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Simply put, “mixing” is the process by which we balance the separate elements of your recording. All along the way during tracking, we’ve been tweaking the sounds, starting with our first rough mix, but when we get to down to mixing, we start to make final choices about the sounds we hear, and their placement in the mix.
Some projects are simpler than others; if you’re a soloist singing and playing guitar, there are just two sound sources there to balance, and so the project can almost mix itself. A standard rock band arrangement (drums, bass, guitars, vocals) is more complex, but I use a more-or-less standard kind of approach to balancing these traditional sounds.*
I liken creating a mix to building a house - the rhythm section lays down the foundation on which everything else rests. Without that rock-sold base, the song’s not going to hold together well. Great drums sounds that stay in a solid groove make it easy to build up and out.
It’s important to get this solid foundation when we’re tracking. Trying to fix a wobbly base in the mix is ten times more time-consuming than simply getting it right to begin with, and this kind of futzing and tweaking never sounds as good as recording a solid performance.
A good place to start a mix is pairing the kick drum and bass together, making sure they’re well-balanced and have the leading role in setting the groove. Then I bring along the snare, toms, and drum overheads to give us that basic rhythm engine that drives the song. This engine has to always be kept at the “front of the train” - we can’t let it get buried by guitar leads, keys, horns, strings, vocals or whatever else we choose to glom on top. You’ve got to keep that engine chugging away, and pulling everything else behind it.
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