Intermediate FL Studio Guide Mixing Techniques

First of all, let’s start by explaining what exactly mixing and mastering is. The first term, mixing, refers to the process of putting multiple layers of audio together to make one final track, or to musically modify an existing track. The second term, mastering, refers to the process of optimizing the final track using all sorts of different mastering elements such as compression, equalization, stereo enhancement and more.
In this article, we’ll spend quite a bit more time on the mastering as we will discuss several mastering processes like compression and EQ. Now, let’s take as example me having recorded a track in my home studio. I’ve recorded the guitar, the piano and the drums using my digital condenser USB microphone onto different tracks in my sequencer software Cubase.
As I simply layer the tracks and play the song, the sound is quite undynamic and flat. What I can now do, is mixing. I can change the volume of an audio track at a certain point to make e.g. the guitar come out more clearly at a specific moment. This is the mixing of the track, the layering of the audio and the volume determination. Also, unwanted noise and clicks are removed in the mixing stage.
Now, the track will sound better but there’s still quite a lot of work to do. It’s time for mastering. By mastering the track one can really bring a track to life and spice up the sound. You can make the drum more dynamic, the guitar more or less sharp sounding, the piano more soft and you might want to boost the bass frequencies of the piano a little bit as there is no bass.
This is an example of mastering, which one does to spice up the track and make it sound way more dynamic. Below, you can here an example of a track that I’ve recorded. The first audio file is a raw recording, the only thing that I’ve done is layering the instruments. The second audio file is that same track, but now mastered. Compression, equalization, stereo enhancement and reverb effects are applied. You can certainly here the difference as the second track sounds quite different.

10 Quick Tips For Mixing Beats In FL Studio

1. Rbass from waves on your kicks is awesome. I normally use two kicks. Boost one at 100 and the other varies on original sound of it.

2. Compress your instruments and drums. Compression is tough be careful. You should first turn the instrument down to a level where it isn't too loud and overbearing. Then turn the threshold down to the new level of volume for the instrument. For regular instruments the ratio should be 4:1 and for bass the ratio should be higher, between 6:1 and 8:1. Next use the gain to get the instrument back up to the desired level.

3. Drums loud and proud. If you are mixing a beat, your drums should be the loudest thing in the beat with out creatind distortion or overpowering the other instruments. This tip may seem like it could be taken lightly so I am gonna say this. When I realized this.... "Sales Increase".

4. Effects.... Effects....Effects. When you can't figure out what to do with something as far as mixing goes, try a phaser preset, a flanger preset, or any other effects you have laying around. This is a great way to change things up.

5. Mix With the volume as low as possible. If something sounds too loud when the volume is at a minimal you have to turn it down. By listening to the beat at a low level during mixing, you get to hear exactly what is overpowering if any and out of wack frequencies.

6. "Mastering" mixer presets on the master mixer track. Right click master tab, go to file, click open mixer track state. You will see a few presets there for mastering. Make sure you try all of them out to see which is best. One preset will not work on every song.

7. Pan your percussions, not your instruments. Sounds creazy but try it. I find this more desirable. Try putting the snare about 6% right. and then setting up the others to each side not too spread out.

8. Reverb on your snares is important. Use the regular drum room reverb and turn the effect down till it is perfect with the snare. Now this should set the tone on reverb for the rest of the beat.

9. Soft clipper. Just to be on the safe side I always add my soft clipper to the mix. It is a good tool to stop your beat from clipping.

10. Maximus plug in, this is good for adding the extra dynamic you are looking for. Add maximus on your master plug ins and use the preset Clean Master RMS, or just clean master. Anoth good one to use is the LinMB from waves. Use the Electro multi adaptive mastering and click the make up button to make that function automatic. Of course one with out the other, together maximus and LinMB would be too much. Those that don't have either may use blood overdrive and adjust the amount of the effect.


Quick tip: After mixing giver your ears about 3 hours to 8 hours and then listen to it on some different types of systems. Stereo, car stereo, laptop, etc. If it sounds good on everything its perfect.