I always record, mix and master in Adobe Audition 1.5. This is my DAW since year 2005. I can always say that I made a huge progress with my audio mixing skills as compared before. One huge factor is that I only stick to one DAW and one set of plug-ins.
Below are the factors why mixing engineers often have problems even after so many years of mixing:
Problems why you are still having problems with your MIX
1.) Switching DAW – unlike operating system or even your favorite anti-virus software that you really need to upgrade; it is a different case with DAW. Your DAW is like a car to a race track driver or a sword to a samurai warrior. You really need to know how the software operates to its deepest level to produce excellent results.
If you switch DAW without attaining mastery of your previous DAW, you can never be considered proficient in your digital audio mixing skills. It is because you do not know the important tips and techniques necessary to create a great mix with that software.
However, you can switch DAW only when it is “required” by your projects. There are times when you really need to switch to another DAW. When?
Below are typical cases:
a.) For example, Adobe Audition 1.5 does not support ASIO technology. ASIO is required for very low latency multi-channel recording. I cannot get this low latency with Adobe Audition 1.5 since it only supports WDM drivers. What I did is to switch to Reaper DAW. This new DAW now supports ASIO and I can now record at a very low latency required for quality multi-track/multi-channel recording.
b.) Your DAW is lacking a VERY important feature for audio mixing and mastering. For example, you realized that the software does not have wave editing features and you desperately need to edit audio 90% of the time. So it makes sense to switch to another DAW that supports waveform editing.
2.) Switching plug-in – like your DAW, the plug-ins are equally important. Switching plug-in from time to time without knowing them intimately can slow down your path to audio mixing success.
If you are a beginner or novice (with less than one year experience in audio recording and mixing) reading this posts; below are my friendly recommendations with regards to plug-ins:
a.) Use the best quality and industry standard plug-ins in the early part of your music production career. This will give you more time to master them and get professional results. Most industry standard audio mixing plug-ins are recognized and used by veterans and leaders in audio mixing industry. For example since 2005, I have been using the industry standard Waves plug-in.
b.) Use the plug-in as often as possible in your projects and never switch to another plug-in. This will allow you to know how the plug-in sounded like with your experimented settings.
3.) Upgrading DAW to a more recent versions – be careful with this. This is not to say that I am not in favor of updating DAW. Yes updating it is important to get the latest bug fixes and security patches. However, you need to be aware of the following:
a.) Upgrading DAW sometimes introduces or removes important features that you always use in the previous version. If you upgrade; you will face a lot of issues with respect to usability of the software.
b.) Upgrading DAW can probably make some of your plug-ins to be incompatible with the latest version. So if you are a big fan of plug-in “X”; it may not work anymore and you will be forced to learn and use a new plugin which can take some time.
Here is my recommendation if you find yourself confused whether you will upgrade your DAW or not:
a.) Do not immediately upgrade to the latest version of your DAW software. Instead, read carefully what changes have been made to the software. You can do this by checking to the DAW software website and read the recent release notes of the software.
If there are changes that can affect drastically on how you are normally using the software; then think twice before you upgrade.
b.) Read the recent reviews and ratings of the latest version of your DAW software. For example, in year 2005 I have Adobe Audition 1.5 installed in my PC; then came Adobe Audition 2.0 and more recent versions. However according to my own personal assessment; I find them very difficult to use because a LOT of changes have been made. So I simply stick to Adobe Audition 1.5.
Use the BEST of BOTH worlds
Some audio mixing engineers often record, mix and master in one DAW software. However if I encounter a multi-track or multi-channel project that require very low latency; I will record the tracks in Reaper.
For example; my audio interface is Saffire Pro 40 which is an ASIO device and can record simultaneous inputs then I will use Reaper to record the tracks.
But I cannot mix perfectly in Reaper because I still have to read a lot of documentations regarding its usage; so my solution is to import the 24-bit/96KHz or 24-bit/48KHz track to Adobe Audition 1.5 and then mix it there using the plug-ins I know for more than 5 years.
Record the tracks in Reaper and Mix in Adobe Audition
Content last updated on August 6, 2012