Three Essential Studio Mixing Techniques That Instantly* Improve Your Mix

*Nothing in music is truly instant, but following these tips should lead to a remarkable improvement in your mixes if you're new to the skill or making some common mistakes.

No, getting that one piece of gear is not going to make you a professional. Any piece of gear is a tool and it's so much more important to know how to use your tools than to spend thousands on a vintage analogue compressor because Dave Pensado used the same model.

If you're reading this, you're likely a musician or engineer trying to improve your mixing chops. For those completely new to mixing, mixing is the practice of manipulating recorded sounds to create a balance that presents all the elements of the music in a pleasing way. By nature, mixing is an art which makes it subjective. A perfectly fine professional mix enjoyed by millions can be unappealing to just as many people because it's not to their taste. I won't be telling you how to specifically manipulate elements in this post, there are elements to that which are subjective and some that are common practice which could be touched on in another post, but will instead be writing about three techniques that are employed by professionals to help them create their ideal mix.

These techniques can also be applied to every mix you make, and can be used every time. The more often you use them, the more comfortable they will become leading to an improved workflow and product.

If even one of these ideas is new to you, it will improve your mixes with near instant results when applied correctly.

Technique #1: Good Source Capture

Technique #2: Reference Tracks

Technique #3: Varied Monitoring

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Technique #1: Good Source Capture

We'll start with what might seem obvious.

While not the most revelatory techniques, it seems to be often overlooked in amateur practice. Mixing is like polishing. You polish a gem and it becomes beautiful and valued. You polish a turd and all you're left with is a shiny turd.

There are two parts to capturing a good source. The first is good mic technique. There are no hard and fast "right" way to mic or record a source, but audio capture is over 100 years old. There are tried and true techniques and microphone choices that consistently produce a pleasant sound. familiarizing yourself with these techniques (or ensuring that whoever recorded the music that you're mixing) will make the mixing process so much easier. EQ can not fix everything, and noise removal plugins won't guarantee to clean all that noise caused by improper gain staging.

The second part is good performance. Completely out of control of the mix engineer, unless they're the artist too, but needs to be taken into account when taking on a project. If a singer is all over the place in pitch, or a beginner cellist wants to sound just like a Yo-Yo Ma record, these are not things that can be fixed after recording. Unless the singer is going for the hard auto-tuned sound where the sung pitches might not matter, but that's an exception. You don't want to spend hours in Melodyne to come out with a sub-par end result that you then try to breath an ounce of life into. It's fruitless and a waste of your time.

"Good" source is subjective. Kanye West famously recorded parts of the Jesus is King album on his iPhone microphone. Most would not consider this a great vocal microphone, but the record won a Grammy and BMA awards so clearly it did the job just fine. West delivered his lines with flow and bars that he liked (good performance) and likely used the uncompressed recording mode and didn't have a lawn mower running in the background (good source).

The most important takeaway from this technique is that you will not be able to fix bad recordings while mixing. Improve your mixes by first improving your multi-tracks.

Technique #2: Reference Tracks

How do I get my mix to sound just like this song?

Well. Play your mix back to back with the song and listen for the differences.

But that's cheating!

Says who?

There is no such thing as cheating in music. If there's a way to accomplish a goal quickly and efficiently, it's a technique. That would be like saying using samples is cheating. Well not everyone can record a didgeridoo player but I promise I'll do better next time.

Reference tracks is about finding songs that have a certain sonic quality e.g., I love the way the kick hits in this track, the singer sounds so close and intimate in this mix, John Lennon sounds like "the Dalai Lama singing from a mountaintop."

There are some plug-ins out there that are meant to make the comparison process easier such as Reference AB for Ableton (€1+) or REFERENCE by Mastering the Mix (£49). (These products are both quick examples and are not endorsements of any kind. Do your own research before buying anything). My recommendation is to put an uncompressed (read .wav or similar file type) version of the song right into your daw and mute the track. When you want to reference it, you can solo the song and switch between it and your mix at the push of a button. It can also be useful to put a visual equalizer such as Pro-Q 3 from Fabfilter (£134) (a fantastic EQ plugin that I use on virtually every project, again no paid endorsement) and compare what is happening on the frequency spectrum. The reference song might have a guitar solo with more high frequency content, maybe what you need to do is add a saturator to yours to achieve a similar sound. These are the kind of artistic decisions you can make to achieve a sound that you enjoy. Another trick could be to use a stereo imager to have a visual aid your ears in determining how certain elements are panned in the mix.

It is pretty difficult to find a high quality unmastered version of a track, so don't get too caught up in trying to match the reference exactly. The mastering process aids in volume, dynamic range, and frequency representation (lows aren't overpowering the highs for example). Let the reference be a guide and you will see remarkable improvements and figure out how to make your mix sound like that song.

Technique #3: Varied Monitoring

Monitoring is probably the biggest setback in a home studio compared to a professional one. There are two main factors for this: room treatment and monitoring equipment.

Room treatment involves setting up absorbers and defusers in your control room to reduce resonance frequencies (standing waves), early reflections, and bass buildup. This requires more than simple 1-inch foam panels off of Amazon, but can make an extreme difference in the listening environment. I recommend this Sound on Sound guide as a starting point to set yourself up for success without having to break the bank or hiring a professional studio design firm. Room treatment prevents sound frequencies from being perceived inaccurately when compared to the actual frequencies being produced by the music when using speakers, or studio monitors.

Wouldn't headphones solve the room treatment issue?

Yes, one of the benefits of using headphone as a mixing tool is that it eliminates the room from the equation. The sound is being pumped directly from the drivers to your ears. So why bother with studio monitors in the first place? Headphones are limited in their output, especially low end content. In order for a driver to accurately move low frequency air waves, it needs to be rather large. This is why bass amps or subwoofers are such big speakers. Monitors typically have two outputs, the midrange and the tweeter. The midrange produces lower to mid frequency sound and blends with the tweeter which produces mostly high frequency content. The combination of two speaker in one monitor deliver a more accurate representation of the mix across the frequency spectrum. There are some other issues such as stereo representation that are associated with working solely with headphones, but they are a great supplementary monitoring tool and should be used to check your mix. After all, most people aren't listening to music in their hi-fi control room, they're often wearing headphones.

Good studio monitors are the standard way to go because they give you a neutral and accurate output of your mix. Research quality studio monitors as well as monitor placement to avoid more physics based sound issues. A quick google search should provide you with some quick and helpful starting points but can also provide detailed formulas and graphs. The idea behind using these neutral monitors is that if the mix sounds good on them, it should ideally transfer to other mediums such as headphones, bluetooth speakers, your car, phone speakers, etc. Certain monitors are used to represent these listening mediums in the studio. Popular monitors that are employed to serve this purpose are the Yamaha NS10s and Auratone 5C Super Sound Cube. These monitors are not meant to be nice to listen to. They lack low end, are very mid range intense, and their highs are just not great. This is what makes them perfect. When you go to the grocery store, they don't exactly have a tuned PA system with line arrays hanging over each aisle. That bodega in Greenwich Village isn't setting up ADAM monitors on the counter. Music is being played over speakers with less than desirable qualities. Using mid range monitors to check your mix will ensure your mix sounds good in the least ideal of situations.

It may not be in the budget to invest in a second pair of monitors. I recommend exporting your mix to your phone and listening to it through the phone speaker. Then go to your car and listen to it through the aux cord. Switch to your computer's built in speakers or use a consumer grade speaker setup in conjunction with your monitors to get a different sound. Throw in a check on headphones as well. This is varied monitoring. Using one setup will most likely not produce a mix that translates to any environment. The final varied monitoring setup that I always use is a mono mix check. Mono is fantastic because it can make phase issues clear and helps you figure out the balance of track volumes. If you can set up one speaker such as an Auratone 5C (or more likely a modern alternative) as a mono source, this is the best way to check a mono mix. You get the benefits mentioned earlier, as well as a true mono representation, rather that two speakers playing the same source which can have phantom image issues. Mono check is also important because the imperfect environments mentioned before are also often using mono speakers. Bars will use mono speakers because otherwise you would be able to hear the shift in balance when you get up to use the bathroom on the other side of the building. It would be an uncomfortable experience and quite distracting.

Varied monitoring is my favorite technique because it forces you to move away from the comfort of your monitor setup in the studio and face the reality of your music in the environments it will be played. It is critical for you to hear your mix the way everyone else will, otherwise it just becomes a guessing game.

Nobody worth their salt will tell you that you have to do things one way or another, so use your discretion. I'd be willing to make a pretty safe bet that these techniques will help you improve your mixes to a much higher degree than any one gear purchase or snake oil plugin. In the end, always trust your ears.

TM

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