Mixing Simplified - The Mindset

You’ve got a song arranged, recorded, and edited to perfection. Now you face the final creative step of music production. Before we dive deep into the concepts of mixing, let’s step back for a second and think:

What is your purpose as a mixer?

In other words, what is the role of a mixer? What should the end goal be?

You might be thinking “To make it sound good? Geez, what’s with this guy? Always going on about visions, inner purpose n stuff.”

I heard that!

Trust me this will save you from:

The problem with that definition of mixing is that “good” is a very ambiguous term. How do you define good? When do you know what the mix is “good” enough and call it a day?

Since mixing is a highly technical and complex form of art, we all-to-often get overwhelmed by the details. We get completely sucked into adjusting faders here, EQ’s there, compressors everywhere trying to get the “perfect” sound.

The biggest problem within mixing is that we get consumed by the number of possibilities: different kinds of plugins, techniques, effects, etc. Before you know it, mixing has become more about the tools than the art.

This is what happens when you lose sight of the big picture, it’s happened to me countless times and still does.

Sonic Secrets

The key to overcoming this problem is to make sure you have the proper mindset and environment before you start mixing. You need to have a clear and defined vision in mind, and you need the right environment to keep you in the creative headspace. You have to know where your destination is before embarking on the journey.

The overall goals of a mix are:

To enhance the recording of a song and maximize the impact on the listener.

You should always be trying to identify and accentuate the unique qualities of a song and enhance the emotion the artist is trying to convey. (Which would be you if you’re mixing your own song. It can be very useful to take an outsider’s perspective when mixing your own music.)

Ignore all the flashy techniques and ego trips, because at the end of the day the listener only cares if it sounds good and feels good.

Think about it, all the music that you’ve loved growing up and what resonates with you today isn’t because of the technical prowess of the mixing. It because the song resonates with you and the mixer translated that emotion into its maximum impact.

Great, now that we’ve established the goal and purpose of mixing. Let’s talk about how to actually mix a song.

Simply put, mixing is the way we enhance recordings is with various tools that manipulate sound.

This can take the form of something simple like panning left or right in the stereo field or adjusting the volume fader + or — a few dB. It can also take more complex forms such as duplicating a track, processing it extremely, then mixing it with the original at a very low volume; or combining multiple signals into another audio bus (track) and processing them together in parallel to the originals.

It doesn’t really matter how you get there, so long as it makes the listener feel more from the song.

This is the key mindset to have as a mixer. You need to see beyond the technical details in order to best connect with a song and bring out the most energy out of it.

You must be the master of your tools, not a slave to them.

Tool Time — Knobs And Faders

Picture this… you dropped a bowl of home-made salsa on your kitchen floor. @#$%! Now there’s a mess you have to clean up. Simple enough…you go and get some paper towels, a wet rag, some cleaning product and a broom for the shattered glass. You butterfingers.

What you didn’t do is test every possible combination cleaning apparatus in your home, try your whole collection of cleaning products, all your towels, all your brooms, and your vacuum because it might be “cool”.

This is exactly how you should think about the mixing process. When you identify a sonic problem, that might even take several tools to fix, you don’t evaluate all your possible options one after one in different combinations. You simply use what you have to intuitively solve to problem. Job done.

Of course, likewise to mixing, tools are important to understand and necessary to complete your work. Although gear isn’t the most important part of mixing, the more you know how to use it, the better results you’ll achieve.

I’m all for vacuum-sound experiments but in careful moderation. Once your foundations are covered.

Here’s a look at the most common and useful tools for mixing. Some of them might seem elementary but can yield the highest impact. It’s crazy what a simple change and volume can accomplish.

Volume — The most simple, yet arguably, the most powerful tool we have is the volume fader. The final balance between the volume of all tracks has the most impact on the mix. If something is too loud or quiet in your mix it won’t sound good. You might have the urge to reach for high-tech tools when all you need is a volume adjustment.

Panning — Panning it the most effective tool to achieve separation in a mix as we can disperse sounds to different locations in the stereo field. This allows every instrument to occupy its own “space”. It’s a great tool to automate to catch the listeners’ attention.

EQ — Equalization is probably the most powerful tool for mixing, in my opinion. EQ allows us to adjust specific frequencies up or down. Imagine hundreds of mini faders spread across the frequency spectrum. This allows us to accentuate or emphasize the pleasing qualities of a sound, while also allowing us to remove any noise or unnecessary frequencies. EQ has endless creative possibilities as well.

Vacccuuuum filter sweeps!

Compression — Compression is another insanely powerful tool, but it is probably the most difficult to master. In the simplest of terms, a compressor allows us to turn down the level of a track automatically. In other words, this allows us to control the dynamics of a track, meaning the difference between it’s loudest and quietest parts.

A compressor has an adjustable threshold. When a signal hits or surpasses that threshold, the compressor engages and turns it down. When we lower the loudest parts of a track, it allows us to then turn up the volume of the whole track, which means we can hear and emphasize the more quiet parts.

Saturation/Distortion — Saturation is basically a subtle form of distortion. It gently distorts a sound which adds extra harmonics. This can add some “sparkle” or “thickness”. Depending on the type and amount of saturation it can add warmth and smooth a sound, or add edge and make it more aggressive.

By emphasizing harmonics, being extra octaves of the core resonant frequency of a sound, we can bring out more tonal character of the sound and make it louder. This can help smooth out harsh high frequencies by complementing them with other high-frequency harmonics.

Distortion is a more aggressive version of saturation. It’s a very common sound for guitar and bass, but can be used on all types of sounds. Such as vocals and synths.

Delay/Reverb — Effects are things like chorus, flanger, delay, and reverb. They help create space and other modulated wacky sounds.

Delay and reverb are the most common effects in mixing. They both help us create space by emulating how we perceive sound in the real world. Reverb works by imitating how sound bounces off walls or the surrounding landscape and the resulting ambiance we would hear. This gives us the illusion of space by recreating rooms such as hallways or cathedrals.

Delay is similar but mimics the distinct echo’s we would hear from a mountain top or a cave.

HELLO… Hello… hello.

To get the most out of these tools, they should be used wisely. It’s easy to go overboard with reverb and can result in clouding over everything. Less is more with effects.

That covers the foundation for the basic tool for mixing. Every DAW will have basic versions of all these tools included with them and THAT’S ALL YOU NEED. Don’t fall for the GAS trap (gear acquisition syndrome) as I, along with countless others have. Gear by itself won’t make you more skillful at mixing.

If you can get a grasp on these basics you’ll be prepared to create the sound you hear in your head, unrestricted by technical obstacles. Otherwise, you’ll start to feel overwhelmed and confused as you start adjusting things and inevitably lose sight of the vision and flow you had.

A thorough understanding of these tools will allow you to avoid unnecessary overcomplications and they’ll become an extension of you and your artistic mixing ear.

It’s all about the how and most importantly the why of your decisions.

Interested in learning more? Click here to download your Mindset Map and discover your next steps in your musical journey.

My name is Alexandre Joyal. I help music creators achieve success with their music by teaching them how to produce themselves and adopt a creative mindset.