As modern producers, we are frequently switching between the production and mixing mindsets. Good practices for preparing for mixing are track preparation, file management and gain structure. All disciplines which can often be best left for after the creative phase is finished.

These steps may be pretty straightforward, but downloading, organising, labelling and colour-coding is more critical than most people think. The first reason is speed. Navigating large sessions and finding the channel you want to work on will be quick and easy, saving you time.

If each session is labelled improperly and has audio files located all over your computer's hard drive, it's going to make recalling the session difficult. So instead, find a system that works with your workflow, keep everything labelled, backed up and maintained.

Gain staging is just as crucial in the digital domain as it is in the analogue. On a mixing console, an engineer would zero out channels before starting a new mix. Setting the levels in your DAW is to zero is also a great practice to employ when preparing to begin to mix.

In this video, Marcus Huyskens explains why it's essential to separate these two disciplines and details his basic approach to prepping a production in Studio One for Mixing.