There are only five things that make up the most important things in your mix:

• EQ
• Compression
• Reverb
• Delay
• Saturation

It's easy to get a good mix going if you know how to use those plug-ins effectively.

But before you start slapping plug-ins on your tracks, you need be good at using the two things that are already available to you:

• Volume
• Panning

I'm a big believer in mixing quickly, but not taking enough time to balance your tracks can create terrible results.

At best you waste time rebalancing your tracks down the line.

At worst you try to compensate with faulty gain-staging on your plug-ins.

You don't want that.

So spend an extra 10-20 minutes balancing your tracks and make note of any places where the dynamics are simply too great that you'll either need compression or automation.

Once you're done with the proper balance you can get creative with panning.

Panning is fun when you have a lot of different parts because you can really spread things out.

However, make sure you adhere to the age old rule of anchoring certain parts of the arrangement to the middle.

• Bass instruments
• Kick drum
• Snare

Sure, there are arrangements with the drums panned hard left but it's unusual. If it works for the song you're working on then by all means go for it. But usually it's safer to use the aforementioned instruments as anchor points.

Once you've got a nicely balanced mix that's panned out in the stereo field you're ready to start tweaking the mix with your most important plug-ins.

We'll start talking about them tomorrow so keep an eye on your inbox.