Are your mixes not sounding quite ‘right’ or the way you envision them ending up when you first reach for the faders? Perhaps you’re making one of these very common but eminently fixable errors…

Not Comparing To Reference Mixes

No matter how experienced or golden-eared you are, your mixes-in-progress can always benefit from being constantly compared to established commercial tracks in the same genre and/or sonic territory. Indeed, not doing so can all-too-often result in a mix drifting off in all sorts of wrong directions as your ears tire and judgement lapses.

In general terms, referencing is really helpful in assessing relative instrument levels, reverb, stereo imaging, overall energy and the like, but you can even get as specific as running a frequency analyser on your reference track and using it as the basis for EQ shaping of your own mix if you like. Of course, your reference mix will in fact have been mastered, so bear that in mind while making your comparisons; and do make sure your reference tracks are in an uncompressed audio file format – ie, full quality WAV or AIF – and level matched to your master output.

What’s most important, though, is that your reference mixes are tracks that you genuinely love and know inside out, and that they’re appropriate for comparison to the mix in question. It’s probably no good referencing a super polished R&B mix to a rock track, for example.

While you can simply play your reference track or tracks in a media player, we highly recommend investing in Adaptr Audio’s Metric AB or Mastering The Mix’s Reference, with which you can switch between your mix and multiple reference tracks right in your DAW.

Mixing Through A Mastering Chain

Once upon a time, the distinction between the mixing and mastering stages of production was clear, but the advent of mastering plugins such as iZotope Ozone has enabled anyone to sling a full mastering chain on their master bus at the mixing stage. Amazing! And a very, very bad idea…

There’s no doubting the efficacy of Ozone and the like when it comes to polishing finished mixes as a discrete mastering process, but you just can’t make consistently sensible decisions with regard to EQ, compression, panning, and effects processing if the whole mix is being subjected to even gentle master EQ, multiband compression, stereo widening/narrowing and all the rest of it. Get the mix done, then master it as a bounced WAV/AIF, returning to the mix if any failings reveal themselves during mastering. And needless to say, if your mix is going to end up being mastered by an actual mastering engineer, they won’t appreciate you half-assing the job for them before they get their hands on it one bit. No, modern trends aside, keep the mix and master separate, we say.

Monitoring Too Loud

Beyond nailing the technicalities and sonic integrity of the track, the mixing stage is all about defining and maximising its vibe, energy and mood; and since loud music always comes across as more vibey and energetic than quiet music, giving in to the urge to crank up that monitor level knob is perfectly understandable. However, by keeping the volume relentlessly pumped up through your mixing sessions, you risk hearing loss and tinnitus in the long term, and are tiring your ears out in the short term to such an extent that the mix will probably sound completely out of whack when you return to it the next day.

It might not be as much fun, but keeping to a volume level at your listening position of between 75-85dB will give you the most accurate impression of the mix, so if it sounds great in that range, it’ll almost certainly sound awesome cranked right up. Of course, you should also check the mix both very loud and very quiet from time to time, but only to make sure everything ‘works’ at those levels, rather than to actually make any major moves.

Only Listening On One Playback System

Following on from the last tip, if you only ever check your mixes on your main studio speakers, when it’s finished, you only really know that it sounds up to scratch in that room, on those speakers, which, obviously, isn’t even remotely representative of the systems your eventual listeners will be listening on. For that reason, it’s important to bounce it down and play it back on as many other ‘real world’ speakers as you can get your hands on, as often as possible: your phone (urgh… we know, we know), your car stereo, your telly, your Alexa/HomePod, your cheap earbuds, a local club PA system, etc. Checking on this disparate array of consumer-grade devices can bring to light issues with everything from low end clarity and punch, to mono compatibility and overall balance, all of which can then be corrected for back in the studio.

Naturally, there’s a limit to how often you can realistically do this throughout the mixing process – you don’t want to be rendering and nipping out to the car every half hour – so it might be worth sticking something like Audified MixChecker Pro on your 2-bus, which simulates a variety of domestic speakers and headphones. You can also greatly broaden the range of your monitoring by complementing your mains with a secondary pair built for cold and unflattering honesty. Popular choices here include the legendary Yamaha NS10 (if you can find a second hand set), Avantone MixCube and even IK Multimedia’s supremely revealing iLoud MTM.

Not Knowing When To Call It A Day

Last but not least, the commonly recognised inability to know when you’ve got your mix over the the finish line – or even to clearly see the finish line at all! We’ve all been there: tweaking away at the minutiae of EQ, compression and effects settings, feeling like every change you make has an impact on some other element that then needs to be tweaked in turn to compensate, ad infinitum. As indecision, anxiety and lack of direction take over, mixing starts to feel like a Sisyphean task, and perfectly good tracks are stripped of their mojo and beneficial imperfections.

Getting around such ‘mix creep’ really boils down to experience and the increasing confidence that comes with it, but to give a few general pointers: try not to overthink things; always listen to the mix as a whole, rather than as a collection of individual components; and take periodic breaks so as to ‘reset’ your ears and refresh your perspective.

As to the question of when a mix is finished, what you’re ultimately aiming for is the point at which every instrument can be heard clearly, with the vocal or lead instrument proudly up front at all times; the emotional intent of the track is fully evident in its sound and mood; the groove makes you want to move/dance (if appropriate); and the track doesn’t sound overly heavy, harsh or otherwise unbalanced. Simple, right? Right?!

What mixing traps are you wary of falling into, and how do you sidestep them? Let us know in the comments.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko