MIXING TIPS

1. Trust your ears and treat them with care. We only get one set of ears and it’s important to treat them like gold, after all they’re you’re best asset. — Dacota Fresilli, Parhelion Recording Studios
2. Mixing is all about finding the right balance and making things sit correctly among one another. EQ and compression are important, but I’ve found that the most powerful tools in this regard are simply the volume fader and your ears. — Philip Dust, Philip Dust Mixing and Mastering
3. Learn how to use the tools that you have — effects, plugins, and the program you use to record and mix. Do not fall into the trap by thinking more tools with give you a better mix, because it will not! The most important tool in mixing is yourself and the knowledge you have. — CJ Jacobson, Audio Mastering And Mixing
4. No matter what DAW you choose to work in, download the manual, and learn the shortcut keyboard commands and functions your DAW provides. — Anthony Olivares, Sound in the City
5. Listen to a ton of music / audio. Dissect your references — what’s making this vocal sound the way it does? What’s making the chorus feel exciting? What is this mix doing to convey the emotion of the song, film, etc. — Devin Kerr, Goodhertz

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MIXING TIPS

1. Practice, Practice, Practice. Record things and practice mixing, find multitrack sessions, and practice mixing. Try sonic ideas knowing that if they don’t work 99 times, if you come up with one new sound, it’s all worth it. As an added benefit, the journey will yield quite a bit of knowledge. — Matt Salazar, IndieRockInc
2. Learn how to really listen! Before you just start applying processing to every track, or applying all the great mixing tips you learned about, just bring up all the tracks and get a good balance without any EQ or other processing at all. Then, really LISTEN to the song and the message/mood that the band/artist is trying to convey, and figure out what the mix needs to enhance that message! — Stephen Sherrard, Stephen Sherrard Mixing
3. Use reference tracks! If you have a benchmark to which you can compare your mix, you’ll know better whether or not you’re on the right track. — Bobby Phillipps, HomeStudioMixTips
4. Spend as much time as possible learning how to listen critically not only to music you record and mix, but other music that is commercially produced and you think sounds great. Listen and compare, A/B with your own mixes, and try to learn what it is about someone else’s mix that you like and how to apply it to your own. —
   Stephen Michael Babula, SMB Recordings
5. Set up your mixing environment as best as you can. Make sure you are not getting too many unwanted reflections from hard flat surfaces and bass build-up from corners. Next, mix as many tracks as you can and start training your ears. You can read and watch as many videos as you like, but until you start digging in and mixing and applying what you have learned, you won’t get any better. — Jeremiah, Undergunned Productions

