Mixing And Mastering Electronic Music In Ableton Live

A comprehensive and detailed look at how you can mix and master your own electronic music.

Created byLuke Ward

Last updated 3/2015

English

What you'll learn

Mix drums for maxmum punch and clarity so that they cut through your mix
Mix a track that contains a wide range of bass sounds so that they all sit well with each other in your final mixdown
use compression and multiband compression like a boss
Use mid-side EQ to control the stereo field of any sound at different frequencies in the spectrum
Make use of overdrive, saturation and distortion to bring out extra harmonics in your sounds, adding clarity and sparkle
Learn some winning EQ approaches for every sound in this track - drums, basses, melodic instruments and vocals
Discover my secret weapon for sidechaining on a multiband level to ensure the most coherent bassline possible
Master your own track to give it that well polished finish that will enable your music to stand up against other professional tracks in a DJ mix online or in the club
See how to use a reference track to get the best possible mix comparison

Course content

6 sections • 21 lectures • 3h 25m total length

Project overview and how to set up your reference track. 5:31

Snare Tuning & Frequency Modulation12:21
Here you will see my approach to tuning your snare so that it fits in with the key of your song. You will also see how to use FM synthesis (frequency modulation) to add some extra bite to your snare.
EQing your snare7:33
Here we will look at some popular EQ settings to apply for a snare drum sound so that it stands out more clearly above the other instrument sounds.
Converting Your Kick Drum From Audio To Midi (and why)8:44
Here we will look at a process for converting your kick drum from audio to midi, and explain why it is advantageous to do this.
Mixing Your Kick Drum12:01
Now that our kick drum is on a midi track, we have a lot more control over it. We are now ready to mix this kick so that it is clean and powerful and sits well in our mix.
Mixing the reverse snare sound4:47
In this track we use a reverse snare sound that leads up to the main snare hit. This gives our snare some extra 'lift' and is a very powerful trick to use. In this section we look at how we can tame this reverse snare sound to our liking.
Hi Hats & Shakers12:44
Hi hats are renowned for being rather difficult to mix with your track for a range of reasons. Here we will look at how to mix our hi hats and also our shaker sounds, which are treated quite similarly to hi hats.
Claps, Crash Cymbals And Ride Cymbals11:17
We have a clap sitting on top of our snare in parts of this track. Here we will look at how to mix the clap. We will also look at how to mix the crashes and rides, which require some thinking about placement in the stereo field.
Mixing Drum Fills5:48
This track consists of a range of different drum fills that have been resampled from their midi instrument to audio. Let's see how to treat them in our mix.

Bass Group Overview3:19
All of the bass sounds in this track are contained within one group track. If you are not using Ableton Live, this is the equivalent of sending all of the bass tracks to a buss, where we can apply an effects chain to all of these sounds as one. This video looks at an overview of how this bass group track has been set up.
Mixing The First Bass Sound9:53
This is the first bass sound of many. It has some characteristics that are very different to the other basses, so we must mix it individually.
Mixing The 2nd Bass Sound5:19
Mixing Bass Sounds 3, 4 And 512:36
Mixing Bass Sounds 6 & 711:27
Mixing The Remaining Bass Sounds6:32
Processing The Entire Basses Group14:06

Mixing The Unsidechained Melodic Instruments11:12
In this track we have two groups of melodic instrument. One group is being sidechained to the pattern of the kick and snare. The other group has no sidechaining, so that its level does not change when a kick or a snare is played. This video looks at the sounds in this unsidechained track and goes through the mixing process.
Mixing The Sidechained Melodic Instruments5:20
Adding The Final Touches To The Mix19:33

Requirements

You should have access to a modern Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) such as Ableton Live, Cubase, Logic Pro, Reason or others.
You should have a fundamental understanding of how to use EQ, compression, reverb, delays, etc.
As stated above, around 6 months of electronic music production experience is recommended.

Description

We will be mixing and mastering a track from start to finish in this course.

You will get an in-depth, real world view of exactly how to mix and master your own music.

You will learn the art and science behind various types of compression (regular compression, sidechain compression, multiband compression) and some recommended settings that can be used depending on the type of sound you are treating with compression.

You will also learn about various types of EQ treatment, such as regular parametric EQ and Mid-Side EQ. You will learn about how to EQ a wide range of sounds including different drums and percussion (kicks, snares, etc.), different bass sounds, melodic instruments and FX.

You will learn how to use saturation and distortion to add extra harmonics to certain sounds in your mix to make them sound fuller or stand out more above the other instruments.

You will learn how to mix a complex track that consists of more than 10 different bass sounds and more than 10 different drums tracks.

You will see how we can group tracks together and process an entire group of tracks at once.

You will learn how to work with reference tracks to compare your own work with.

You will also learn how to build your own mastering chain and how to master your track so that it will stand up against other professionally produced tracks on the dancefloor.

The style of music produced in this course could be called dubstep, although it features many influences from ambient electronica and drum and bass, especially neuro or neurofunk style drum and bass.

Despite the track being a specific type of electronic music, you will be able to apply all of the mixing and mastering techniques you learn in this course to other genres of electronic music, such as electro house, techno, glitch hop, trip hop, mid tempo music and many other styles.

The Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) used in this course is Ableton Live, but if you use a different DAW, and you're comfortable with producing music in it, you can apply all of the techniques in your DAW of choice.

Along with full access to all of the video tutorials, you will be able to download the Ableton Live project file used in this course to take a close look at each of the tracks and see exactly how the song was mixed.

Who this course is for:

Anyone who has at least 6 months of experience of making electronic music can take this course, whether you are relatively new to music production, intermediate or advanced. I am confident that even advanced level producers will still learn a lot from this course.
If you are completely new to making electronic music, the material covered in this course may be too advanced for your current skill level.

Mixing And Mastering Electronic Music In Ableton Live

What you'll learn

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Course content

Overview & Mixing Set Up1 lecture • 6min

Drums Mixing8 lectures • 1hr 15min

Basses Mixing7 lectures • 1hr 3min

FX Mixing1 lecture • 9min

Melodic Instruments Mixing3 lectures • 36min

Mastering1 lecture • 16min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: