The Ultimate Mixdown

7 Steps to a Pro Mix

Thank you for downloading the 7 Steps to a Pro Mix guide. When I started recording, producing,
and mixing music 15 years ago, I went to every available resource to consume as much
information as I could, so that I could make the highest quality songs possible with my humble
home studio setup. I wish I had something like this guide back when I started out. In it, you’ll
find the 7-step mixing process that I’ve learned and refined over the past 15 years. This process
has helped me immensely in creating processional sounding records. I surely hope it does the
same for you.

Let’s dive right in!

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 Step 1: Start Your Mixes Off Right
Before you even reach for a fader, knob, or plugin…

Be sure to double-check that you have:

● A complete song with all instruments and parts recorded through proper gain staging

There shouldn’t be any clipping or popping in your tracks, nor should the tracks be recorded at
such a low level that you risk increasing the noise floor to an audible level during mixing.

A general rule of thumb is to record audio into your DAW at a conservative -18dB to -12dB (or at
most, -6dB). This also allows headroom for additional processing during the mixing stage.

You do not want to be recording or re-recording tracks during the mixing stage!

● All editing is complete, including cuts, trims, nudges, and fades

Editing should not happen at the mixing stage with maybe a few exceptions. If this isn’t taken
care of prior to mixing, you will find yourself spending more time editing than actually mixing
the song!

● Your session is well organized, with tracks colored, labeled, and grouped by instrument

This is a simple, yet sure-fire way to keep you in the mixing flow, instead of constantly having to
interrupt the process to find your place in the mix.

If time markers weren’t added during tracking, please do yourself a favor and add those in for
each part of the song, e.g., intro, verse 1, chorus 1, verse 2, and so forth.

Pro Tip #1: Use a reference track. Bring one of your favorite professionally mixed songs of the
same genre or style directly onto a new track within your session. Use this track as a reference
for the sound you are trying to emulate within your own mix as you proceed through this guide.

Be sure to level match the reference track with your own mix!

Once you have items #1-3 above taken care of, you’re ready to start mixing your song!

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 Step 2: Volume and Panning
Often referred to as the Static Mix, volume and panning are the most simple, yet most powerful
tools in your mixing arsenal. While you may not achieve a perfect sounding mix with these tools
alone, you can get upwards of 90% of the way there, assuming you or your recording engineer
have already captured great sounding performances during the tracking process.

Volume

1) Start with all of your faders brought down to the lowest level possible (-infinity, -inf, -∞).

2) Bring up the volume fader of the most important track, e.g., lead vocal, or the most
prominent driving track, e.g., kick drum, until the meter shows around -12dB to -6dB.

The goal here is to leave enough headroom on the master fader so that the loudest part of the
song with all instruments brought into the mix is peaking no higher than -6dB.

3) Next, bring up the volume faders of other important or prominent tracks for the genre
or style of music you are working in, e.g., 808s for hip hop, until their levels are closely
matched to the primary track.

4) Continue to bring up the volume faders of each track across instrument groups to blend
well with the primary instruments that have already been brought into the mix.

As you continue to bring additional tracks into the mix, you may need to turn down the levels of
all of your tracks in the mix in order to maintain -6dB of headroom on the master fader.

Pro Tip #2: Use your reference track to define what the most important tracks are in your style
or genre of music. Usually, these are the loudest, most prominent instruments within the song.

Panning

Often used in tandem with volume, adjust the panning of certain instruments left or right to fill
out the stereo field of your mix and create space and depth.

Note, adjusting the pan of any instruments will most likely require slight adjustments to the
volume of those instruments to maintain their levels in the mix.

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Here is an example of how panning is used in many songs today:

● 0% (Center) - Vocals, Kick Drum, Snare, Bass Guitar, Other low frequency instruments

● 0-50% (Wider) - Vocal Doubles, Other Percussion, e.g., Toms and Cymbals, Prominent
Melodic Instruments, e.g., Lead Guitars, Pads

● 50-100% (Widest) - Backing Vocals, Piano, Synths, Rhythm Guitars

Mono tracks only have one pan knob but stereo tracks have two (Left and Right). To pan an
instrument on a stereo track, such as a piano, set the left and right pan to the same percentage
but in opposite directions, e.g., set the left pan to 100% left and the right pan to 100% right.

These groupings are not set in stone. While this chart is based on the current trends found in
modern music, an instrument’s panning depends on the goal and vision of the song.

Many songs have the lead instruments panned right down center, doubles and percussion
around 30%, and the backing vocals, guitars, and pianos closer to 50%. It all depends on what is
needed to achieve clarity in your mix, as well as how wide you want the overall mix to sound.

Pro Tip #3: Use your reference track to identify how certain instruments are panned within the
stereo field for your style or genre of music. Try not to overthink it. Start by using a LCR (left,
center, right) approach or a 0/50/100 percent approach and adjust from there. Many pro mixers
today use these techniques in their final mixes as well.

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 Step 3: Subtractive and Additive EQ
An equalizer (EQ) is nothing more than a smart volume tool. Instead of adjusting the volume of
the entire track, we can enhance and carve out frequencies based on the needs of the song.

Our primary goals with EQ are to:

A. emphasize the more pleasant sounds of each instrument

B. cut out any unnecessary frequencies and offending sounds from each instrument
C. create space so that all of the instruments in the mix work well together sonically

To achieve this goal:

1) Start by sweeping through the frequency ranges of your instruments with a narrow band
boosted +3-6dB to scope out any harsh or offending frequencies. Once found, bring
these bands back to 0dB and cut these frequencies by a few dB or more, as necessary.

2) Add a high-pass filter (HPF) to cut out low frequencies from instruments that do not
require low frequency information. Aside from the 808s, kick drum, and bass, very few
instruments require frequency information below 60-100Hz. For other instruments,
these frequencies can be completely eliminated with a high-pass filter.

3) Use a mid to wide band boosted +3-6dB to sweep through the frequency ranges of your
most important tracks and identify which frequencies are most appealing for those
instruments. Boost these frequencies with a broad band +3-6dB or more, if necessary.

Keep these frequency ranges in mind as you adjust the EQs of the other instruments.

4) Use a mid to wide band boosted +3-6dB to sweep through the frequency ranges of the
remaining tracks in the mix and identify which frequencies are the most appealing for
those instruments. Also note which frequencies clash with the more important tracks in
the mix. Then:

a) If the frequencies of any instruments clash with the more important instruments
in the mix, use a mid to narrow band and cut by a few dB or more, as necessary.

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 b) If the most appealing frequencies of these instruments are in the same
frequency range as other instruments, you will more than likely want to use a
mid to narrow band and cut these frequencies to carve out room for the more
important instruments in the mix.

In this case, you may need to find other frequency ranges that work well for
these less prominent instruments, and make slight boosts with a broad band.

c) For any pleasant frequencies that don’t clash with other instruments in the mix,
boost with a broad band, as required.

Below is a chart of relative frequency ranges, as well as where common instruments tend to sit
across the audio frequency spectrum. Again, the specific frequency ranges for the instruments
in your mix are going to depend heavily on the instruments played, the tuning of those
instruments, and how the audio sources of those instruments were captured.

Pro Tip #4: Instruments may have more than one sweet spot across multiple frequency ranges.
Use your ears to find what works best with the instruments in your mix. For example, if you
have a thin vocal that you want to fatten and increase presence, you may want to boost
somewhere in the low mids for fullness and somewhere in the highs for added presence.

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 Step 4: Compression
A compressor is yet another smart volume tool. In this case, we’re talking about dynamics. A
compressor is designed to take an audio source and reduce the dynamic range by taming the
peaks and boosting the quieter parts of the source. This results in a more consistent level
overall. Compressors can also add punchiness and thickness to a performance.

How does a compressor work?

A threshold is set within the compressor and when the audio signal goes above this threshold,
the compressor kicks in and reduces the audio level by a specified amount (ratio).

