In this article, we share five mixing disciplines that many of us on The Production Expert Team abide by. We regard the following suggestions as essential mixing rules, many of which we follow ourselves to help us mix and deliver music we're proud of and, most importantly, our my clients are more than happy to pay for.

Mixing music is like no other creative outlet. Its subjective, its technical, its passion and soul... it is music. There are, however, critical disciplines that need to be followed to get great-sounding mixes every time. Without these, mixes can quickly get the better of you.

For the purpose of this article lets consider we have a strong song as a starting point that was well written, arranged and recorded. Mixes are much easier to complete if the work was done correctly and tastefully in writing, pre-production and tracking stages.

Time Management

Let's start with deadlines. Why are deadlines important? You run the risk of over-egging the pudding if you don't have a deadline. It's all too easy to keep tweaking a mix which can make you lose sight of what you originally set out to do for the song. Deadlines keep creatives focused and on target. We work to deadlines all the time when working on client projects.

When an achievable deadline is in place it is as important to schedule tasks within the mixing process. Setting time for the following tasks should help you stay focused on the job at hand. Write down a rough timesheet for tasks such as:

• Session organisation: Includes track names, track colours, marker locations, buses, aux track setup etc

• Editing Audio: Includes fixing performance timing, tuning, clip fades, etc

• Static Mix: Getting a broad "static" mix with faders set in place

• Processing Mix: Using plug-ins and/or outboard to shape the tonality of tracks

• Creative Mix: Automation, fader throws to bring tracks in and out of focus within the mix

• Final Mix: Making small adjustments to complete and deliver mix

Organisation

It isn't always smart to start a mix without preparing and organising a session first. Track names need to be clear, track colours should follow a theme that you know well, song markers need to be in place for quick session navigation, effects returns should be set up and ready (even if no plug-in are chosen).

A well-organised session will keep you focused on creative mixing tasks. The second you can't find something in a session your creative flow is broken and substituted for technical thinking. It's hard to switch back to creative thinking when you've lost focus trying to find something in a session. Try to safeguard yourself against these types of situations with well thought out mix prep and session organisation.

Monitoring

The volume of your monitors will play a huge part in getting mixes to sound good and translatable through other playback systems. It's all too easy to crank up the volume of studio monitors but be warned, loud monitors will do a lot of harm to you and also your mixes.

Loud monitors will fatigue your ears and diminish your concentration quickly, which can harm your time management and threaten any deadline. You don't need to set your monitors to a specific loudness, instead, use good old-fashioned common sense. Listen to a track you've previously mixed and like the sound of and set your monitors to an appropriate level which means you can hear buttons click on your outboard gear and control surface around your mix position.

Loud monitors can also cause problems with the soundscape. It's difficult to hear the results of compression at loud volumes. If you struggle to hear compressor attack and release times then mix quietly as low levels make it much easier to hear compressor behaviours.

Another benefit of mixing at low levels is it helps mixers to get punch and clarity into a mix. If a mix sounds big and powerful at low monitoring levels then imagine what it will sound like at loud levels. The reverse rarely works, if you mix loud and want a punchy mix then you are only fooling yourself when you hear the mix back through a smaller playback system.

Headroom

Tracking can get a bit unruly at times and can cause audio track levels to get out of hand in a DAW. It's always worth making sure that each audio track has sufficient headroom and that the combined sum of all the tracks isn't punishing the master two bus track. Use either the clip gain feature such as the one in Pro Tools to lower the volume of audio tracks coming into the mixer or a gain plug-in on the first insert set to -12db across each track. Well worth doing this before starting a mix. It takes a small amount of time but will have you hassle later in the mix.

Less Is More

If our mix starting point is a well written and arranged song, tracked correctly, adopt the "Less Is More" discipline. Get "easy wins" early on to build your confidence in the song such as:

• Can I shape the dynamics of that entire drum kit to my liking with one stereo bus compressor plug-in on the drum mix bus instead of processing each track with multiple plug-ins?

• What is that one thing that will make that vocal sound beautiful quickly?

It's important to trust your instincts when mixing music. Use anything you've got at your disposal but use what you've got when you absolutely need it. Try not to use plug-ins for the sake of using insert point 5 or because you just purchased a new plug-in on offer. "Less is more" is the key to getting mixes sounding great, quickly and without hassle.

Those are 5 essential mixing disciplines that can serve you well. Do please share any disciples that you use in your mixing workflows.