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Mixing beats can be time-consuming.

You're wasting more time on mixing than

on actually composing the beat. When an

artist buys your beat, it means they like

it for the melodies, the arrangement, the

drums. Try to leave the mixing more for

the mixing engineer that the artist is

gonna work with and focus more on

actually creating the beat. But on the

other hand, you need to make sure your

beats sound hard, loud and most

importantly, balanced. And that's exactly

what you'll learn today. Leveling or

balancing the mix. Before you do that,

you need to understand signal flow. It's

the way that the audio flows through FL

Studio. It starts with a pattern in the

channel rack, then you'll assign that

pattern to a mixer track and then in the

mixer, the sound will go through the

effects rack. Then it travels to the

fader and from here, it will flow to the

master. So, when you adjust the volume in

the channel rack, you're adjusting it

before the effects are applied. That's

why in most cases, it's better to use the

faders for leveling instead. The only

thing you need to make sure of is that

the sound isn't too loud or clipping when

it's going to a mixer track. In that

case, you can turn it down a little bit

in the channel rack. However, I actually

use these knobs when I'm creating the

beat, you know, to quickly level the

sounds. But once I start mixing, I reset

all the volumes and you can simply do

that by holding Alt and clicking them.

And there you go, that's signal flow. Oh,

and by the way, to send all of these to a

mixer track at once, select them like

this and hit Ctrl L on your keyboard.

Quick shortcut. And now, let's get to

actually leveling the sounds. Disable all

the mixer tracks and start with the

melody. Or you can just right click the

melody track. Most of the time with beats

like these, I like it

around 10 to 16 decibels.

Take this with a grain of salt because

it's different for every beat, every

melody and especially when you're making

other genres. Same thing for the other

instruments. Now in trap and hip hop, the

kick, 808 snare are usually the loudest

bars. Again, this can vary, but I really

want my kick to punch through. You know

what? More tricks on that later. But

first, make sure it already punches

through the mix by balancing it.

Another thing that will really help with

that is spreading out elements that are

living in the mid to high frequency

range. You know, to create more space.

For that, you can use the panner. This

will move the sound to the left or right.

Because you're spreading out these

elements, it will create more room in the

center of your beat. So, imagine your mix

is done. You play it back and it sounds

awesome. But then to check the mix, you

play it in your car. And suddenly

everything sounds muddy. So you try it on

some earpods. And now it sounds way too

sharp. Believe me, I can relate. Which is

why the next trick absolutely changed my

life. Guys, calibrate your headphones and

speakers. Ever since I did this, my mixes

sound great everywhere. On phones,

MacBooks, speakers, cars, everything. The

tool I use for that is called SoundID

Reference. It ensures perfect translation

so that you can create music that sounds

great everywhere. But how does it work?

It basically measures the frequency

response of your room and speakers. Then

with that information, it will create a

calibration profile. For headphones, all

you need to do is find your compatible

headphone and it will apply a premake

profile to it. The application comes as a

standalone or as a plugin inside FL. If

you want to calibrate your speakers, make

sure to use the SoundID Reference

microphone. You can actually use any

measurement mic as long as it has

omnidirectional capability. Then all you

need to do is start this setup. It's

incredibly easy. Just follow the steps

and once you're done, your calibration

profile will be ready and you can apply

it to your speakers. Now with the toggle

on the bottom right, you can turn the

calibration on or off. Then the custom

target feature allows you to create

adjustments to your calibration curve.

Let's say you only want the lows to be

calibrated. Then just make that

selection. The thing I love most about

this app is that you can simulate how

your mix will sound in other locations.

Such as your car, headphones, laptop or

your smartphone. (Music)

Thanks to SoundID Reference, I can

finally trust my mixes. So guys,

definitely take advantage of this. You

can try it out for 21 days completely for

free. Go check it out down below. Next

trick, sometimes your mix is still a

little muddy. Try turning the kick and

808 to mono. That will put it exactly in

the center, so it won't interfere with

the sounds at the side. You can also

split the 808 into three parts. The lows,

the mids and the highs. That way you can

put the lows in mono without touching the

mids and the highs. You can even play

with some effects on the higher

frequencies to make your 808 more unique.

But that's a topic for another video, so

let me know if you want to hear about

that. The next one is a trick you should

already know by now. Here you can see an

EQ on the melody and another EQ on the

808. It sounds okay, but the lows of the

melody are taking up space for the 808.

They aren't really important because we

only want the 808 to punch in the low

end. To fix that, simply cut away the

lows of the melody. Make sure you don't

cut off too much because that will kill

the body of the melody. Now if you're

using an 808 and kick together, you might

want to sidechain them. But how do you do

it? When you sidechain a kick to an 808,

the 808 will duck every time the kick

plays. This will make sure the kick

punches through. Now how do you do this?

It's pretty simple. Make sure your kick

and 808 are sent to a mixer track. Then

select the kick, go to the 808 mixer and

right click on the button below the

fader. Select sidechain to this track.

Then select the 808 mixer and go to the

effects rack. Find the Fruity limiter.

Once it's open, head over to the

compressor. In the sidechain menu, select

your kick. Now go to the threshold knob

and turn it all the way to the left. Turn

the ratio all the way to the right and

increase the attack. Decrease the release

just a little bit. And now you can hear

the kick pumping through the 808. But

this is way too intense.

To fix that, increase the threshold

again. That will already sound better.

Next you want to tweak the sidechain with

the attack and release knobs.

That sounds awesome. But if you want to

have some free plugins that will make

your beats even better, go check it out

right here. You'll be happy. I'll

guarantee you. Goodbye.