Izotope Rx Sample
Mixing sample-based music poses a unique set of challenges for engineers—sources can come from anywhere. A producer might combine EDM drums from Splice with a low-quality soul acapella ripped from YouTube and percussion sounds captured on a smartphone. This requires a considerable amount of care on the part of an engineer to blend them together.
In this article, I’ll discuss the common challenges of mixing samples and provide tips to work around them. Here are seven tips for mixing sample-based music.
Mixxx dj tool. Hear iZotope’s RX 7 audio repair plug-in in action. Listen to the versatile Music Rebalance tool and modules for music and post production. Resample allows you to convert an audio file from one sampling rate to another. Sample Rate Conversion (SRC) is a necessary process when converting material from one sampling rate (such as studio-quality 96 kHz or 192 kHz) to another rate (such as 44.1 kHz for CD or 48 kHz for video).
1. Understand why the producer chose to use samples
Don’t have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish in a mix at the outset? This is a common beginner mistake made by engineers working within all genres and styles of music. When mixing sample-based music, it's important to consider why the producer included samples in the song before balancing levels, shaping with EQ, and taming dynamics. Is the producer trying to impart a lo-fi flavor? Referencing a bygone era? Augmenting other instruments? If you’re unsure, there’s nothing wrong with asking them directly.
Why is this important? Getting a clear sense of the “why” behind their sample use will help you make faster mix decisions as you go along. If you know the producer wants the samples to blend in seamlessly with the other instruments, it’s an easy decision to remove any signs of editing and artifacts. Other producers are perfectly fine, if not proud, to let the imperfections of the artform show. In this case, your job is to preserve the natural groove of the source material and mix around it.
Which leads to the next point..
Izotope Rx Sample Form
2. Sample noise reduction: Clean what needs to be cleaned
RX is an audio repair and noise reduction editor that can remove the most impossible sounds from a recording—crackle, heavy breathing, clicks..the list goes on.
This makes for a helpful tool when dealing with samples from dollar bin vinyl and other noisy sources. While there are hundreds of use cases for RX features, I can give you some advice about noise reduction as it pertains to samples—clean only what needs to be cleaned.
What this means is to assess the role of each track within the arrangement before getting surgical. If the arrangement is sparse, you might want to keep some crackle on the samples to fill up the empty space. Just be sure to tame distracting transients. One the other hand, if you have a busy mix and a handful of samples with different timbres, a tool like Ambient Match or De-Reverb will allow you to more easily massage them together.
3. Don’t lose sight of the bass
The genres of music that use samples most often—hip-hop, electronic, and pop—require a powerful low end, so it is crucial to sculpt enough space in the mix for the bass to be heard and felt. This task can be complicated by the fact that many samples, particularly multi-layer loops, include lots of low frequencies.
This is most obvious when the samples are taken from full songs. It's not uncommon to find rumble and hum creeping in the 20–200 Hz range on hi-hats, snares, vocals, and many other sounds that don’t need to go that low.
High quality sounds downloaded from Splice can play tricks on your ears too. To capture your attention with fullness, many mid and high range samples include significant low-end and will blow out your mix when layered haphazardly. So be sure to determine where the bass is coming from early on and use EQ to prevent unpleasant masking on competing instruments.
4. Whenever possible, split samples into stems
You may find it helpful to split layered samples with multiple instruments into separate tracks where they can be processed individually. If the sample you’re mixing includes a guitar, bassline, and hi-hat pattern, you will find it challenging to pick a single EQ or compression setting that doesn’t prioritize one sound over another.
Some of this splitting can be done with EQ if there is enough separation between the individual sounds in the original recording, but this isn’t always the case. The solution? Once again, RX saves the day.
Split samples into stems with the Music Rebalance module in RX
Izotope Rx Samples
Using iZotope audio magic, the Music Rebalance module allows you to isolate stems from a multi-track recording, then bring them back into your DAW for re-blending. This way, you can add reverb to the guitar without muddying the bass or even remove the guitar from the mix altogether. This tool offers a degree of control that, up until recently, just wasn’t possible. I highly recommend it for engineers mixing sample-based music. Watch how it all works in the video below: