLUS​ - ​simple metre that has a loot of 
inbuilt and accurate detection of loudness and volume 
Waves Dorough​ - ​has a great classic interface but does the same 
thing basically  
 
 
 
 
 

48   
Referencing 
 
Referencing can help to show you how your mix sounds against 
another track. You can load a reference track into the vst and a/B it 
with your master to make sure everything is up to scratch. Mastering 
the miox reference can help to show you where you're mix lacks in 
comparison to another but most plugins, (any referencing plugin can 
really help you learn how to get your sound more like the pros) 
 
Advanced Masting 
 
Here is my master chain i use on most of my 
tracks when I'm finishing them off. I apply some 
of the premastering stuff i went through if i find 
it necessary but here is my chain i use that i've 
tried and tested over time. It gets real nice rsluts 
and is easy to set up.  
 
SSL Compressor​ - ​really simple, just like the 
buss compression I mentioned earlier, this just 
ods the same thing but overall . does not do a lot, 
high attack quick release, lowest threshold so 
the needle just moves a tiny bit and no make up 
gain. 
 
 
 
 
M/S EQ 
I use this to cut out any unwanted 
frequencies in the speakers. I split it 
into mid side to control the tone of 
what comes through which section of 

49   
the speaker. Nothing drastic here just a few simple cuts 
 
 
 
 
Tape/General Saturation 
Little bit of saturation. I really 
just love the tape sounding 
one but any hint of soft clip or 
decapitator will add that 
harmonic inch to the mix. 
Don't want to drive it too 
hard, you want it to sit on the 
master and not do a whole lot 
apart from a bit of analog 
warmth. 
 
Double Additive EQ 
Nothing  cray  here, 
just  used  some 
analog  modeled  EQ 
to  pick  out  little 
frequencies  i  like  or 
that  are  lacking.  You 
can  do  this  with  in 
izotope  ozone  or  the 
TG  mastering  Suite 
but  i  like  to  touch  it 
up  slightly 
separately.  Literally  just  to  taste  but it can add that missing sparkle in 
the hi’s and the missing weight in the bass. 
 
 

50   
 
 
Mastering the Mix 
Animate 
 
Really simple here, just a 
character booster. I use 
this very softly on select 
frequencies just to give the 
extra dramatism to the 
master. It has dry wet for 
each parameter and is very 
detailed and explains what 
every parameter does. It's 
basically an expander (which increases the dynamic range) a bit of a 
compressor and saturation and a touch of steroization. 
 
 
A few limiters  
 
I  like  each  of  these 
differently  for  their 
different  sounds.  I 
generally  gently  limit 
on  each  to  capitalize 
on  the  different  way 
they process the audio. 
It  sometimes  sounds 
so  forced  if  i'm 
limiting heavy because 
of  lots  of  headroom  so 
i  like  to  use  different  limiters  to  create  retain  those  transient  hitting 
sounds  and  keep  these  dynamics  in  check.  I  won't  usually  go 

51   
overboard  on  all  of  them  but  just  using  a  few  limiters can just end up 
sounding  a  little  more  natural  and  you  can  get  a  little  bit  better 
preservation  of  all  your  hard  work  in  the  mix  (about  2db  on  each  if 
i'm  trying  to  reach  an  overall  of  -6db  etc.  evenly  distribute  gain 
reduction across them for best results ive found) 
 
 
 
Answering some questions.  
 
I hate mixing because it is time consuming and boring, how can i 
make it more fun? 
 
I hope I've shared enough of my fun tis in the book to help you with 
this. Mixing is really about results and getting better than you were 
before. Think of it like gaining xp in a game. You get stronger the 
more you try , the better you get the harder it is to beat yourself but 
all the little hours you put into it come back rewarding . getting that 
quality quality mix after a little bit of self study and practice will be so 
good for your morale. Like being able to complete a mix in 20 mins 
flat and get it uploaded and out there, or ready to send to friends after 
just getting familiar with some of the tips I've shown will surely help. 
Using a variety of plugins and experimenting with the tools in the 
DAW i would say are great ways of making it fun . Get the levels right 
then just play around , make things sounds like they didn't originally, 
morph them into something you love. Rob Papaen reverse is a great 
plugin you can put on a lead reverse the signal and play it back after 
the original forward signal so you could just throw that on some hints 
for a bit of variety . that's a simple example to just get you to try 
things out! /use something you haven't used before! Have a guitar 
synth or lead? Put some chorus on it , make it all washed out and 
psychedelic sounding. Don't just do what you here in everyone else's 
production because it's ‘right ‘ or the ‘best’ way to do it.  

52   
Incorporate the mix into your workflow to speed it up and literally 
just experiment. Maybe you like your snare louder, put it louder. 
Maybe you like ping pong delay on the hiu hats. Pout it on there. See 
how it sounds. You’ll develop. Keep it up and get some studying done. 
Think how bad your first few beats were. Now think how much 
you've improved, smae with mixing.  
 
