by Joe Gilder

A Simple System
To get better at anything, whether it’s playing guitar or mixing a song, the name of the
game is repetition. But don’t stop there. You need to repeat the right things. When I
was learning to play guitar as a teenager, all the repetition in the world wouldn’t have
helped me if I didn’t first learn how to play chords. I took a piece of sheet music,
looked at the chord drawings above each chord name (the little boxes that showed
me where to put my fingers on the guitar), and I practiced them over and over again.

I needed a song to play. I needed to know what chords to play, and I needed to know
how to play them. I needed a system.

That’s what sheet music was for me, a beautiful, simple system that taught me how to
play guitar.

Mixing music is the same way. It takes practice, but you need to make sure you
practice within a system that makes sense and helps you improve.

That’s why I’ve put together this short 5-Step Mix guide, to give you a simple system
to follow every time you mix a song. This guide won’t tell you what EQ settings to use
or how loud to make the snare drum, but it will give you a framework in which you can
make those decisions. That’s all mixing is. Decisions. Thousands of tiny decisions that
add up to give you a great-sounding mix. All you need is a system to help you make
those decisions, a system you can use over and over again on every mix. Follow these
five steps, and your mixes will dramatically improve. Ready to get started?
As nerdy as it may sound, organizing your session in a consistent, repeatable way will
help you become more efficient at mixing. Being more efficient means you’ll finish
your mixes faster. The faster you finish your mixes, the more mixes you can complete
in a given period of time. The more mixes you complete (using this system), the better
your mixes will get. A little dose of efficiency can go a LONG way.

For example, if your kick drum track is always dark blue, and it’s always at the far left-
hand side of your session, you’ll be able to find it quickly. On larger mix sessions with
30, 40, or even 60 or more tracks, if you aren’t organized, you’ll spend a ridiculous
amount of time simply trying to FIND the track you’re looking for. Take the extra time
at the beginning of every mix session to organize things. Here are some things to try:

• Arrange the tracks in an order that makes sense to you.

• Color-code the tracks.
• Route all the tracks to the appropriate busses (more on this later).

I like to use a template, which has several master busses (Drums, Bass, etc.) and
effects busses (reverb, delay, etc.) already set up for me. I begin every mix from this
template. It keeps me organized, consistent, and FAST.
This is one of my favorite parts of the whole process. While it can be tempting to dive
in and starting adding plugins like crazy, it’s not time for that yet.

It’s all about BALANCE.

Back in the old days, audio engineers went by the title balance engineers. Their job
was to balance the incoming audio before sending it off to a tape machine for
recording. That’s still our job today.

While we certainly need EQ’s and compressors and reverbs and other plugins, none
of that matters until the mix is balanced. In fact, if you add those plugins too early,
you’ll hurt your chances of EVER getting a nice, balanced, professional-sounding mix.

For Step 2, your goal is to get the mix to sound as good as possible by using only
volume and panning. The rules are simple: No plugins allowed. Only allow yourself
to adjust volume and panning. Some people call this getting a Static Mix.

Make it fun! This is the part where you interact with the music in its rawest form.
Ignore the problems you hear and try to make an amazing-sounding mix by simply
balancing the tracks together. If you take this step seriously and don’t rush it, you’ll be
on your way to a great mix.
As you work on your static mix in Step 2, you will likely become aware of various
problems in the mix. Now is the time to fix them.

Steps 1-3 are designed to prepare us for the main event, Step 4: Top-Down Mixing.
That’s where the bulk of the mixing happens. Before we can get there, however, we
need to fix some of the glaring problems.

Here’s why: Top-Down Mixing is a process where we apply plugins (EQ, compression)
to the drum mix before we add plugins to the individual drum tracks. More on that in
the next section.

However, if there are glaring problems in some of the individual tracks (the snare is
ringing too loudly, or the guitar is kinda muddy), this will mess up the top-down
process.

This is the first time in the process you can use some plugins! Listen for big problems
and fix them. This is usually a matter of putting an EQ plugin on a few tracks. We’re
not improving the sounds or even “mixing” really. We’re just cleaning a few things up
to make Step 4 easier.

