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Linux audio

Mixing process

Proposed by Reagan Ramm of Orpheus Audio Academy

Step 1: Organize Your Session

Before you dive into your mix, you've got to clean up the session in your DAW. All pro mixers do this, or have an assistant do it for them — so you've got no excuses not to do it either. Organize your tracks with drums and percussion tracks first, then bass instruments, guitars, synths, keys, and then vocals. If you haven't yet, set up a master fader as well. Color coding your tracks by instrument type is also a great idea — red for drums, blue for vocals, purple for guitars, etc. This will save you precious time later when you're knee-deep in a mix and you're looking for that one track that's causing you issues.

Step 2: Gain Staging

Gain staging is simply making sure you're not overloading your mix bus and clipping your mix in your DAW. Use clip gain to bring down the waveforms of tracks that are too hot, and make sure that none of the tracks are peaking their volume meters. Make sure you're not overloading your master fader, and keep it to -6 to -8db peak. (Or -23db LUFS) With digital mixing, you get no benefits from having a hot mix. In fact, you end up squashing the dynamics of your mix if you're running it at too high of a volume.

Step 3: The Static Mix

Yes, it's step 3 and only now we're starting to mix.

Why?

Here's a simple metaphor — mixing is like cooking.

Before you put anything on a hot stove, you've got to have the ingredients prepared and ready to go. If you've got the ingredients for your dinner unwashed, unprepared and you're halfway through cooking dinner before you realize you've forgotten something — there's little chance it's going to end well. Something's going to get burned.

But if everything's ready to go? There's no fear, there's no panic. It's the same thing when you're mixing.

Here's how you build a solid static mix:

  • Loop the loudest part of the song, and listen to it a few times as you adjust the volume faders and try and get a mix with just volume
  • Don't use any plugins or effects. Just play with the level and panning of your tracks, and build it from there
  • You can start with the drums or lead vocal. Get a decent volume on either of them and slowly lift the volume of other tracks around them to build your mix
  • This shouldn't take longer than half an hour — trust your instincts, and go with what feels right and exciting

Step 4: Mix Buss Processing

Plenty of beginning mixers know about this, but don't know how to properly use it.

Starting with your mix bus will shorten your mixing time by hours. By getting the right EQ, compression, and processing on your entire mix, you'll have to make far fewer mixing moves than without any mix bus processing.

Here's how you start Top-Down Mixing from your Mix Buss:

Start with an EQ on your master fader, and do a 1–2db boost on the low end and top end of the mix.

You're looking to open up the highs of the mix and start feeling the low end of the mix punch and fatten up.

If you're gonna compress your mix, start with a slow attack time, low ratio, and fast release.

Keep the ratio to at most 2:1, and play with the threshold to get 1–3db of gain reduction at the loudest parts of your mix. Make sure to gain stage the compression so you're not making your mix louder or quieter as a result of this adjustment.

Just with these two moves, your mix will start coming together and begin to sound far less amateur.

From here, repeat this process, as necessary, with any group busses you have, before finally moving on to the individual tracks.

Step 5: Saturation

Saturation is key for getting a rich, warm, and glued-together sound in your mix.

Some say that saturation is what gives your music an "expensive" sound, like it was produced in a profession multi-million-dollar studio.

This is because in a pro studio, your tracks are run through actual physical (analog) gear, like a mixing console, and these all impart saturation.

If you don't know, saturation is a combination of subtle distortion and compression.

Saturation adds harmonics and slightly changes the tone of your tracks, which is why I recommend using saturation first in your signal chain.

Experiment by adding subtle amounts of saturation to your tracks by using any saturation or distortion plugins your DAW has built-in.

This even includes any plugins that are emulations of analog gear, for example, a vintage EQ plugin.

Step 6: EQ

EQ is the bread and butter of a good mix.

If you're new to mixing — start with subtractive EQ.

Use High Pass Filters on your tracks to clean up the low end on guitars, vocals, synths, etc. so you have space in your low end for your bass and kick drum.

An easy way to find stuff to remove from a track with EQ is to boost and sweep around for the ugliest frequency on a track, and then pull it down by -3 to -6db.

The rule of thumb with EQ is to use narrow cuts and wider boosts for a more natural sound.

Go through the instruments of your track systematically with EQ — you can start with the drums, then instruments, then vocals, or start with the vocal and EQing the mix around it.

Step 7: Compression

After EQing your tracks to make sure they're not fighting with each other's frequencies, it's time for compression.

The main instruments that usually need compression would be dynamic instruments like drums, guitars, and vocals.

You can also use compression to create more punch and kick on drums, or excitement on vocals or an electric guitar.

Fun fact: by compressing the dynamic instruments in your mix, you're reducing your overall mix bus volume, but actually increasing the perceived volume of your mix.

Step 8: Reverb & Delay

While you can use reverb and delay plugins on specific tracks — the most efficient way to use reverb and delay is to have them on buss or aux tracks.

That way, you're able to get more out of one track and reduce the CPU load of your mixes, and not deal with any DAW problems when you're mixing.

When it comes to reverb — room and plate reverbs are best for creating space and dimension in your mix.

With delay plugins, try a short slap delay for effect, and a longer muted ¼ note delay to increase space in your mix.

And don't forget to EQ your reverbs and delays to make sure they're not clashing with any lead instruments in your mix.

Step 9: Automation & Sweetening

With EQ, compression, and effects in your mix — it's time to check and make sure your mix is interesting and balanced from start to finish.

You wanna go through your mix at this point part by part, and make sure that the lead vocal is clear and upfront.

At the same time, make sure to automate any instruments doing fills at transition points of your song, so that they're delivering the most sonic impact when necessary. You could even experiment with using different levels of reverb and delay on the lead vocal depending on the section of the song (more delay in the choruses, automating certain words, etc)

This final step is taking the almost-finished mix you've got by now, and giving it those small touches that make it sound polished and pro.

Online tools

Streaming services

LKFS, a.k.a. LUFS levels used by different streaming services, according to a Kenny Gioia (Reaper Mania) tutorial video:

Service LUFS
Apple Music –16
Youtube –13
Spotify –14
Tidal –14
Soundcloud ???

Track levels

To quickly dial in a rough mix, solo tracks and set their levels so their outputs (on the master VU) are about as follows. (Adapted from a video lecture by Bobby Owsinski.)

Track VU, dB
Drums –5
Hihat, cymbals –20
Other percussion –25
Bass –15
Vocals –10
Backing vocals –15
Guitars, keyboards –20

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