Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said, "Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan." She was talking about song mixing. Seriously, improving the quality of your song mixing requires a plan. Today, I have a four-step plan you can use. It starts with recognizing all your input channels can't be perfected in one day.
The first step is picking one channel on which to focus. Three weeks ago, I felt my mix on a vocalist could be better. For that day's practice, I set my focus on his vocal mix. Pick a channel you know could be better and make it your day's focus.
The second step is creating your standard song mix. Before settling into your focused channel mixing, get the overall mix in place. After all, channels are mixed together and you have to account for that. It's like when I couldn't figure out why two channels were clashing until I realized I was boosting the same frequency spot on both channels.
The third step is asking the question, "what part of my channel's mix needs work?" Consider this short list of mix areas:
Clarity: Can I distinguish it from the other instruments/vocals?
Location: Is it sitting in the right place in the mix? Should it be leading the song or supporting it?
Blending: Should this channel blend with another, such as harmonizing vocals?
Contrasting: Should this channel contrast against another? For example, does my bass sound like a bass or is it covered up by my kick drum?
I-can't-put-my-finger-on-it: Even a channel mix that meets the previous points can still get you feeling like it's missing something.
The fourth step is starting over with your focus channel. The worst thing you can do is to assume the channel's current settings (EQ, effects, volume level) are close. Don't let your "good settings" fool you. Expect any and all of your mix settings to change for this channel.
Start by focusing on the fundamentals. Mix problems are often the result of something going wrong in the fundamental work; a poor gain structure, boosting before cutting, or letting the low end of all the channels seep into the mix. Let's look at how you can make sure your fundamental work is good.
Think in terms of the layout of an analog mixer and work your way down the channel strip:
1. Check your gain is correctly set.
2. Set the high pass filter to clear out the low-end frequencies. Unless it's drums or bass, you'll do well to have your HPF turned on.
3. Flat-line your EQ settings and start over. Starting over gets you out of the mindset of "that's what I've always done." For example, "I always cut their vocal around 1.5 kHz." You cut there and get a good sound, but a better cut could be at 1.8 kHz. I've cleared up a vocalist by adding a second deep cut in the 2.6 kHz area. By flat-lining the EQ, you are forcing yourself to start over, and that's a good thing. A little tip on blending vocalists: if you have two vocalists with very distinct voices, soften up the distinctives of one of the vocalists for a nice blend.
4. Sit them in the right mix spot with the right volume. I've had mixes that didn't sound good but after the movement of a few volume faders, the mix was exactly how I wanted it. A tip on volume setting is to mute the channel, listen to the mix, then, un-mute it. Your ears will notice the sudden addition of the instrument and you'll know if it's too loud, too soft, or just right.
Going through these four steps, you can perfect your song mix one channel at a time. This does bring up a good question, "will my channel's new mix settings work for all songs?" It depends. I find that for vocals, I can get a mix that's really good for songs and might only require a little tweaking for a particular song. For instruments, it really depends on the song arrangement. The real gift in doing this four-step exercise is finding how you can better sculpt the sound of each channel. I suspect you'll soon be saying those six magic words; "Oh, I never noticed that before."
