While the specifics may vary, the tasks involved in mixing a typical project share much common ground between projects. How effectively the DAW you choose to use handles these common mixing tasks makes far more difference to the end product than the specifics of the processing provided by that software.

In this article I suggest six common tasks and six ways in which the features available in Pro Tools makes mixing faster and ultimately better for me. It should be noted that I am exclusively a Pro Tools user and this article isn't intended as a comment on the facilities provided by other DAWs. In fact suggestions from users of other DAWs of ways in which their software of choice helps them achieve their mixes are encouraged.

A/B Comparisons Of Groups Of Plugins

When processing tracks with plug-ins it's crucially important to AB against the unprocessed version and check that whatever treatment you are applying to your audio is having the desired effect. This should ideally be done in context and much has been said on this blog about the perils of mixing using the solo buttons too much.

Beyond just clicking the bypass button in the plug-in UI you can of course use Command (Control on a PC) to click on a plugin in the insert slot and toggle its bypass state but there are also ways to quickly bypass groups of plugins. To bypass some or all of a chain of plug-ins on a track use Control on a Mac (Start on a PC) and click on an Insert. That Insert and all plug-ins following it will be bypassed, allowing a fast and convenient check against the unprocessed version.

This group bypassing can be extended by adding other modifiers, for example Option+Control clicking (Alt+Start on a PC) on any plugin in Insert slot A will bypass all the plug-ins in the session. Adding Shift to this combination will bypass all the plug-ins on the selected tracks. For example selecting all the tracks apart from the Master to bypass all the plugins in a session apart from the plugins on the 2 Bus.

Mono Checks

Mono compatibility is still important in 2023 and checking how your mix sounds in mono is an essential step in the mix process. If you have a hardware monitor controller you will have a dedicated mono button. Pressing this button will sum the left and right channels together resulting in a mono mix.

Any destructive interference caused by out of phase audio, something which is particularly common in these days of artificial widening plug-ins will result in a tonal change. However even if you haven't used any widening plug-ins, you can still have significant quantities of out of phase audio present in your mix. When summed into mono this out of phase audio will cause timbral changes and in the worst cases, significant reductions in the level of important mix elements.

Sources of out of phase audio can include synth patches and samples which have been widened and the use of spaced microphone arrays, which always exhibit some degree of mono incompatibility.

Listening to a sum of the left and right channels out of a pair of stereo monitors isn't the same as listening to a mono mix through a single speaker, but it's significantly better than not checking mono compatibility at all. But if you are working entirely in the box you will need a software mono button. Many DAWs supply this as standard but Pro Tools is notable in not providing a mono checker as standard in the Pro Tools mixer. Pro Tools doesn’t help as much as it might when it comes to mono checks!

A workaround to check a mix in mono in Pro Tools is to instantiate a plug-in which includes mid side auditioning features. There are many free plug-ins which do this but my personal favourite is TB Pro Audio’s GSat+. As well as some features usually found in monitor controllers, this plug-in also features a great sounding saturation. To check a mix in mono, insert the plugin on the master and click the M button. In this case M stands for Mid rather than Mono but the mid channel is the sum of the left and right channels i.e. mono.

If you want to achieve the same thing using only stock Pro Tools plug-ins there is a solution using the AIR StereoWidth plug-in but this requires a little reverse thinking. Instantiate the StereoWidth plug-in on your stereo bus and set the width to 0%. When bypassed the StereoWidth plug-in will pass stereo audio, and when instantiated it will fold the audio down to mono.

Surgical EQ For Problem Solving

While using spectrum analysers may seem the natural way to quickly find unpleasant peaks in your audio, in practice the most visually prominent peak often isn’t the peak to which your ears are drawn when identifying problems in audio. There is of course a role for using spectrum analysers but these should usually be used to confirm conclusions drawn by listening to the audio, not instead of using you ears! Creating a narrow peak with a bell filter and sweeping that up and down to precisely identify the offending frequency is a long established technique. This technique owes much to the facilities available when using channel EQ on a mixing console but when using EQ plug-ins there are often better solutions available.

Sweeping a narrow bell filter makes everything sound bad, and unless you find the offending frequency quickly it can become distracting. Much better is to solo a band of the equaliser and, rather than turning up a narrow area of the spectrum, turn down everything apart from a narrow area of the spectrum. Premium equalisers such as FabFilter’s Pro-Q3 include a band solo option but if you are working just with stock Pro Tools plug-ins you can achieve the same thing using the bandpass feature built into EQIII and Avid Channel Strip.

In either of these plugins hold Control and Shift (Start and Shift on a PC) and move the EQ node on the graph or the frequency control in the plug-in UI. The Q can be tightened up for more precise results if needed.

Managing Effects Levels Using A VCA

Finding the right level for time based effects can be tricky and as a mix progresses is something you may wish to change, particularly between sections of songs. The difference between ‘stark and dry’ and ‘reverb soup’ can often be a fine margin, and while adjusting the relative levels of multiple reverbs and delays in a mix is important, having a global control of all of your time based effects is very convenient.

A very useful technique for getting a baseline level for reverbs and delays which I use all the time is to, in context with the rest of the mix, bring up the level of the return until the effect becomes obvious and then to back it off just a touch. Just a dB or so will bed the reverb in with the dry sound. It might well move from there but it’s a good staring point. Never try to judge reverb levels in solo.

While not exclusive to Pro Tools, when I’m mixing in Pro Tools I’ll usually create VCAs for my major ‘food groups’ (drums, guitars, vocals etc) and also create a VCA for my effects returns. That way I can manipulate the overall level of the ‘wetness’ without getting into the weeds of decisions about the precise blend of the effects. And of course it’s the most convenient place to automate from if you want the chorus to sound a little bigger than the verse or the bridge to feel tighter than the section preceding it.

Bus Compression Using Routing Folders

When people talk about bus compression most of us naturally think about master or ‘2 bus’ compression, by which I mean compression which is inserted across the main output and processes the entire mix. However bus compression can be used across any bus. Drum bus compression is a much discussed topic but bus compression can be used across any bus carrying any group of tracks or instruments and the interdependence and movement introduced by compressing across the bus as opposed to compressing across individual tracks is very useful in bringing a mix together into a cohesive whole. Exactly where and how to insert these bus compressors deserves some attention. If you are compressing the entire mix then, in Pro Tools, the Inserts on the Master Fader is an obvious choice. It’s important to be aware that the inserts on Master Faders behave differently to the inserts on other track types in that they are post fader. This means that if you reduce the level on the master fader to address a lack of headroom, the amount of compression will be also be reduced.

For some mixes of other instruments, for example on a drum bus, the only choice in Pro Tools used to be using Aux Input but since the introduction of the Routing Folders a key issue with using Aux Inputs for submixes has been addressed. As well as the organisational advantages of Folder Tracks being able to be used to show and hide groups of tracks, the solo behaviour of Routing Folders is much improved compared to Aux Inputs. When using an Aux Input it is necessary to either ‘solo safe’ the Aux Input if you wish to able to solo the member tracks individually, or alternatively you can solo safe the member tracks and solo the Aux but neither is entirely satisfactory. With a Routing Folder the solo logic doesn’t have to be manually managed, it just works properly.

Which features of your DAW of choice help you with common mix tasks? If you use another DAW how do these techniques differ in that software? Share your thoughts in the comments.