Mixing

Comping and multing are simple and effective tools for mixing audio, and if you’re interested in learning more about their uses, you’ve come to the right article. In this article, we’ll break down comping and multing in more detail, along with the reasons why we’d want to use these techniques. What Does Comping Mean In…

Distortion is an invaluable tool in the mixing engineer’s toolbox. However, overly distorted mixes can often sound terrible, especially when the distortion is less than a creative choice and more of a technical mistake. Whether you’re dealing with cleaning up a distorted mix or doing things that create distorted mixes, you’ve come to the right…

Thin mixes are something all mix engineers have likely struggled with at some point. Sometimes a mix needs a bit of extra care and processing to get filled out. Other times, we’re actively mixing in ways that thin out the mix unknowingly. Regardless of where you’re coming from, if you’re looking to solve your issue…

If you’ve been mixing for a while, you’ve likely heard of gain staging (that’s why you’ve come to this article). The idea of gain staging has been around for a long time and continues to be an effective practice for achieving great, consistent results in both analog and digital recording and mixing. In this article,…

Vocals are often the most important element of a song and mix, while EQ is certainly one of the essential mixing tools. When it comes to EQing vocals, there are no simple step-by-step instructions; no vocalist, performance, or mix is the same. However, there are certain considerations we should take into account when EQing vocals,…

Great mixes have dimensionality, mimicking the three dimensions of the real world: height, width and depth (and time if you consider the fourth dimension). The dimension of height may be a bit more difficult to conceptualize in our mixes compared to width and depth, but it’s certainly worth understanding and striving for. In this article,…

There’s a lot of terminology in the world of audio engineering, and the term “group” often carries several meanings. If you’ve ever been confused by the term group/grouping when it comes to editing and mixing in digital audio workstations, or you want more information to make better use of audio groups in your DAW, you’ve…

We’ve all been there at some point in our mixing journey, spending a good amount of time on a mix, only to have it play back much quieter than our reference mixes and all other commercially released tracks we compare it to. With the loudness war spanning multiple decades, loud mixes have been considered “necessary,”…

Mix bus processing can be intimidating and can make or break a mix. Certain processes, such as compression, can help tremendously in polishing and finalizing a mix. There are no simple step-by-step instructions when compressing the mix bus because every mix is unique. However, there are certain considerations we should take into account if we…

Dimensionality is a sign of a strong mix, and in stereo mixes, width is perhaps the obvious dimension we want to get right. If you’re wondering how to not only make your mixes wider but also enhance the entire stereo field between the left and right extremes, you’ve come to the right place. In this…

If you’ve been recording or producing music for a while, you’ve likely heard the term “print” thrown around to some extent, and if you’re confused by it, you’ve come to the right place to find the definition(s) of the term. In this article, we’ll break down what printing means in audio to catch us up…

Music production, and by extension, mixing, is a creative art form, and so it’s perfectly reasonable that there are multiple strategies to go about mixing. Two fairly opposite strategies, from a processing standpoint, are top-down and bottom-up mixing, and if you’re unsure of what they are and whether you should use either, this article is…