thanks for this. totally was i was looking for 
Found that really useful, many thanks Dom, and great sounding track too. Mixbus question … do you ever make use of the built-in Mixbus channel strip eq’s and compressors (apart from the side-chaining) or do you find them a bit too fiddly?
Thanks @Tekalight and everyone, I appreciate the kind words, and glad you found it useful.
@MarzTecheque - Bitwig FTW! Also a fan of the Harrison Mixbus engine, so the two compliment each other well for me.
Cheers!
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@TJJ1066 - I do use the channel strip EQs fairly often, but usually for LPF/HPF functions, unless I’m treating something like an acoustic instrument/vocal and then I use those almost exclusively as the tonality has a place to shine. They can be fiddly, which is why I tend to stick with what i know when it comes to electronic dance music tracks because compressors/EQs don’t really need much of a unique character then.
So what happens when you get familiar with Mixbus? Switch again to an unfamiliar workstation?
@advancer - I don’t think you have to be unfamiliar with the workstation, but it just helps my mindset if for example, I know how to mix using MixBus32 but I don’t know how to develop a whole track or rework the sound-design etc in there, because then i don’t think about that stuff and only focus on the mixing. Personally whenever I try to mix in Ableton or Bitwig, I always end up getting sidetracked and start tweaking all the automations, and the sound-design, and playing with VSTs and forgetting that I’m supposed to be focusing on the mix levels. It’s just a way or separating the two different jobs.
I even recommend to people that don’t want to change workstation, to just export the stems and then import them in to a new project in your normal workstation so that you can’t see the VSTs and automation lines etc, so there’s no distraction from the mix.
@Tutorial 2 - Mixing and listening with the monitor off. I do this regularly and for this, I wrote a little program to support this. It’s only a black screen and you don’t have to switch off your monitor every time. Maybe someone likes this too.
https://m2k1.de/black-back/
thnx
any news on the possible mastering tutorial for this track?
Not yet, that was only a plan, can’t tell you if @domkane & S.A have scheduled anything yet about this one. If under the scope, bear in mind that it could take some time, tutors needs to record their courses and some video editing & post prod work needs to be done.
@samelec - Nothing planned for definite at this stage sorry… I think SA had a couple of other similar ones planned from other artists, but I’ll keep the discussion with them going just in case. I think it would make a nice addition to the mixdown one for sure.
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Definitely agree with that, especially if mastering inside Mix-Bus which might be pretty exclusive content here on S.A IMO, so that’s a +1 for me too 
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Thanks @domkane and @Tekalight. This was a great tutorial. Keeping an eye for the future mastering one just in case I have recently checked out How to Use MasterCheck which was great and IMO necessary to watch. Meanwhile am going through other tutorials on mastering here. Thanks again!
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really useful for beginner to product the perception and procedure of the mixing
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I like the very reduced and structured approach. However, this tut is very basic. 1) Lots of presets a used, instead of heaving a own approach to specific settings lika ratio or whatever. 2) NONE of the Mixbus features are used (EQs, Comps, etc). These are the core features of Mixbus. Only external plugins are used. 3) the speaker takes very long for really really basic, simple and obvious steps. For, example many many minutes expire, to explain how and why to use a high-pass on a whisper. ON A WHISPER. It so clear and self explanatory, that u use a highpass on a whsiper. This, in the mixing-process, should be a step that lasts maybe half a minute. In this case, it takes many many minutes. And last but not least 4) the Track by itself is allready mixed and designed very well. Reverbs, FX and so on are already done before. I somehow expected, that this is also part of the mixing-process. So finally, this tut is about some very marginal eq and compression settings
hi @MikeMikeMike thanks for your feedback. Let me try and help here…
- Presets were used because there’s no point re-inventing the wheel. That’s why presets exist. Had I gone into specific compression ratios/attack/release etc then I would have been only helping a mix for this specific track, and whilst you could have followed every move in your own track, who’s to say that they would have been appropriate.
- This was a mixdown tutorial, showing how I personally do my own mixdowns, specifically for that track, hoping that some people may find some of the information helpful (examples of this are in the comments above yours). This wasn’t a MixBus 32C tutorial, so the internal plugins were/are irrelevant in this case, and I also spent some time explaining my reasons for using Mixbus (separating the process from the production mindset) at the beginning of the tutorial.
- Not everybody has a whisper on their project, but they do have high frequency content where these tips still apply, and the discussion is about the logic and concept, perhaps being more important than the one example given, that can then be applied to other projects and instruments, or at least food for thought. I’m sorry you missed this.
- Thank you for the compliment. For me, a mixdown is about those final tweaks to get everything working harmoniously, it has nothing to do with adding reverb or FX to channels, since that is part of the creative production process and a mix engineer would never know what the producer wanted in that field. A good mixdown is absolutely about marginal EQ and compression, while adjusting a few gains here and there, so that everything sits right for the listener.
A good mixdown, needs to start with a good sounding track, like a good master should start with a good mixdown.
Hope this helps.
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First of all: I really really enjoyed the Tutorial. It confirmed some know-how that I learned by myself and it brought me knew know-how! And I totally agree, that mixing is the art of “little steps”, not the art of one-knob-tricks. Mixbus is a really powerfull tool with great EQs, compressors and last but not least a great summming and especially a very nice tape-saturation. I missed that a bit … I dont see any sense using mixbus, when not using these tools, except of your mentioned mental approach of separating producing and mixing. Can U teel us, what u used on the master? There are some plugins going on there (bypassed) – I think at one point you mentioned that you will explain this later on.
No problem, glad you enjoyed it. To be honest, I haven’t explored 32C anywhere near as much as I should have. I do use the saturation and bussing a lot though. I don’t remember the exact chain for that track, but I always have a few limiters and compressors to raise the gains (because I work to -10dB with stems) and then some mid/side EQ tools and LUFS monitors. The original plan was that I was going to follow up this course with a self-mastering one, but it turned out another guest tutor did one of those around the same time, so mine wasn’t needed. Maybe one day though
Dom Kane, come back and do a more detailed tutorial on mixing down in Mixbus 32-c! Thank you! Happy 2k21!
@domkane Awesome explanation, love the approach of focus and separating these two stages by using different software
I still have a very basic question about levels; which you partly covered at the end; so you export all the stems after your production stage everything around -10/-15db,
and then after the mixing stage you aim at -16db overall? And the peak is max -6 ish preferably?
So basically there’s not much gain on the general level right?
Beginner at work here Thanks for this tutorial series!