I can’t think of many things I love doing more than compressing and limiting my mixes to utter oblivion (I’m just KIDDING! I felt y’all getting tense there hehe). But seriously, I've been thinking a lot lately about how to achieve a mix that's both dynamic and consistent. After experimenting with different parallel compression concoctions this past week, I felt in my young producer soul that it was about damn time (reference intended) to dedicate a blog post to this endeavor and dive a little deeper.
Insights from Jonathan Roye
On that fabulous note, I had a blast chatting with Grammy-nominated Engineer Jonathan Roye (Kelsea Ballerini, Sara Bareilles, Kid Rock) to get his take on the matter.
I asked him: What to you is key in achieving a dynamic yet consistent sounding mix? Do you have any go-to methods that help you achieve this in your own work?
He said:
Room / Monitoring
Everything begins and ends with your room and monitoring. You really have to think of them as being one in the same. You'll only be as effective as your room and speakers are going to let you be. Build / buy / borrow / steal some proper acoustic treatment. Get your speakers placed properly. Try room correction software. Whatever it takes. I tend to not be a super technical person myself but I lean on my mega nerd friends to help me when it comes to getting my monitoring flat and getting the room treated.
Don't be afraid of mixing on headphones. I came back from a super cool knee surgery late last year and spent a couple months working on headphones via my couch. Headphones take the room out of the equation fully. I could do all the big moves on cans and then flip over to speakers I had set up in my living room to get the big picture balances.
Gain Staging
My good friend always says "if it's not red it's dead." Watch those meter lights. But for real though, give your tracks some space to breathe. Things don't need to be pegging red off the rip. Proper gain staging and paying attention to how much headroom you've got is big part of the game. I'll typically build my static mix up around the loudest part of the record. Then reverse engineer from there by pulling other sections of the song back as needed. Working to only compress when I need to and make sure my general balance is sitting in a comfortable place.
Fundamentals
Filter low end information that isn't needed. Nothing eats up headroom faster than subsonic woofy nothingness. Clear it all out and pay attention to your meters. Like magic you'll have more headroom and your life will be less stressful. Remember, just because you can't hear it doesn't mean that your speakers won't. Those speakers are reacting to everything. Make sure to filter that air conditioner noise out of your 12 shaker tracks.
Hunting down weird resonance frequencies. Mid-range-y build up. Most people have trouble hearing it because they're fighting the room or the speakers aren't showing them everything that's there. If you've got a wurli, pads, organ and piano you're gonna have to get creative with what can live where.
Stereo Placement / Panning. It sounds dumb but I can't tell you how many times I get roughs in where the producer is struggling to figure out how to get more clarity / punch or whatever and there are just way too many parts sitting in the center or all the synths are in mono or the guitars feel lopsided. Sometimes panning things out and paying attention to how things feel left to right will fix a lot. Drum recordings are notorious for this. Stereo overhead and room mics - Do they feel lopsided? Is the snare blasting out of the right side of the stereo field...? Because that's what everyone wants to hear... Adjust the left to right balance to even it out. Either pull volume up and down or adjust the pan knobs until it feels even and the snare is centered. The kit should feel balanced left to right. Just like it would feel if you were standing in-front of the drummer in the live room. Congrats. Chances are your drums have more impact now as well.
Take Breaks
My dog kicks it with me most days at the studio. He bugs me every couple hours to go outside for a walk around the block. Turning the speakers off for 15/20 mins and gaining that fresh perspective when you come back is the true plugin deal of the week. Pay attention to your thoughts as well. If your mind is wondering and you're thinking about Mexican Food more than the record you're mixing it's probably a smart idea to take a break and come back in a bit.
Consistent Monitoring Levels
I'm usually working at about 83/85 spl everyday. I'll automate / ride faders with it even quieter. At that level my ears can survive the day to day grind without blowing out. Find yourself a free SPL meter app to see how loud you're working or be a true hipster and get yourself a radio shack special SPL meter for your studio. Find the comfort zone for you and make sure you're always there making decisions. That's how you really learn your rig. Working at the same volume day in and day out. Consistency will set you free my fellow audio nerds.
Conclusion
I loved reading Jonathan’s insightful answer, there are so many valuable nuggets of information here! Here are a few of his points that stood out to me the most:
1) Fundamentals! It’s so easy as a producer/engineer to jet set off into the plugins ether and start piling on effects without first addressing the basic tings (totally guilty of that). Taking the time to make sure the air conditioner doesn’t bleed into the recording (and filtering it out if it does), cleaning up rumble, and removing unnecessary noise– these are things I’ll be making sure to prioritize more going forward.
2) "Consistency will set you free my fellow audio nerds." While reading this, it hit me: how can my mixes sound consistent if I’m not listening in a consistent way? (🤯). This is a practice I definitely need to start enforcing while I work. I’ll admit I'm guilty of volume flipfloppery.
However, the biggest takeaway from all of Jonathan’s insightful points was his emphasis on intentionality. A consistent yet dynamic mix doesn’t happen by accident; it’s the result of many deliberate choices and carefully considered elements. I can’t wait to hop in the studio and apply these principles to my work!
Thanks Jonathan for your awesome answer!
Catch y’all next blog!