Music DIY (Part 2): Make Better Mixes

Written by Gordon Beck, Photograph by Antoni Shkraba

Audio mixing is an artform, not a science. It may come as a surprise with all the newfangled gear and technology involved. Engineers and mixers usually look like they are piloting a spacecraft after all. But make no mistake, there is no play by play on how to craft a good mix. Every recording, every song, is handled on a case by case basis. There are some general ground rules, however, that can steer budding mixers in the right direction. But just like the pirate code, they’re more guidelines than actual rules.

It goes without saying but mixing is done with the ears, not the eyes. A plethora of colorful spectrums, dials, and other visual indicators may tempt to draw your attention, but they are there to aid the user in hearing something, not seeing it. Trusting the ears and only the ears is the groundwork to making anything sound good. It seems obvious, but too often do beginners discredit their ears because a graph dissuaded them. Who cares if there is a 16dB spike at 2000hz. If it sounds good, it is good.

Another bit of groundwork is understanding the fundamentals of how your plugins and processes work. Gurus on the internet like to preach doing “so and so” to all your guitar tracks, or always busing the drums to “this and that.” Every bit of processing should theoretically be serving a specific purpose to either solve a problem present in the mix or do something because you like the sound of it. Nothing should be applied just because. This ties into a major practice that often makes or breaks many early mixes.

Never mix in solo. Or more accurately; rarely. Nobody will ever listen to your guitar tracks by themselves, or just the drum mix. All anybody is ever going to hear is the finished song with all the tracks put together. It doesn’t matter how good that splashy reverb sounds on the vocal when it’s soloed. It may just sound like Shrek’s swamp when played with everything else. Mixing is about how things sound together, so it’s best to stick to that and solo when pinpointing finer details. Listening to everything together is where the problems present themselves, not to mention the full impression and feeling of the song - and feeling is key. Many beginners focus too much on making things completely balanced, or cleaning up every track to a fault instead of simply paying attention to how the mix makes them feel. Making things balanced means nothing if it just ends up evening out the passion. 

Speaking of four-letter listening modes, checking your mix in mono could possibly be classified as a superpower. I know a fellow musician who was enamored by recording stereo guitars using the mid-side micing technique and messing with reversing the polarity. He loved how wide it allowed the stereo spectrum to become. Little did he know because of the polarity, as soon as his ultra-wide sounding guitars were played in mono, they disappeared completely. Whoops.  In most situations, the way the average listener hears any recording is in mono - headphones aside. A track may be playing on a multi speaker sound system, but unless the listener is positioned just so to get a separate and even blend of the sound sources, those soundwaves are going to blend together and reach the listener in mono. As painful as it is, lots of people even listen on their phone speakers, which are - you guessed it - mono. Popularity aside, the real key to mixing in mono is how it translates to other sources. If a mix sounds clear and powerful as intended in mono, chances are it will sound just as good if not better in other mediums. Some mixers even swear by mixing entirely in mono, but routinely checking in it works just fine. 

It may be tempting to jump straight into all the shiny EQs, saturators, and compressors, but a big percentage of a good mix is just getting the volumes right. Nearly every bit of processing, in fact, is usually just a different form of volume adjustment. (This tidbit can be very helpful in learning the basics.) Plugin’s often serve to accomplish surgical tasks, not the bulk of the work. If dozens of EQ moves are required to get something sounding decent, chances are the recording itself is to blame, not the mix. Good mixes are built on good recordings, so getting things right as early as possible cannot be understated. None of the “we’ll fix it in post” mentality. That being said, sometimes amazing sounds are created when mixers get geeky with processing. Remember that mixing is an art, not a science. Every rule is not a rule but a guideline, and if making a song sound emotional, moving, or just explosive involves breaking all of them, then go to town.

At the end of the day, all the fancy tech is there to help the mixer solve problems and achieve what they want. Getting a good mix shouldn’t be about looking for problems, but fixing the ones heard and adjusting things accordingly to get the desired result. Your imagination knows what it wants something to sound like. Understand the fundamentals of what you’re looking for and use the tools at your disposal to craft the road map toward that destination. It may seem winding and confusing at first, but understanding those tools and trusting your gut - and your ears - will get you there.