The First Step Towards Mixing

Last time I discussed that getting your home studio to sound like a real studio is a much easier task than we may think. This time I’m going to add the first piece to the mixing puzzle and talk about how you can attain that perfect mix that sounds radio ready.
Mixing can’t be summed down to just a few words; therefore, I decided I would do a series of posts that can truly describe and discuss the techniques and strategies that go into mixing. From there the possibilities are endless.

So for a moment we go back to the post I made about getting started, you’ve got your computer, Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), interface, monitors, and of course microphone. You’ve treated your room the way that you should’ve and you’ve started writing some music recording some vocals and it just doesn’t sound right when you’re done with it. The details in your song aren’t cutting through the mix and the song just sounds muddy or it isn’t loud enough. This was a huge problem I had when I first started and that when I discovered the true art that mixing really is. Mixing is not only the process where engineers make sure the levels for tracks in a song are all balanced, mixing is where the magic and creativity of the engineer comes into play, this is his/her moment to shine and leave his mark on the song. The thing about mixing is that you can’t necessarily be “taught” how to mix, I can only give you the tools to achieve what you want to achieve while mixing. It is a lot like a painter, you can have all the same tools as the person next to you but without knowing the technique and the eyes for painting, like me, you will end up with a bunch of stick figures for your drawing! This doesn’t mean you can’t teach yourself to mix though, so don’t get discouraged!

The first thing I do when I begin to mix and artist’s song is listen. Not only listen to their song but also compile songs from other artists that sound similar (that you know were professionally mixed) and listen to those songs in the room that I will be mixing in without distractions. What I am doing while listening to these “reference” songs is identifying how different instruments and frequencies sound in my room so I can duplicate them in the project I am currently working on. Listen to every detail about the reference songs to hear what you will have to do in your mix to make it sound “professional” you will be surprised how drastically this will help you develop an ear for mixing! Walk around your room and notice the how frequencies sound different in other areas of your room; this illustrates those standing waves I mentioned in my last post. Compare what the “reference” tracks sound like to the track you have, sometimes you don’t even have to tweak parts of your project and only touch the others. Most of the time you are going to have to process almost everything in the session.

You’ve listened to the songs and your project and now you’re ready to mix! What I generally like to do is completely turn everything down all the way so you hear nothing. The only thing I turn up is the main element of my song. Depending on the genre of music or just even what you feel the song should sound like will determine what this element is. Normally, I start by setting my vocals at an appropriate level, most people start with drums but I like to start with what I feel should stand out most and mix around that element. From having that one element at the appropriate level I then just make a rough mix of the whole song around that one element. A rough mix only means I am raising the volume and moving the pans on tracks to create the foundation of what my song will sound like.

This is probably the most important step to mixing a song. This is the step that creates that image in your mind of what you want your song to sound like. This will reflect decisions you make later on while mixing. It seems easy but it is crucial that you know what you want your end product to be at this point. Once you have that foundation you dive into the next part of mixing, EQ’s and processing audio, which I will be saving for another discussion because that in itself is a whole other art form.