When people ask me questions about mixing, they're often worried about whether they're doing something wrong.
They'll ask whether they "should" be doing this, or if that is the "correct" thing to do.
I completely understand the reasoning for these questions, because if you're not experienced and confident with mixing you'll second-guess yourself.
At that point, it's better to get validation from engineers that are more experienced than you. You want them to tell you that you're on the right path.
Most of the time, you'll know immediately whether you're doing something wrong only because it won't sound right.
The adage goes,
"If it sounds good, it is good."
However, this leaves out the possibility that if you're a beginner, your ears are less experienced. If so, you might not hear whether it sounds good or not.
Because mixing is arguably the most fun part of the whole audio process and where most people like to practice, it's also where a lot of home studio musicians make mistakes.
Whenever somebody asks me whether they "should" do something, I tend to answer that they should do whatever they want to try to make the song better. Experiment a little bit.
Go nuts with your plug-ins and try to break your song. Playing around with your plug-ins is one of the best ways to get to know exactly how they work.
That said, there are certain things you should avoid, especially if you're going to release the mix to the world. You can experiment all you want and make your mix sound like shit in the process, but if you're planning to show it to the public, you better make it sound good.
So here's a list of ten quick things you should avoid doing when you're mixing
- Not Editing and Comping Your Tracks (to make mixing easier)
- Not Leaving Enough Headroom (for mastering)
- Not Listening To Your Compressor (to see if it's actually working)
- Just Using Presets (without tweaking them to suit your tracks)
- Making Your Drums Overpower Your Mix (and clutter up the rest of your tracks)
- Not Using Groups and Busses (in order to simplify your mix)
- Incorrectly Using Sends and Inserts
- Not Filtering When You EQ
- Using Too Much Reverb (And NOT EQ'ing Them!)
- Not Checking Your Mix in Mono (and on multiple speakers)
I hope you keep this checklist in mind for your next mix.
If you're interested in a fast and efficient workflow that teaches you to create better mixes in less time (without making any mistakes), then check out my best-selling book Step By Step Mixing through the link below.