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MIXING TIPS

1. Music keeps evolving. New sounds and trends keep coming. Technology has changed the way we listen to music, and with that the way we mix that music. So you have to be OPEN MINDED when it comes to mixing and producing different genres. It will help you tenfold on learning new techniques and approaches to mixing. — J-rum, J-rum Beats
2. Zoom in, then back out. It’s not about the kick sound. It’s about the emotion you get from the overall mix/song. Our job is to enhance the feeling the artist wants to communicate to the listener. — Joe Vegna
3. At its core, mixing is simple. It’s about getting many individual sounds to blend together in a way that sound pleasing to the ear when coming out of the speakers. —
   Soops, MixedBySoops
4. The musicality of a mix will ALMOST always trump the technicality of it. — AJ Patil, Mixed by A-Mack
5. Think of mixdowns as the fun part instead of the boring part, and you can end up making a lifeless track have some much needed personality. — Them Jeans, Tall Tales Podcast
6. Never get too close to the mix. I’m a huge fan of working in short bursts in order to keep as much of an objective perspective as I possibly can. — Jeffro Lackscheide, Make Your Mixes Not Suck
7. Things you do in the mix are always dictated by the song . Is what you’re doing adding to the song or taking away from it? — Jared Kvitka, Jared K Recording
8. “Record like there’s no mixing, mix like there’s no mastering,” to begin with… always have a clear vision of what you’re trying to accomplish. As long as you stick to that vision, everything’s allowed! — Hubi Hofmann, Slash Zero Records
9. Balance (both level and frequency) and scale (size and depth) are the keys to mixing. Without these, any tip, trick, special EQ, or compression technique becomes irrelevant. — James Aparicio
10. Don’t believe the hype. We are bombarded by ads that tell us the gear we use isn’t good enough. The basic DAW with the basic plugins is miles ahead of what anyone had 25 years ago. Focus on what you have instead of what you don’t have, and make great music. — Matty Trump, Mix And Master My Song
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    MIXING TIPS
11. Make grand gestures when applying EQ, compression, or effects , and then (if needed) back off the amount. But remember, small amounts of compression on many different tracks can help pull everything together, especially in the ‘post tape’ era. — Larry Crane, Tape Op Magazine
12. As a mix engineer, each song or piece (I work in instrumentals a lot) is unique. Honoring the music (and assignment – if spec is dictated by client) is key & I prefer to mix quiet — in a professionally treated control room… focusing on feeling the music — making sure my ears are fresh. I avoid ear fatigue by taking breaks and taking care of my ears outside the studio (i.e. wearing ear plugs at shows, etc.). — Catharine Wood, Planetwood Studios LLC
13. Keep it simple. I really listen to the tracks before doing anything. I put up the faders and balance the track, then mute everything and start shaping sounds individually as I unmute each track. While doing this I am constantly returning to the tracks that I’ve already worked on and rebalancing them. Once I get a mix to rock without any automation, I will turn it on, and start automating everything. Generally I wait until the end to add any FX such as delays or reverbs. I like to try to keep things dry unless FX are called for. — Tyler Spratt, Thresh Mixing
14. Don’t over mix and never be lazy either. If it’s not working, move on to something else quickly, but don’t stop until you actually get it right. There is a middle ground here and you need to develop a sense of when you’re “never gonna make this approach work” and “I’m almost there, but not quite.” — Matt Russell, Gain Structure
15. Use the High Pass Filter!! It’s your best friend and my most used tool of all while mixing! Even if it sounds counterintuitive — you have to filter out as much of the low end to get a tight punchy and big lower end. I really solo each and every track of a mix and turn the high pass filter just to that point where I feel it’s losing too much. It just cleans out the whole mix and leaves room for the wanted and punchy bass. Sometimes I even filter kick drums as high as 40 Hz so don´t be afraid of that little knob! — Clemens Schleiwies, AnalogMix
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16. For me, mixing starts at the recording process. Before I do any mixing, I try to get the most out of every instrument (as if I was there at the recording process) and commit them to the session. — Ryan Samuel Bentley
17. Once all the (boring) editing and corrective tasks are taken care of…
    mix fast, mix with purpose, and mix from your gut. With all the tools at our disposal, it is easy to get sucked into analysis paralysis, which won’t serve the song. Listen to the song, make a mental plan of what steps need to be taken to make the sound in your head a reality, and do it. — Scott Horton, Virtual Mix Engineer
18. These days, I start off each mix session by listening to some reference songs set at the same volume as my mix. Only then do I switch over to the mix I’m working on and whatever is missing in my mix is far more obvious. Changes that would have taken hours of banging my head against the wall now jump out and can be changed in a few minutes. — Jeffro Lackscheide, Make Your Mixes Not Suck
