Want to make sure your next mix is the best it can be? Grammy-winning mixer Dom Morley shares some advice on how best to get prepared…

A good rule of thumb for life is that everything works out better if you prepare for it. Financial crises, competitive sports, mixing tracks, everything. Getting good mixes involves balancing focus with perspective. So when you want to get deep into the details of your volume rides you can focus on them, and then when you need to take a step back and listen to the production as a whole again, it’s easy. If you’re prepared properly then you’ve got the freedom to do this again and again throughout the process and as a result, you’ll get a better mix in less time. Here’s a five-step process that I’d recommend:

Everything In Place

Your first task is to gather all the things you need. You do this first, and don’t leave anything until later, because you’ll want these resources at your fingertips when you’re in the middle of a focussed part of the process - searching for a file can knock you out of the deep concentration that you need. Obviously you need to gather all the files of the track that you’re mixing, but you should also have the last rough mix that was done before the end of the recording stage – this is a good signpost to show you where the balance should be. If you’re mixing for someone else then you’ll hopefully have some notes, so make sure you know what they say, and also some tracks to use as a reference when you’re mixing. It’s a good idea to find out why those reference tracks have been chosen as well – is it the vocal sound or the drum sound that they love on the first track they’ve mentioned, for example?

Clean And Neat

Get your audio sorted. I find it way easier to navigate a session if the drums are at the top, then the bass sounds, then keys and synths grouped together, then guitars etc. You may well have a different process, and the order you put them in only matters in that it needs to be the most obvious to you, so you can navigate around the session quickly without losing time searching for tracks. Any time you spend doing boring things like that is a drain on your focus.

You should also do any cleaning up that’s necessary at this stage. The vocal can often be the worst for this, with headphones spill, clicks and pops etc. Mixing is like a magnifying glass, showing up the little noises that weren’t noticed in the recording phase, so this is the last chance to clean all of those out as they’ll just drag you down if you’ve already started focussing on mixing.

What Goes Where

Routing. A lot of people use templates of some kind – be it for plug-ins or effects - and you should sort that out for the whole song now. Again, this is about getting all the housekeeping of the mix done so that when you need to get into a flow, there are no boring tasks left that will to steal your attention. If you’re not a template person, then this is still the time to set up all the standard reverbs and delays that you’ll probably need, route the drums through a bus to compress them all together, and so on. Whatever routing your mixing process normally uses should be completed as much as possible before you start.

Pre-Flight Checks

Is the studio set up properly? Hopefully this is just a checking process and won’t really require any work. You should go through your speakers, headphones, amps, mixer – whatever you’re going to be using – and make sure it’s all working as it should be, so there won’t be any annoying crackles or breakages mid-flow that you’ll have to stop and fix.

Static Balance

Step five is what I call ‘getting everything in’. This is where you get each individual sound as good as it can be with EQ, compression, effects and so on. You’re also getting a decent static balance on the faders so that everything is pretty much where it should be in terms of levels. I know a lot of people reading this will be saying that this is the mixing process not the setting-up process, but I see it differently because I see the next step as mixing, and everything else is just preparing for that.

The Mix

The next step is where you’re automating your balance, as well as effect sends and whatever else you might need to push the dynamics of the mix in the right way to support the song. This could mean making the first verse feel lighter than the second, making the chorus really land with a few volume rides, making the bridge feel like a step away from the rest of the track with a different bass balance – all these things are what bring a mix to life, and they are what separates a good balance from a great mix.

An example of this that I often use with my students is from an interview I saw with the legendary rock mixer, Andy Wallace. He says that to get to the end of my stage five takes him about 40 minutes (yes, that’s very fast but he’s got very good assistants, and he’s been doing this for decades). He then spends about ten hours on the mix. That’s one of the greatest mixers ever, and it takes him ten hours of volume rides and pushing the dynamic of the track around to make sure that the listener is always focussing on exactly the things he wants them to focus on, all of the time. If Andy’s putting in ten hours to that process, it’s probably worth focussing on it yourself too. And that starts with being properly prepared.

More Recording Resources From Dom Morley

Dom is the founder of the Mix Consultancy, a zero risk (money back guarantee) way to get notes on your tracks to help improve the sound. Whether you're an artist who likes to mix all their own work, a composer putting together a pitch on a limited budget, or an engineer who wants a discreet second opinion before sending a mix off to a client - we're here to help.

“I just completed a mix with the help of Dom Morley & The Mix Consultancy. The mix we turned over was qualitatively better than the one I would have gone with on my own.

It's been said that "a mix is never done, it's just abandoned", but the truth is, you *really* do feel a sense of completion and closure having worked with Dom because you know in your heart that you did everything you possibly could to get the best result possible for the client.

The beauty behind the process is that not only do you get a better mix for your client, but Dom's advice contains all kinds of gold that you can borrow and deploy in future mixes.”

Geoff Manchester

From engineering tips to production advice, EQ and compression basics to mix specifics, we’ll give you the information and guidance that you need to take your mixes to the next level. Find out more here

In addition to the one-to-one advice Dom has produced some excellent online courses;

• Everything You Need To Know About Recording Vocals
  Preproduction, DAW set-up, preparing the studio, psychology, equipment. Literally everything you need to know.

• Mixing 101

  This is a short, free, mini-course on the four things that you really need to know in order to get great mixes, and the four things that you really don't!