Many compressors act on the track as a whole but some compressors, such as multiband
compressors, are designed to allow you to dial in settings at different frequency ranges.

Some plugin compressors are designed to be transparent while others are designed to emulate
certain hardware, such as tube compressors or tape compressors. These emulations are colored
with additional harmonic content and other characteristics.

Different tracks will require different amounts of compression, e.g., the kick drum and vocals
may require significantly more compression than the piano or acoustic guitars. The electric
guitars may not require any compression at all.

Below is a chart of typical attack and release settings by instrument. Start with a modest
amount of compression (3:1 ratio) and bring the threshold down until you see 3-6db of gain
reduction on the meter for the loudest parts of the track. Listen to how the compressor is
affecting the audio source and increase the ratio for more compression or dial it back to reduce
how much the audio is being compressed.

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 Instrument Attack Release
Vocals Medium Medium
Piano Medium Medium
Acoustic Guitars Medium Medium
Electric Guitars Fast Medium
Bass Fast Medium
Drums Fast Fast

Sometimes a faster attack or a slower release help with vocals and melodic instruments.

This is just a starting point. Different drums within the same kit may need to be compressed
differently. Some instruments, like rock or metal vocals, may need very heavy amounts of
compression. If you’re using a compressor for color and harmonics, you may want to dial in
more or less compression, depending on how audible you want the effect to be.

Note, an 8:1 ratio is considered relatively heavy compression. At 20:1, you are essentially
limiting the audio source and preventing the audio level from exceeding the threshold at all.

Pro Tip #5: Listen to your reference mix to see how much compression is used on different
instruments in the song. In many genres of modern music, the louder, more prominent
instruments tend to have significantly more compression than many of the accompanying parts.

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 Step 5: Reverb and Delay
Effects like reverb and delay are often used to create space and depth for certain instruments in
the mix.

Reverberation is a time-based effect that occurs when an audio source reflects off of
surrounding surfaces until the sound decays. Reverb plugins are used to emulate this effect. As
a result, reverb plugins help to create depth and add color or ambiance to a sound.

A smaller reverb provides emphasis on early reflections that decay relatively quickly, making an
audio source sound like it’s in a smaller space, such as a closet or small room.

A larger reverb provides less emphasis on the early reflections and has a longer decay time,
making the audio source sound like it’s in a larger space, such as a large room or cathedral. This
results in more depth and ambiance, overall.

Pro TIp #6: Placing subtle reverb on the mix bus can help to glue a mix together by making the
instruments sound as if they were all recorded in the same space.

Delay is another time-based effect. Delay is accomplished by duplicating the audio signal and
“echoing” the signal based on a specified interval, usually set in milliseconds or by note length,
e.g., ¼ note, ⅛ note, etc.

The feedback setting within a delay plugin allows you to dial in how much of the signal is fed
back into the delay for an increased or decreased echoing effect. A high amount of feedback can
produce a swelling effect on the audio signal.

Most modern songs use reverb and delay. They can be used subtly to create space and depth, as
well as used moderately for effect.

Like many effects plugins, you want to take care in applying a tasteful amount, and not overdo
it. Too much delay can be distracting in a mix and too much reverb can cause a prominent audio
source to sound farther back in the mix, with a more ambient sound.

Pro Tip #7: Listen to your reference track and see how reverb and delay are applied throughout
the song. The amount of reverb or delay on a particular instrument may change as you progress
through the song.

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Bonus Effect: Saturation

In its essence, saturation is a pleasant sounding harmonic distortion coupled with compression.

Saturation is the not so obvious secret sauce to making an important instrument, such as a lead
vocal, sound warmer, thicker, and even stand out better in the mix.

Back in the analog days, audio recordings naturally gained saturation from tape, tubes, and
other components found within different pieces of audio hardware. The distortion generated by
these machines added pleasant sounding harmonics to the audio recordings.

