I do my mixing using headphones or earphones and listening to my mix using any of these give me a pleasant balance. However, when I play it on PAs or other sound systems, the audio is not as balance as when using headphones or earphones.

Any tips to make a better mix?

Thanks.

Yep... don't mix using headphones.

They make studio reference monitors for a reason.

Most headphones and home stereo speakers are biased in some manner or another and add "color" of their own, by design, to the sound. Mostly mid bumps and low end. Mixing on them will make you unconsciously compensate and your music will come out with less low end and a hollowed out mid as a result most of the time.

I hear folks say they complete a mix and then "test it" on the car system, the home stereo, their ear buds, and their buddy's home stereo and it sounds different on each one. Yeah, the playback systems are different but the mix should sound good on every single one of them if it's a properly balanced mix. You should be able to do a mix on your studio rig that translates well across all playback platform respectably.

When mixing the music from our perspective, we want a clean, unbiased sound. In other words, we want to hear what's actually happening in the mix. We want the truth. Only by hearing the real mix, can we produce a mix that will translate well to other systems.

Also, in addition to that, we need to know what a mix is supposed to sound like and not mix according to what we think is ear candy.

And.... you need to mix, mix, mix, and mix some more and not just your stuff..... all sorts of stuff.

The end mix is a combination of knowing what needs to be at what levels and what EQ settings to use...... but it also requires quality tracks. If the tracks are poorly recorded to start with, no amount of EQ, technique, or luck, will salvage that mix and make it a good mix. You can't fix (easily) tracks that are out of tune or have poor timing or poor musicianship. Start with the best tracks possible.

There are a few websites that provide you with all the raw tracks to try your hand at mixing professionally recorded tracks. Getting a pro sounding mix takes practice and lots of hands on time. But start with a few things done right...... good tracks and a good monitoring system to actually hear the unbiased truth in the music.

Join the free Recording Revolution:

https://www.recordingrevolution.com/

It is free and Graham teaches mixing, in fact he is in the middle of a series of mixing stages - but you can DL the entire course, recording and everything about it. Plus he shows you how to do it with stock programs and effects, i.e. no high end purchases necessary. I have learned a lot by watching his weekly blogs.

Thanks for your input Guitarhacker and MarioD.

I also use reference studio monitors and headphones. When listening using these, the mix sounds good according to my taste but then, when I tried listening to other sound systems, I noticed that the vocal tracks doesn't sound that good in the mix. It seems like it does not blend well.

A great resource for working on your mixing skills is http://www.cambridge-mt.com/ms-mtk.htm

Here you'll find various styles of tracks along with mixes to compare yours to. There are also discussion and critique forums.

Froi,

When you think that the mix is complete, it's very important to take a break from it for a day or two. This is necessary because the ears and the brain get used to the sound. After a day's break, when you return to mixing it, you will hear where it doesn't quite work properly. (That's my experience, at least). I've found that I usually have about three run throughs where I can tweak the mix accurately before familiarity creeps in and overshadows my hearing the mix properly.

I also find that when I think a song is complete, it's about another week to ten days before I get it sounding the best I can manage. The reason it takes me so long is because I only work on it for a couple of hours a day and then come back to it the following day with rested ears. This helps with getting the best out of the mix.

The above is from my limited experience. I've still got a long way to go before I can consider myself any kind of authority on this. I agree with Herb. It's all about practising, practising and practising. I know that my mixes of today are a whole heap better than those from a year or more ago.

Regards,
Noel

• my latest song : At Apollo Bay

You might experiment on the PA/live mixer; go into 2 channels and pan them hard right and hard left. Or, be sure both channels are centered at the pan pots. Or, plug into a stereo channel and center up the balance knob. If you find something that works you'll probably need to be very consistent with how you mix future songs so you can tell the audio crew what to do and it works for every song.
That said;
It is very common to mix in mono not stereo for backing tracks that will be use for live performances. Most venues and churches are running everything in mono. Or, they are running in stereo but the pan pots on all or most channels are centered. That doesn't mean absolutely everything needs to be mono. You may want some special fx to sweep from side to side or many other creative ideas but mixing most of it with the pan centered.
If you have things panned hard left and right you might be missing some material in the main mix or even in the stages floor monitors and people sitting on the left of the stage might not hear what is happening on the right and vice-a-versa.
I have done outdoor sound reinforcement where we ran the whole band in stereo with 4 sets of mains across the front of the stage. The audience was set back about 15 feet or more from the front of the stage. The speakers stacks where maybe 10 - 12 feet apart from each other and mixed like this; From left to right; panned left - panned right - panned left - panned right. So even in the middle you heard stereo.
Lately I've been using Note's Nortons technique of mixing my bass and drums panned hard left and all else panned hard right in my DAW. But for mixing and performance the left signal goes into a mono/centered channel and the right signal goes into a separate mono/centered channel. The setting of both channels are duplicated as close as possible. This way my playback (and monitoring while mixing) is mono but I can quickly raise and lower the bass and drums on the fly during performances. I run my PA myself from the stage. However, I am doing my best to get the initial mix sounding good enough for a sound man to keep both channels even and still sound good. Or, in case I have to connect my backing tracks to a single stereo channel that has a "balance" pot it can be centered and hopefully be okay.
I also use a single powered PA speaker as one of my reference monitors while mixing. Which I crank up pretty loud and walk across the room to see how it sounds for a few minutes. That's one of my last steps in mixing a backing track. I make sure it sounds good in mono, loud through a PA speaker from a distance.

Are you using a reference song?

How far is the distance beteeen you monitors?

Are the monitors approximately at ear level?

Are the monitors high quality?

Are you generally using mono tracks?

Are you trying to mix with mastering plug-in active?

Bud