I get asked regularly to critique peoples mixes and I love doing so because it gives me an excuse to listen to more music and talk to other people with a similar interest and, I hope, actually help them.

What it has also given me is a little insight as to some of the more common mixing mistakes home studio musicians and music producers make when they mix music at home.

Aside from the acoustic issues created by our small home studio mixing spaces, there tend to be some other mixing problems that are down to lack of experience or knowledge, where great gains can be made by some simple, small changes in workflow or approach.

In this video, I go over the common problems that I see over and over again and I offer advice that will help fix these issues and have you mixing faster and with more confidence.

Looking for ways to clean up a muddy mix? Clarity and separation are crucial when trying to create a professional-sounding mix and many people overcomplicate the process or think that there is some secret pro tip that they have yet to find but really, once you've set your basic levels and the panning, it comes down to just 3 things; 

1. The arrangement

2. Room acoustics and monitoring

3. Equalisation

Today, in this video, I'm going to walk you through one easy EQ method that will clean up your lower-mid frequencies, cleaning up your troubling muddy low end, PLUS it can be used to sort out any clashing frequencies and nasty resonances that have no place in your mix and will instantly create more clarity and definition in your tracks!

-- LINKS --

Fabfilter Pro Q3 plugin: https://www.fabfilter.com/products/pro-q-3-equalizer-plug-in

*** FREE GUIDE "Pro Mixing Secret: How To Create More Clarity And Separation In A Busy Mix" Click...

Learning how to use an equalizer is a fundamental part of learning how to mix.

EQ (short for equalization) is one of the main tools you will use on a daily basis to craft sounds and fix sonic problems within the frequency spectrum in order to produce a mix that has a balanced frequency response and sounds like the records you hear on the radio or streaming platforms.

The good news is that despite all the geeky terminology around EQ, they are easy to use and to learn and in this blog post, I want to give you the very basics of an EQ plugin, describe the parameters that you’ll see on almost every EQ plugin and then the basic way to use EQ, so you can start using one and start crafting better mixes today.

Frequency Spectrum

Every sound sits within the frequency range of human hearing which is between 20Hz and 20kHz.

Every instrument has a fundamental frequency but also has higher overtones and harmonics that give its character or timbre.

Using EQ, we can change this character...