Mixing is one of the most important stages in developing a song, but it’s also one of the most complicated. A good mix has a lot of moving parts, and they all have to interact to form a complete whole. It can be hard to avoid making mistakes along the way, especially when you’re starting out. That’s why I put together a list of common mixing mistakes and how to avoid them.
1. Adding Too Much Low End
This is a common problem in home studio mixes, because many lack basic acoustic treatment and are full of reflective surfaces. This creates an uneven response in the bass portion of the frequency spectrum, which can exaggerate certain notes and make others inaudible. All of these factors can result in a muddy mix with a poorly balanced low end.
2. Having Terrible Treble
High frequencies are often accentuated during mastering, but they can be hard to discern in a typical project studio. Most mixes want a little “polish” or “shine” in the mastering. And when this processing is applied, sibilance can creep up. You can mitigate this problem by using a de-esser on your vocal or even your hi-hat. You also want to be careful with EQ, which is a useful tool. But it can also be overused to the point that it can destroy your mix.
3. Having No Dynamic Range
The so-called “loudness war” has been the topic of conversation for many years, especially in mixing and mastering circles. Products that are meant for television and radio advertising often have a huge amount of compression to maximize the song’s volume and attract the listener’s attention. But as a mixing technique, it’s usually considered to be a bad practice and has obvious consequences when it’s time to send the tracks out for mastering.
The term “dynamic range” can be defined as the difference between the louder and softer parts of a track. Ideally, you want the files you deliver to a mastering engineer to have peaks of about -3dB for the loudest source and an average of -6dB to -8dB for the rest. This should leave you with about 3- 5 dB of dynamic range.
If you want these nuance compressors to shine, your source material needs to have enough dynamic range to accommodate the processing. Adding too much compression during the mixing phase will reduce the track’s dynamic range, which will rob your mastering engineer of the resources he or she needs to do the job. It will also rob your mix of the final detail and polish it needs.
4. A Lack of Panning
Most of the important elements (such as the kick, snare, lead vocal, and bass) should be panned at the center of your mix, but having too much at or near the center can make your mix sound cluttered (which will give it less definition). You want to pan some elements of your mix a little off to one side. If you have a blend of guitars, horns, and backing vocals, keeping the center less cluttered will allow your ear to hear those elements more distinctly. You also won’t need to use as much EQ and other effects to pick those things out in the mix.
5. Having Phase Problems
Most DAWs will give you access to an unlimited number of tracks, so it can be tempting to record everything in stereo. But it’s always a good idea to reference your mixes in mono to catch phase cancellations caused by poorly placed mics.
6. Having Poor Vocal Placement
It can be hard to stay objective about vocal placement, especially if it’s your song. A track can sound good if the vocals are sitting a little in front of or behind the rest of the tracks. But sometimes, your perception of the lead vocals can shift a little after the song has been mastered. Most professionals will offer two or three alternative mixes with the lead vocals at different levels and will send each version to the mastering engineer.
7. Having Misaligned Tracks
This one is a no-brainer. Your stems (which are separated groups of tracks) should all start at the same place. I like to bounce everything starting at 00:00 and bounce it through to the end of the finished track. That way, everything is aligned when I start working on the final mix.
8. Not Cutting Any Unnecessary Sound
Not removing elements that don’t improve your mix is a mistake for the same reason as having too much bass or treble. Your first reaction may be to increase the volume of the other tracks to compensate for the extra noise, but you’ll end up having a cluttered mix that sounds muddy.
Instead of adding more volume by moving up the faders, think about what you can remove. A violin recording may not need any frequencies under 50Hz, so you can use a high-pass filter on an EQ to roll them off. Some percussion elements sound better with fewer high-end frequencies, so you can use a low-pass filter on the EQ to do the same thing on the opposite end of the spectrum.
9. Not Mixing with Low Audio Levels
This is a common beginner mistake, and it always leads to clipping issues. It’s often the result of too much input (or gain) for the output to handle, and it always leads to distortion. You can try it as an experiment. Move the input and volume sliders all the way up in your DAW, and you will see red flashing everywhere in your mixing window. That’s clipping, and it sounds terrible.
The obvious solution is to turn down the audio levels. You should always mix at a lower volume, because it makes your mix sound cleaner. I like to keep everything around -10dB so I have enough headroom when I add compression and other processing to the mix bus.
10. Adding Too Much Reverb
Reverb is a great way to add space to your mix, but adding too much can destroy it. It’s better to have too little reverb than too much, because excessive reverb can make a mix sound washed out and unfocused.
11. Having a “Fix it in the Mix” Mentality
These five words are enough to get a rise out of any audio engineer, and it’s one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Modern music production can do a lot, but you can’t fix a bad arrangement (or even a badly written song) in the mix. Make sure everything in your production sounds as good as possible before you start mixing.
Final Thoughts
All kinds of stumbling blocks can affect the quality of your mixes and make life harder for a mastering engineer. But at the end of the day, you want to trust your ears. Listen to your mix more carefully, and take the time to learn the rules before you decide to break them.