19. Do as much as possible without plugins. Plugins are fun but the real magic happens with volume, panning, and editing. Try not using any plugins for the first 20 minutes of your next mix. You would be surprised how far you get. — Matty Trump, Mix and Master Song
20. Mix so that every track can be heard within the song. It’s all about balance. If a track doesn’t contribute anything to the overall song, it might not be needed. — Brandon Marshall, Marshall Mixing
21. Not balancing out the mix before adding plugins. A lot of dance producers have the kick drum super loud which, in turn, ends up depleting the low end and smashing entire the mix. — Mike Glaser, pureMix
22. The most common mistake is not using the faders enough. Sometimes mixers use a bunch of EQ and compression, but forget to use the faders to get a good volume balance between the instruments. Sometimes a volume change could be the perfect choice! — Mattia Magi, Blue House Studio
23. Using too many effects is a common mistake. It can be great having lots of effects, but you have to be smart about using them. Remember, you don’t have to use them all on one song! In so many things related to mixing, less is more. — Law Wood, LW Music Services
24. Sometimes it can be easy to focus too much on a very small detail and forget the bigger picture. EQ’ing in solo can also make mixing take a long time as you’re not hearing it in context of the mix. Always try and listen to the whole mix as much as possible, and remember where you are trying to go with the sound of it.
    — Romesh Dodangoda, Long Wave Recording Studio
25. Mixing at a too high of a volume is a common mistake I see. To help your mixes to translate well everywhere, mix at low volume at around 55 to 70 decibels and make sure your mix sounds great at that level. — Chris Selim, Mixdown Online
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26. A lot of time I hear pops and clicks in projects, specifically film. This can be avoided by simply adding fades and crossfades to all clips. — James Alire, 5J Media LLC
27. When I was starting, one mistake I made is not taking breaks . My ears would become so fatigued that I’d believe my mix is sounding the way I wanted. But in reality, it wasn’t even close. Our ears are what we rely on and we need to make sure they are rested to put our best mix every time. — Keshia McArthur, Keshia Mc.
28. Getting the balance wrong. Before you start reaching for EQ and compression, get a good starting balance. If you struggle with that, look into quick hacks — like mixing against pink noise — to get you started. — Dave S-B, Creative Mixing
29. One mistake I see a lot of amateur and even experienced engineers make is not having enough headroom before they ever start mixing. Check all of your tracks/stems to make sure you have enough headroom (I aim for -6 dB) before adding ANY processing to the tracks. This will help to avoid unwanted saturation or distortion when you do start adding processing. Before you begin mixing: 1) Make sure all your audio tracks are at 0.0 dB; 2) play each track to see the peak volume of each track; and 3) if its over -6 dB use a gain plugin to pull the gain back until you have a least -6 dB for each audio track. — Michael Cushion Jr, Mikes Mix & Master
30. Mixing with eyes and not ears is a very common mistake. It’s easy to get lost in a web of graphic displays, frequency readouts, and waveforms. When making a critical decision, close your eyes and really listen. Level match, and then bypass the processing and really ask yourself if it’s improving results. If not, don’t be afraid to try something else. — Adrian Breakspear
31. Develop a routine and stick to it. I use the same mix template that I tweak every few months and I import/arrange every mix the same way regardless of genre. — Mike Glaser, pureMix
32. I submix nearly everything! All drum tracks to a bus, all guitars to a bus, all keyboards to a bus. Then, all the instruments go to a bus, so that the vocals can be separate from them. Sometimes I will compress/EQ the band separate from the vocals. Having everything sub-mixed makes it easy to shape sections at a time.
    — David Das, Academy of Scoring Arts
33. In the plugin world it’s easy to drown in options. It can feel good to have so many choices but it can also be a huge waste of time. Find what works (2-3 options) for your most common tasks and stick to it. Everything else is just messing around… it’s fun but not productive. If you find a setting you like, save it as a preset and give that preset a name that makes sense so you can use it as a starting point next time.
    — Mathieu Dulong, Studio Fast Forward
34. Arrange the mixer in such a way that you don’t have much to distract you from what is coming out of the monitors. I like to get rid of anything I don’t think I’m going to use so that I’m not looking at piles of tracks. If there are DI’s, or guitar mic’s that I know I’m definitely not using, I remove them. The fewer things that distract me from getting the mix where I want it to be, the better! — Romesh Dodangoda, Long Wave Recording Studio
35. Create templates with your favorite plugin chain and aux sends. Then tweak those plugins to work with what you’re mixing. Color code your tracks based off Intro, Hook, Verse, etc as well as make markers at these sections in the song itself. — Chris Blaney, Inner Creative Sound
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