If I had to pick out the main parts of getting a killer mix in your tracks, what would they be? We all know there are lots of things that go on in making up a song, but if you had to pick out just a handful of items, which ones would go at the top of the list? What you’re going to read in this article are my choices. They may surprise you and you may not agree with all of them. But you may want to at least take some time to reflect on them. I think you may end up agreeing with me more than not. These are in no special order.
One thing we can definitely do to get better mixes is to make our arrangements better. I truly believe that a good mix begins with the song itself and how the composer chooses to represent that song.
Arrangements are infinitely flexible. You can produce your song with one track (a solo piano) or dozens of tracks. The more dense the arrangement, the harder it is to get a good mix. Why? The simple fact that many instruments are fighting for the same frequency space. For example, if you have a bass line running throughout the song, any other instrument that occupies the lower frequencies is going to bump into that bass line. This can not only produce a muddy mix but can also introduce some ugly dissonance into your song.
Imagine you have a bass line playing this pattern.
C1 – E flat1 – G1 – B flat1 – C2
And while that’s going on you have a piano playing a C chord around C2 but having its bass line going…
C2 – B flat1 – G1 – E flat1 – C1
The E flats and B flats are going to bump into each other. Now, that may not produce horrible dissonance but it very well might change the feel of the song and it will introduce a bit of mud into the mix because of the low frequencies with different pitches. It will stand out. Make no mistake about it.
So arrangement is important. You don’t want your instruments fighting for space and playing time. Sometimes less is more. Have some instruments drop out from time to time or play minimalistically. Not every instrument in the arrangement can shine. Some will have to be relegated to the background of the mix. It’s okay if an instrument is just slightly noticeable. The absence of that instrument will be just as noticeable. If you plan your arrangements better, your mix will have a better chance of being good.
After arrangement, there’s the stereo field. If you have an arrangement with a lot going on and there is just no way around it, then another way to get a good mix is by using the whole stereo field. This is another way for instruments not to bump into each other.
For example, let’s say you have a song with the following tracks in it.
Drums
Bass
Rhythm Guitar
Lead Guitar
Organ
That looks like a pretty basic rock track. Imagine if this was recorded in mono. Every instrument would be taking up the same part of the stereo field, dead center.
One way to get a better mix, without even having to fool around with the volume levels is to start panning instruments left and right. Some things you will leave dead center.
In the above example, here’s what I would do.
For the drums, I would break up the drum track into separate tracks for kick, snare, high hat (closed and open), and say 3 tom-toms (typical 5 piece set) this way.
Kick and snare I would center. High hats I would pan hard left. The toms I would have them going from high to low left to right in the stereo field. So the high tom I would pan slightly left, the mid tom slightly right and the low tom a little further right but not hard right.
For the bass, I would keep that dead center with the kick as that’s the foundation of the song.
The rhythm guitar I would pan just slightly right. The lead guitar, just slightly left. The organ I would leave dead center as it’s probably in stereo anyway between left and right side of the keyboard, especially if there is a stereo leslie effect on it.
With this setup in the stereo field, simply because the instruments are taking up different parts of space, your mix is going to be better.
Now, take this one step farther. After separating the instruments into various stereo fields, you then adjust the levels accordingly. When an instrument is panned, it is not taking up it’s own space so it’s more easily heard. This means that it doesn’t have to be as loud as it was when it was dead center in the stereo field. Therefore, you can probably lower the volume of some of the instruments. Use your ears to do this. No visual monitoring aids can replace the human ear.
Want to send things further back in the mix. You can do this two ways. You can lower the volume or you can add some reverb or delay to the instrument. This should actually be the least important thing in getting a good mix if you’ve done everything correctly up until this point. And it all starts with that arrangement.
Finally, there is the use of EQ. This is so important, especially for making it so that frequencies of other instruments don’t bump into each other. For example, you would take out the lower frequencies from a vocal line so it doesn’t muddy up the bass. Add a little filter to that and you’ve got a crystal clear vocal, if maybe a little thin. You can always beef it up with some compression.
Yes, there are other things you’re going to do to get that killer mix aside from the main things I’ve gone over in this article. But if those main things aren’t taken care of, no little things are going to make a bit of difference. Your mix is still going to be a mess.
Arrangement
Stereo Manipulation
Volume
EQ
If you put me up against a wall and made me pick 5 key things to a killer mix, those would be my top 4. I’m not sure what I would put at number 5 because there are a lot of little things. But without these 4, you are fighting an uphill battle.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim