This.

 

Great question and a big topic.

Overall, I try to get the listener to "feel something". Could be an emotion or a physical thing like the desire to "move". To get this to happen I think that all the technical aspects of the mix need to be in place so there's a certain technical level that needs to be achieved first. I don't want the listener to think that the song "feels bad" or somehow "off". That's one to avoid if possible, lol.

 

Fader work -> Collect some reference tracks (just to ensure i'm not going crazy while i mix and refresh my ears time to time)-> set up all sort of analyzing tools (to visually check what i'm hearing) and frequency isolators -> hear the source and work the bigger picture.

I'm taking notes on every step of this process. Every one. Don't sleep on the notes; you can easily forget and do things out of the scope if you're not sure where you need to go and enter some rabbit holes that will not benefit the record at all. Notes are generally your checkpoints of things that will not change depending of your mood on the day.

 

Your reply reminded me that I should start taking more notes lol, thanks, I was thinking about this earlier this week

 

I mix as I'm recording...I know, "you're not supposed to do that!" but whatever, I'll also master my own music, but I can't afford to pay people to play with my hobby with me.

When mixing other people's stuff I usually make a point to see them perform live, even if I'm the one recording them and then mixing, just so I can be as faithful as possible to their true sound. Over production is a real thing, I try to stick to accentuating what's already there for a band....unless they WANT some crazy production to augment their sound, then I go to town with fx and crazy edits. That's what I call fun.Tell me to do whatever I want and I'll try to make something truly unique.

 

I'm with you. Sure, there are benefits separating each process (at least you should know the differences and reflect the concept behind processes), but in many cases there are overlappings anyway. I don't like how many times I heard people saying it's a no-go. On the contrary I believe there is magic in producing while having the mix in mind. When I started with bands I heard many producers (even good ones) saying "yeah the sound sucks right now, but I'll fix it in the mix, just wait for it". I think it is much more efficient and benefits the intended sounds, when you produce tracks which sit in the mix right from the beginning. Then mixing is just fine tuning.

 

Having an idea of where the mix will go while recording is a good thing.
This guy, a knowledgeable engineer, even recommends to have an idea of the album cover and tracks order before starting recording : http://chambinator.free.fr/english/eng1.htm (site hasnt been updated since 2003, but is still interesting) Check the Tips on Pre-Production page.
He's right.
It happened that I had to mix a punk album recorded in a big studio. It was during my "the signal is as intended and must be respected" era. The bass drum sound was good, very classic rock. The band hated what I did with it. I tried and tried, they were unhappy. I asked what they wanted and if they could send me a reference track. They told me to fuck off and refused to give me any hints. I was supposed to channel what they wanted through telepathy. Eventually, the label guy sent me secretly a reference track. It turned out that what they wanted was a 'pok pok' thrash metal-like sound.
Why did they record a signal with totally opposed characteristics?
And dont get me started about the 3 mics per amp thing.
I could do dozens of totally different rough mixes to begin with. Make piles of apples, oranges, pears and so on, and none was more relevant than the next.
You dont have to mix during recording but, at least, the way the mix is intented to sound should be perceptible in the recorded tracks.

 

As I'm quite sure, the vast majority of us are one man operations and out of necessity have a collection of hats that we don during the process of doing what we do. We're sound, mix and mastering engineers, producers, computer techs, studio cleaning staff and craft services ('cause we gotta eat at some point). We do all the grunt work which includes setting up a mix where in the past an intern or an assistant would pull that load. Sooo...

When I'm recording it totally destroys my flow to have to remove myself from the creative process and label each track as I go along, be it a lead vocal, various vocal harmonies, acoustic or electric guitar and percussion parts, synths or absolutely anything else that might suit my fancy such as an harmonica, a kitchen pot hit or a chair sqeek. For that reason before starting to mix I need to take time to organize that mess, which depending on how the mood struck me during captures could take me either a shortish time or an hour to get it done. I'll then assign individual tracks to takes and different, for instance, guitar parts and then create sub groups. Drums, guitars, vocal harmonies, etc, will be grouped in like sections. I'll then decide on compressors for individual tracks as well aa busses. EQ will be the same. Auxiliary sends are generally hard wired so to speak and rarely if ever change.

I'm sure I've missed something but those are the basics.

 

Do people talk to each other like this today? Is this fecal, antisocial language already standard practice, or are these unfortunate isolated incidents? How do you mix three microphones, and what's the point of three microphones? Is the band capable? Have they even sold their music?

 

It happened in 2012.
The band was capable when it came to play instruments. They sold records. Not that much but it was not their day jobs, anyway. I think being in a band was more or less a way to buy status in a political scene.
Every time I worked with punk bands in a context where there was some real money, it turned bad, although those ones were the most pretentious assholes I ever had to deal with. I place them in the 'isolated incident' category. Fortunately, the label guy was very involved and worked a lot to cool things a bit. He cared more about the album than the band did.

On the other hand, the true punk underground, where people were totally broke, was cool. People were nice, honest, very involved in their music, appreciative of help, asking good questions and eager to learn. I didnt really earn money but I progressed in my trade.

What happened with the crappy project I've talked about is that those guys had an opportunity to record in a big studio for cheap, had probably no idea about how they wanted the record to sound and allowed the recording engineer (a guy working with reggae bands and commercial pop acts) to do whatever he wanted. He had fun with his huge microphones closet and didnt care at all about the result. I assume the band didnt communicate with him and that he didnt try either. All tracks were technically good but totally unremarkable and lacking vision. I dont know if the 3 mics /amp were supposed to be mixed together. They were not phase-aligned. What I did is that I selected the one which sounded the best to my ears for the genre and called it a day.
I made good money on this one, but mastering for free the demo of an indonesian, russian or chilean band which actually cares, was much more rewarding.

Fortunately, the extreme metal and experimental rock guys with whom I worked these last years are very nice people, able to communicate about their music and are 'technically conscious'. They have low budgets though.

 

No, I'm just saying I can tell the difference between someone who can mix and someone who can fuck (or in the case of CLA, both)

 

I can somehow relate to this situation. I played almost two decades in bands before really getting into mixing/producing side of things. Not that we've been using three mics for amp, but there've been many many scenarios we lost track in stupid things like that. I guess nobody had a clear vision... or better: as a whole we had no clear vision. We sometimes had like 7 opinions about some decisions (5 band members, 2 producers). And the ones who might had the best vision about the project are easily not the ones, that speak the loudest. Don't get me wrong, it was not that bad and fun anyway, but sometimes really frustrating in retrospective.

Gets me back to the approach point: to me the biggest step in learning how to mix/produce is to get a good sense for the whole sonic picture. You need to have a vision, to get in the zone and do things intentionally. This approach was a big archivement playing an instrument, too. Making music feels different now.

 

Interesting, it is totally different in my workflow.

I need my tracks labeled right from when I create them, otherwise I'd die in the inside and it kills my projects when I need to spend more than 5 minutes to organize the chaos I created. When making music on my own I quickly drift onto the spectrum ... I even use the same colors for different elements on tracks. Everything drum related MUST BE PURPLE!!! So would be the kitchen pot hit. The chair squeek on the other hand needs to be beige for sure, because it is in the Cinematic, FX and Fieldrecording category. Unless the sqeek is used in rhythmic fashion, let's say as the snare in your song. Then of course purple.

 

I would probably call my "approach" methodical. Cookie Cutter+. I go bottom up into my buses until everything is pretty close to what I want. More than a rough draft, closer to already done. Then I switch and go top down from the master bus. Most automation is done after that.

 

Short and sweet..

Find the goalposts, work out what I need to do to get there, then do it step by step so any step can be undone or redone.

EDIT:
processes are something different. If synths or DI instruments, gain staging everything first.
If all real instruments, make sure everything (mics e.g.) are working then gain stage...everyone else has pretty much covered their procedures after this.

 

Last edited: Jul 12, 2025 at 4:09 PM

I press play and listen. If I hear anything that needs to change, I change it. Then I listen again. Rinse repeat, until done. Then listen again.