My daughter's screams jolted me awake.

She yelled for her mom who jumped out of bed and bolted for the door.

Which....being 5 months pregnant is a feat all in itself.

"Mommmmmyyy!!!" she cried from the other room.

Mommy rushed into the room with worry printed over her half-awake face.

The scene stopped mommy in her tracks.

There she stood trying to hold her pillow, three stuffed animals, and a water bottle.

And failing to move without everything falling to the floor in frustration.

"I was coming into your room but I couldn't hold all my things," she said, matter-of-fact and a little bit annoyed.

And the relief washed over mommy's face.

(Meanwhile, I was already half-asleep in the other room).

"You carry these two things and my water, and I'll carry my stuffy and the pillow."

With marching orders in hand she proceeded to our room where she promptly fell asleep again, not needing her water nor her extra stuffies mommy had to carry.

Funnily enough, you might have that in common with my daughter.

You might be trying to use too many things without being able to move forward.

You might be overloading your sessions with instruments that don't add anything to your song.

Or you might be over-processing your tracks with too many plug-ins.

Often those two things go together. If every track had a role in the production, you wouldn't need all those plug-ins to make everything fit together.

I like to break things down into simple elements so that everything I do in a mix serves the song.

And it always starts off the same way, with a proven mix template that works for every genre.

My templates are based on both my own experience - I know what I do 80% of the time, so the templates are set up to help me achieve that from the very start.

But they also build upon research and techniques I've learned from Grammy award-winning engineers. Every time I see a pro do something cool with their template that I find useful, I try to incorporate that into mine.

I recently updated my mix template and put it all into the Easy Mix Approach for you to take advantage of.

If you don't want to overstuff your mix and just want the plug-ins and presets that actually carry your mix forward, then my mix template package will help you out.

Click here to get your copy.

Enjoy!

Björgvin "Sleeping on the Job" Benediktsson