Preparing for Mixing

A lot of engineers never prepare themselves for mixing, especially those who are just starting out in the industry. If you identify as a newbie to sound creation and manipulation and have just finished a song and want to mix it yourself, follow these steps!

-       Export all the tracks from your project; it’s always great to work with stems in a fresh session.

-       Sort all the tracks and create groups and subgroups for Bass, Drums, Synths, Percussions and so on.

-       Colour Code these groups, it is always a great idea to locate the layers of your mix. Example, bass gets red, drums blue etc.

-       Create Sends for Reverb throws and Delays.

-       Create group tracks for Drums and other instruments that way if you want to apply compression to the elements, it will glue them together nicely.

-       Have a “DEMO” Mastering Chain ready, but disable it when you send out your mix to a mastering engineer (this one is a kindness, and will benefit the master).