Extra Resources:
• 3 Rules of EQ
• 4 Rules of Mixing
• How Compression Works
• 6 Rules of Compression
We’ve finally reached the “meat and potatoes” portion of the process. Step 4 is where
you’ll spend the majority of your mixing time.

Here’s how it works. Let’s say you’ve got a typical rock mix with 20, 30, or even 50
tracks or more. Sounds overwhelming, right? Not if you think about it as 7 tracks
instead of 50. That’s how I recommend approaching every mix. Group tracks together.
Route these major groups to a bus or subgroup fader. Now, instead of 50 tracks, I’m
thinking about 7 busses. Drums, bass, electric guitars, acoustic guitars, keyboards,
lead vocals, background vocals.

When I first got into mixing, when I would mix drums I would start with the kick drum,
then the snare, then the high-hat, etc. I never got good results. Years later I tried using
just one EQ and one compressor on my drum bus, instead of EQ-ing and
compressing the drum tracks individually. And…BOOM. My drum mixes sounded
way better. This started me down the path of top-down mixing. I try to get my drum
mix to sound as good as possible from the bus level (the top) before working my way
down to the individual tracks (the bottom).

This doesn’t mean I don’t put plugins in individual tracks like kick and snare. It just
means sometimes I don’t need to. I get the job done at the bus level and move on.

The benefits of top-down mixing are two-fold. It allows us to get better-sounding

mixes with fewer plugins. That’s how you save time while also improving your mixing
game.

One important note: Don’t be too rigid with the top-down methodology. Sometimes
you need a bunch of plugins on both the individual tracks AND the busses. But start
with the busses. See how good you can make it sound with just a handful of plugins.
One of the most common mixing questions is “How do I know when my mix is
finished?” If you’ve done good work in Step 4, eventually you’ll start to feel good
about the mix. You might start dancing in your chair or get goosebumps, or maybe
you tear up or get really excited. These are indications that the song is connecting
with you on an emotional level. That’s a sign you’re getting close. When you reach
that point, it’s time to transition into Step 5.

Step 5 utilizes The To-Do List Method to get your mix across the finish line.

I’m a big fan of putting tasks on paper. There’s something deeply satisfying about
making a list and checking off the tasks as you complete them. That’s exactly what
Step 5 is all about.

The process is simple, but it will be difficult for you the first few times you do it. After
spending quite some time on Step 4, adding plugins and tweaking settings, it’s time
to take your hands off the mix and give it a good listen. Here’s how the To-Do List
Method works:

1. Listen to the entire song from start to finish. The only rule is you can’t touch
ANYTHING in the mix. Put the keyboard and mouse aside and simply listen.
2. Make a to-do list of changes that need to happen in your mix. While listening
down to your mix, take out a piece of paper and make your list. (You can do this on
an app or document, but I prefer paper.)
3. Work ONLY from this list until everything is done, then repeat the process.
The idea here is to focus. Listen for changes, make those changes, then listen
again. As you cycle through the process, your to-do list will get shorter and shorter
until the mix is fi nished!
Congratulations! Now that you’ve learned the 5-Step Mix process, it’s time to go try it
for yourself! If you need some tracks to work with and want more in-depth assistance,
I have a few options (both free and paid) for you to check out.

Option #1 — Mix Together

Mix Together is a series of YouTube videos
where I walk you through mixing a song from
scratch. In fact, I’ve created multiple “seasons” of
Mix Together, each featuring a different song. The best part? It’s all 100% free. You
can start watching the videos right away. If you want to mix the songs along with me,
the tracks are available for free as well.

CLICK HERE to check out Mix Together

Option #2 — In-Depth
Mixing Course
If you want to dive deep into my 5-Step
process, I’ve put together an in-depth, step-
by-step mixing course for you called Home
Studio Mixing. It will help you solidify this 5-
step process and develop the skills to mix
any song with confidence.

CLICK HERE to find out more about Home Studio Mixing

Thank you for reading this guide. Share it with your friends. Tell ‘em Joe said hi. 😊 👍

Joe Gilder
Home Studio Corner