How do i make my mix loud without clipping?  
 
Gain stage, level, correct 
mastering. Read thoise bits 
in the book and you should 
be well on the way to a good 
master. Grab a n invisible 
limiter plug in like A.O.M or 
T racks and listen to the mix 
would sound if limited. Thes 
can really point out to you if 
you've added too much 
sauce on your drums and they start rattling the speakers in a bad 
way. The E book should have you up to scratch on how to retain your 
volume without clipping things like crazy. 
 
How do I get the mix sounding as good in the speakers as it does 
in my headphones?  
 
What you have to appreciate here that speakers and headphones 
reproduce the sound differently. It's good to swap between them 
because speakers can highlight obvious flaws in the mix. A lot of the 
time headphones are nor bassy enough and don't reproduce the bass 
well so a speaker will then replay the same bass to you and it'll be 
stupidly loud. Don't get comfortable using one medium to check you 
mix . try using both, chopping and changing, maybe your speakers 

53   
actually accurately produce the sound better but you’re listening to 
the voice in your head telling you that the headphones are crazy, user 
those. Learn how they sound and how they are different and use it to 
your advantage. Everything I find is a bit more obvious ins speaker . 
However, they do have some drawbacks. Headphones are usually the 
best way to check your mix for stereo field issues or stereo effects, 
they will sound better generally because they are close to the ear so 
reverb will sound fuller, delay would be a bit more prominent etc. 
But most of us don't have sound treated rooms so lack the ability to 
use speakers in the same way. That being said, i find headphones way 
better or checking all of my time based and modulating effects 
because it's a lot clearer to the ears what's going on. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

54   
Glossary 
 
EQ​ - Equalization, basically analyses the frequencies in a sound and 
allows you determine what to remove and what to add. They come in 
lots of shapes and sizes a VSTs but roughly do mostly the same stuff. 
All a workflow and preference thing.  
Reductive EQ​ - The act of using the EQ to remove the frequencies for 
a sound 
Frequencies​ - ​non scientifically, it's all the pitches within a sound 
that make up the totality of it.  
Mud​ ​- Low end stuff that clashes together when piled up and makes a 
lot of mess in the mix. Danger spots are around 125Hz, 250Hz 
Hz​ - ​the unit of measurement when describing frequencies or a sound 
area (250hz-500hz) and probably some other sciency stuff. 
Mid/Side EQ​ - ​The act of splitting the EQ into independent channels so 
you can effect the side and middle frequencies separately 
Stereo Field​ - ​The field in which all sounds exist. Your headphones 
reproduce this really well and it can be made really obvious with 
panning something left or right. It stops being down the centre and 
appears more angled in the speaker or headphones. 
Tweeter​ - ​The part of the speaker responsible for producing hi end. 
Mastering / Mastering chain​ - ​The final step to touch up the mix and 
get it finalised and higher in overall volume/ mastering chain is the 
order of plugins in the master that help you achieve this. 
Brick wall​ - ​the act of stopping a sound entirely at a certain point. 
Like closing a gate.  
Post analyzer​ - ​the analyzer on a plugin that shows you how the 
frequencies look after you've done something to them  
Compressor​ - ​A Dynamic VST used for reducing or evening out 
changes in loudness 
Signal chain​ - ​the order of plugins on a channel or master 
Additive EQ​ - ​The process of adding to a sound with an equaliser  

55   
Saturation​ - ​The act of creating harmonic frequencies within an 
original sound to raise the character and dramatism with in it. 
Hardware​ - ​Original real life versions of VST’s that were used in old 
school or new modern studios. 
dB​ - ​Decibels, the unit of measurement corresponding to what we 
know as volume 
DAW​ - ​Digital Audio Workstation. FL, Ableton, Pro Tools, Logic, 
Reaper etc. 
Dynamic range​ - ​the difference between the loudest and quietest 
points in the beat 
Waveform​ - ​The way the original sound looks when you view it in the 
DAW. Think of an audio clip and how it looks. 
Sidechain-​ ​the process of routing one piece of audio to another to 
create a ducking effect 
Mono (not stereo)​ ​Everything down the middle of the speaker. Kick 
and bass galore 
Levelling​ - ​the process of making sure each volume of each 
instrument or drum appears correct to standards set in the music 
world. 
Limiter​ - ​An aggressive compressor used to finalise a mix. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

56   
Outro 
 
Hope you guys have enjoyed the ebook and have learned something 
new whilst reading it. Or if not, hopefully you managed to become 
more efficient in making mixing decisions and have bettered your 
musical career. I tried to make everything as simple as possible to 
understand and tried to give you a rationale as to why I do the things 
I do in my mixes.  
 
This book can definitely help alleviate some of the pressure you feel 
when getting to the mixing portion of production and will get you up 
to speed and on the right track to bettering your sound, creatively and 
professionally.  
 
MG 
 
 
 

57