Mixing is a never ending cycle of learning. It is a lawless land that doesn’t know right from wrong, and the wild west of your mixer it can be easy to lose control of your project. Fear not, there are some general rules of thumb to help tame the beast.
The most important rule which is often brushed off as child’s play, is to take breaks. Take breaks when your mixing to let your ears rest, and also to let your mind rest. Audio hallucinations are a real thing. Sure you’re not going to hear a lion roar, but you just may hear subtle things in the mix that aren’t necessarily there. Mix for fifteen to twenty minutes, then take a small break. It’s best to stay fresh.
The next rule has to do with volume. While turning up the volume is nice sometimes to really get the feel for the song, it is always best to do detailed work at a lower level. The audio tracks will be easier to separate and you’ll have a much easier time hearing bad frequencies that are poking their head out.
This leads us to the third tip. Don’t always listen in solo. I’m not saying that you should never listen in solo, because you definitely should, but just remember that people don’t hear music in solo. They hear the whole song at once, so try to work with a good balance of both.
Number four: EQ boost in a minimal way, and cut first if you can. When you are trying to doctor up a track, it is always better to cut rather than boost. Once again, boosting is a great tool to use, but if you can cut out the sounds you don’t want typically you’ll have a better sounding track, and when you do boost, do it subtly.
The fifth tip is pretty simple especially if you’re working digitally. Avoid clipping at all cost! You don’t have to record so low that you can barely see the waves, but you don’t want to go into the square edge clipping zone at all, and once you’re there, you can’t get rid of it.
Number six to put simply is, don’t master while you mix. Take your time on a mix, but leave the mastering for another project. Avoid using a ton of plugins while your mixing. Get your levels set how you want them, sleep on it, and then come back to master.
The final rule of thumb is writing volume automation. This is what separates us, and the professionals who mixed and mastered MJ. Take a lot of time to write volume automation, so each instrument has small featured moments. For example, lift a luscious piano line slightly above it’s set volume so it peaks its head out of the mix. Writing volume automation is the key to being a great audio engineer.
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