5 Tips for Managing a Mix Project

Attention to detail with compression, EQ, effects, and balance are undoubtedly how you get a great mix, but it’s easy to overlook the big picture while you are focussed on these factors and remember to organise yourself and your mix. How you manage each mix as a project can go a long way to helping you get the best out of your mix and the best out of yourself as a mixer. Whether you’re mixing for yourself or for clients, here are five ways that you can better manage your mix project:

1. Use references

If the track you’re working on is part of a larger project like an EP or album, you’re most likely going to want some consistency across the mixes. If you’re not working on the first mix then there will be other mixed tracks available, so make sure you can check those as you work. Pay particular attention to the level of the lead vocal as it’s a good idea to make this fairly consistent across a project. You might also want to compare overall brightness, bass level, volume of the drums etc. It depends on the individual arrangements, genre and many other factors when considering what should be consistent between mixes in your project, but the overall point is that when you play them next to each other they should sound like they’re from the same project. 
It’s often a good idea to reference other commercial tracks that you are aiming to be in the ballpark of as well. Before I start a mix, I get together a playlist of tracks that I need to be similar to, and then refer to them as I go along to make sure I don’t stray too far from where the mix needs to finally be.

2. Prevent ear fatigue

Ear fatigue is something that distorts your perspective in the short term, and damages your hearing in the long term. I know it’s kicked in for me when I’ve been working for a while and the mix is slowly coming together, then all of a sudden I decide that the whole thing sounds terrible. Obviously there hasn’t been a sudden disaster, all that’s happened is my perception has become distorted as I’ve been listening too long. Time to take a break! Although really, I should have taken a break quite a bit earlier so this level of fatigue was never reached. 
Ear fatigue can also come from listening too loud, so be careful what volume you are monitoring at. It might be exciting to crank it up, but not only is it bad for your ears, it’s bad for your mix (loud music sounds naturally exciting - you need to get your mix sounding exciting even when it’s quiet).

3. Get Feedback

If you’re mixing for a client then it goes without saying that you will be asking for their opinions on your mix and working them in. If you’re mixing for your band then there will be the opinions of the other band members to take into account as well. These can be really useful, not only in giving you a new perspective on how the mix could (or should) sound, but the process of adjusting a mix to encompass other people’s opinions as well as your own is a great way to develop your skills as a mixer. The ability to translate (for example) the feedback of ‘snappier’ into actual compression settings on your drums will push you to sharpen your skills in ways that mixing only for yourself will not. And remember, if you don’t have anyone else to get feedback from (and even - or perhaps especially - if you do) The Mix Consultancy is on hand to give you detailed, balanced and Grammy-winning advice on your mixes any time.

4. Save Versions

When you make significant changes in a mix - especially if these are after you’ve started sharing it and discussing with clients and / or band members, save your mixes as numbered versions. This means if someone wants you to go back to a sound that you had before (eg. “Hey - can we go back to that snare sound we had in mix #5?”) then you can simply open up the right session (in this example you’ll have named it “song_mix5”) and your snare settings will be there for you to retrieve. This can save an enormous amount of tweaking and comparing as you try to reverse a whole set of moves that you may have done while trying different things out on a mix.

5. Get Paid

Obviously this will only apply if you are freelance, but it’s an important one as if you’re not getting paid then this becomes your hobby instead of your job. I work on the basis that I need 50% up front to book a session in, and then 50% at the end when everyone is happy, but before I bounce a version that is in a suitable format for the mastering engineer. These two payments are simple so require little thinking or management on my part, they also mean my client commits to the mix at the same time that I do, and they make sure that my client is 100% happy before they pay the full balance. You may find a different solution works better for you, but make sure it’s a simple one so you’re not having to get too involved with it, and it works for your clients just as well as it works for you.

Mixing is a lot of fun, but it’s also challenging and requires a lot of concentration and effort to get a great result. Proper management of your project will allow you to focus on the job in hand and perform to your very best ability.