In the digital age, the audio source comes into your DAW via a relatively transparent preamp
resulting in a relatively dry signal. This doesn’t sound quite like what we’ve become accustomed
to hearing on the radio for decades. To account for this, we can add saturation back into our mix
with various saturation, distortion, and (some) compressor plugins.

Step 6: Automation
Automation can drastically improve the quality of your mixes. Many professional mixing
engineers use automation to level out the volume across each of their tracks. Additionally,
automation can be used to control various parameters for different types of effects.

With automation, you can turn effects on or off at specific points in the song. You can also dial
in and dial out certain parameters within the effects throughout the entire song, e.g., increasing
the level of a vocal reverb any time there is a gap in the vocal track.

Once you get the basic concepts of Volume, Panning, EQ, Compression, Reverb, and Delay, I
urge you to go back to your tracks to see how you can use automation to make your mix sound
more polished and more interesting.

Pro Tip #8: Automate the volume of dynamic performances to have a more consistent level
throughout the song, while also keeping the emotion of those performances in tact.

Pro Tip #9: Add automation to dial in effects and spice up parts of the song that feel thin, weak,
or empty.

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 Step 7: Mix Bus Processing
Some mixing engineers prefer to start the mixing process with some effects already on the mix
bus, while others like to hone in on the individual tracks first and glue it all together at the end.
Here, we’ve saved the mix bus processing for last.

During mix bus processing, you can create a mix bus that you feed all of your tracks and/or
groups into to apply subtle amounts of EQ, compression, or other effects. Processing on the mix
bus will affect all tracks in the song as a whole.

Note, this can also be achieved by placing the effects directly on the master fader.

With mix bus processing, a little bit goes a long way. After all, you are affecting every track in
the song all at once. For this reason, you’ll want to be much more conservative with the amount
of processing you place on your mix bus compared to any individual track.

For compression, use a relatively slow attack, a relatively fast release, and a low ratio, say 2:1 to
start. You can always dial in more compression if needed. The slow attack and fast release
ensure that you aren’t squashing the dynamics of the song. Compression on the mix bus can
help “glue” all of the different instruments in your mix into one cohesive audio performance.

For EQ, boosts and cuts should be subtle at most (0.5-1.5db max). With EQ on the mix bus, you
can cut out all inaudible low frequency information across all tracks, reduce any unpleasant
frequencies that present themselves in the overall mix, and boost any areas that you feel should
be fuller or more present.

Again, a little bit goes a long way. If you find yourself making moderate to drastic boosts or cuts,
it’s time to revisit the individual tracks to see if you can point out where the problem areas lie.
Then you can clean them up at the individual track level without inadvertently affecting the
entire mix.

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 Let’s Dive Right In
As you can tell from this guide, there is a lot that goes into mixing a song professionally. The
only way to truly get better at any craft is to practice. And the sooner, the better!

The steps above are guidelines to get you started. In some cases, you may not need every tool
mentioned in this guide. In other cases, it may be imperative that you use all of them. If there’s
one piece of advice I’d like to leave you with, it’s this -

Know why you’re reaching for a particular plugin or why you’re making changes to a certain
parameter in your DAW before you start making those adjustments. This will force you to think
and identify what your actual goal is, and will help you to better understand how you can
achieve that goal. This alone will make you a better mixing engineer.

Oftentimes, less is more. Some tracks may require lots of processing while others may not
require any processing at all. If the song you are working with was well written and arranged,
properly recorded by capturing only the best performances, and meticulously edited prior to
being sent over to you for mixing, then you should be able to start out with a near solid mix
using just volume and panning alone.

With that said, I urge you to take the next step in your mixing journey now. There are countless
resources available to help you on your way. I am here to help you. Use reference mixes, reach
out to other musicians and mixing engineers for advice and support. If you have any questions
at all, feel free to reach out or post a comment on the channel so the Ultimate Mixdown
community can help you.

Once again, I want to thank you for downloading this guide. Don’t forget to check out the
upcoming Mixing From Start to Finish series on The Ultimate Mixdown channel.

Let’s dive right in!

Your Friend,

Dave (Founder, TheUltimateMixdown.com)

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