Mixing

Your first mix: a repeatable workflow

6 min read

The first mix of a first song usually goes the same way: play it, hear what is wrong, fix one thing, like it less, fix another thing, and end up worse than when you started, with the clock at two in the morning.

The fix is not better ears. It is a process that tells you what to do next.

Before you mix anything

Finish the recording. Mixing a song that is still changing is wasted work.
Organise the session. Name your tracks sensibly, colour-code them if you like, and put the drums and bass on separate audio tracks rather than on a single stereo bounce. You cannot fix a balance you cannot hear separately.
Commit to the sample rate. One project, one sample rate. Mixing 44.1 kHz tracks with 48 kHz tracks produces a chorused, slightly out-of-tune mess that is miserable to diagnose.
Set up a reference track. Put a commercial track you like at a level matched to your mix. Reference is not optional.

The order of operations

Work in this order. Each step makes the next one easier, and skipping ahead is what causes the endless tweaking.

1. Static balance and panning

Set every fader to unity and every pan to centre. Then:

Set the relative levels by ear. A rough, fast pass is fine.
Pan vocals and lead instruments to taste; pan the bass and kick to centre.
Get the drums to sit behind the guitars and the vocals in front.

Nothing else matters until this is roughly right. A beautifully processed mix with a wrong balance is still a bad mix.

2. Clean up the recording

Check for clipping on every track. Play at full level and look for waveform tops flattened against the ceiling. Clipped audio cannot be fixed — re-record it.
Trim silence and unwanted noise at the head and tail of every track.
Remove hum if it is present: a narrow notch at 50 or 60 Hz and its harmonics. Use sparingly.
Repair obvious mistakes — a cough, a wrong note, a door slam — while you are here.

3. Gain staging and headroom

Set the track faders so the loudest summed moment lands around -6 dBFS on the master. Do this before adding any processing, and do not raise individual tracks to compensate for a quiet mix — fix the mix, not the meters.

4. Subtractive EQ

Before you add any character, remove what is not helping:

High-pass everything except the bass. Roll off below 30 to 40 Hz. This removes rumble, handling noise and room boom, and it makes the low end clearer.
High-pass the kick and bass separately so they do not fight in the bottom end.
Cut resonances — a narrow dip somewhere in the 200 to 800 Hz range on a vocal usually fixes a boxy sound.
Cut mud — if two instruments fight for the same space, cut the lower one rather than boosting the other.

Cut before you boost. Every boost adds level you will have to control later.

5. Compression

Now, and only now:

Vocals — a gentle compressor, 3 to 4 dB of gain reduction, slow attack so the transient survives, medium release.
Drums — compress the room mic or overheads for glue; leave the close mics alone if they already sound tight.
Bass — usually none, or a very slow, gentle one for sustain.
Master — light, slow and gentle, if at all. A master bus compressor that is doing visible work is usually a mistake.

6. Effects

Add reverb and delay after the balance and the EQ, and use them on a send:

Reverb for space, and less of it than you think. Reverb is a seasoning, not a meal.
Delay for depth and to reinforce a rhythm. Check the delay repeats land in time with the tempo.
Use the same reverb on everything that happens in the same room, and a different one for anything that is not.

7. Automation

Write volume automation for any vocal or lead that needs to sit differently in different sections.
Ride the reverb send so the verses are drier and the chorus is wetter.
Do not automate the faders of everything — it hides the underlying balance problems.

8. Reference and adjust

Put the reference track on, level-match it to your mix, and switch between them without looking at the screen. Ask specific questions:

Is the vocal as present as the reference?
Is the low end as clear?
Are the guitars competing with the vocal?

Adjust one thing, listen, and move on.

When to stop

Set a limit before you start: two hours, or three passes, whichever comes first. If it is not right by then, export it, walk away for a day, and come back. Fresh ears are worth more than another pass.

Then export and share it. A finished, imperfect mix teaches you more than an unfinished one, and it is the only way to find out what you actually think of your own work.

A checklist to export with

[ ] No clipping anywhere.
[ ] Master peaks around -1 dBFS, no louder.
[ ] Sample rate matched across the project.
[ ] No soloed or muted tracks left on.
[ ] Low end clear on a phone speaker.
[ ] Vocals intelligible at low volume.
[ ] Reference track muted.
[ ] The file is exported and it exists somewhere other than the project folder.

Export the mix and walk away. The urge to keep tweaking after it sounds finished is the enemy of finishing.

When the mix is not working

Everything sounds muddy. Too much low-mid energy. High-pass more, and cut the instruments competing for the same space.
The vocal disappears. It is being masked, not quiet. Cut the instruments around the vocal's frequencies rather than turning the vocal up.
The drums sound like a click track. Too much compression on the close mics, or a sample that has been squashed. Leave some dynamics in.
It sounds great on headphones and bad everywhere else. Too much high frequency, or the low end is doing all the work. Check on a phone speaker.
You are tired. Stop. This is the most common cause and the least discussed.