All mix engineers need technical skills — but what’s most important is our ability to bring out the emotion in the music.
Mixing is a balancing act. We have to fulfil the artist’s musical vision, while meeting a technical standard. That sounds easier than it actually is, and the reason may be that we sometimes focus too much on the technical aspect.
In fact, I know a lot of engineers who approach mixing from a purely technical standpoint. When they start a mix, they open up the session, hit Play and immediately start adding processing — because that’s what mixing is all about, right? I’m not being judgemental here, nor do I want to tell anyone how they should mix. What matters is that the mix comes out great and the client is happy. But in my experience, more often than not it’s these ‘technical’ engineers who struggle to get a great mix in a reasonable amount of time. And that’s because they tend to skip the most crucial part of mixing: actually listening to the production and ‘feeling’ what really needs to be done.
While this may sound obvious, it cannot be overstated, because it’s so easy to forget: mixing is all about the music! Without the song, there’s no mix. And the hard truth is that we are rarely hired to change it all and apply wicked mixing skills just because we can. We are hired because the artist or label trusts us to make the best possible decisions – which can mean anything from doing hundreds of bold moves to only touching four tracks.
There’s tons of great mixing tutorials around, often featuring the very people who worked on our favourite records. This is great, but what that information often lacks is context.
Diamonds In The Rough
Of course, there is a technical dimension to mixing, which often involves correcting and fixing technical issues that ideally should have already been taken care of during the production. But all this is just a small piece of the puzzle. The essential skill all great mixers have in common is their ability to combine the roles of music listener and audio engineer, by translating what they are hearing into an emotional response that fits the song. This makes them artists in their own right. If you don’t take my word for it, this is what Manny Marroquin, one of the most in‑demand mixers for over two decades now, has to say about it: “I know the emotion I got when I turned faders and EQs. I can change the emotion of the song. That still blows my mind to this day. So, to say that I love what I do is an understatement because I can change emotions based on frequencies. It sounds obvious, but it’s powerful when you utilise it the right way. And that’s what we’re here for. We’re here to play with people’s emotions and emphasise.”
This is why it’s so important to really listen to the music you’re about to mix. Because if you don’t, how could you possibly know which emotions you want to emphasise and play with? You could start with a blank slate, but most likely there will be a rough mix the artist took home after the recording. This could be anything from just a flat balance bounce off the board or DAW session to a quick and dirty mastered listening copy. Whatever it is, make sure you have it in the session, level matched and in sync with the actual tracks (a plug‑in like Metric AB comes in super handy for this). Personally, I always request a rough mix, and highly encourage you to do so, too. The artist will most likely have listened to this rough mix a hundred times. They left the studio full of endorphins and excited about their newest masterpiece. This is how it sounds to them, and with a good tracking engineer and producer, the balance on the rough will be far from arbitrary. To radically change it, you will have to have a good reason.
When it’s time to hit play and listen, I like turning up the volume, to really evaluate the physical and emotional response I get, but of course that’s up to you. The vocals in the rough may be too loud, but don’t let that distract you. Pay attention to how they panned out the instruments and their relative balances. Pay attention to what grabs you: a certain guitar part, a driving percussion rhythm, anything you think is making the song interesting and worth featuring. Pay extra attention to the transitions between different song parts, and whether the dynamic you want to feel is already there and just needs to be emphasised, or will need a lot of help. Pay special attention to your physical reaction, and whether the rough already makes you move a certain way or leaves you frozen.
The words may very well deserve a listening pass on their own. What is the song about? What emotional response do you have, and how does that translate to sound?
And, of course, pay attention to the lyrics. The words may very well deserve a listening pass on their own. What is the song about? What emotional response do you have, and how does that translate to sound? Should the mix feel loose or stiff? Should it put you at ease or on alert? Do you imagine a band playing in a particular space, such that the song needs to sound raw, real and intimate? Does it call for extra‑wide and artificial with lots of effects because it feels larger than life? Do the drums need to sound huge and open, or compact and characterful? What sound does the vocal need to convey the message: clear and breathy highs, or warm and crunchy mids? Bone‑dry, with a haunting slap echo, or drenched in a lush reverb? All this helps to answer the key question: how do you, as the listener, want this to sound? Making this happen without losing the integrity of the rough mix is your plot for the mix. Because without a plot, how can you possibly mix this at all?
Feel First
Michael Brauer, who is known for stressing the importance of focusing on emotion despite his notoriously complex mixing setup, has coined a term that really stuck with me: MAI = Match And Improve. He always makes sure to first match the rough mix as closely as possible, and only then starts improving it where he feels necessary. I feel that’s a very good strategy, because it really makes you listen and focus on the important stuff. Also, making sure your initial balance matches the rough not only makes you familiar with all the elements in the session, it can give you valuable information about why you feel something needs to be improved or changed. Sometimes, maybe raising the acoustic guitars one dB negates the need for making the move you thought you’d need on the electrics. Sometimes, a simple panning move can be all it takes, because you intentionally bring the mix out of balance at a certain point to create tension.
The ability to recognise what to keep and what to change, and to figure out the best ways to do that, is what gets top mixers hired again and again.
The ability to recognise what to keep and what to change, and to figure out the best ways to do that, is what gets top mixers hired again and again. Knowing what and, especially, what not to do is one of the quintessential skills to develop as a professional mixer. Another one is to be brutally honest with yourself. When you switch back and forth between your mix and the rough after two hours of mixing, does your mix sound better to you in every aspect? Remember the plot you had! If it does, feel the warm hug of confidence. If not, there’s no need to feel ashamed or defensive. This happens to everyone, and a good rough is surprisingly hard to beat. If something doesn’t work, accept that and go back to the drawing board. The artist deserves the best possible mix you can do. They don’t pay you for applying clever processing if it doesn’t help their music. They pay you for making the listener want to sing along and hit repeat. They don’t care what you have to do — or not do — to make that happen.
Learning The Language
As a foundation for communicating with artists, I find it helpful to establish a catalogue of emotional and musical terms. If the artist asks why you did a particular mixing move, you’ll probably want to answer using this sort of language rather than technical jargon. The artist won’t be interested in exactly what frequencies you cut, or the sophisticated side‑chain compression technique you use. They want their music to be felt the way it’s supposed to be. And so should you, too.
Thinking about terms you need to have in your arsenal, I always find it’s good practice to think in opposed pairs, because this gives each side a perspective. Take dark vs bright, for example: you need to know bright to understand what’s dark. Or take raw/dirty vs polished/pretty; without polished, there’s no perspective on what’s raw and vice versa. All of these terms have both a musical and an emotional component. For example, the term ‘urgency’ clearly describes an emotional response, but one that can be evoked by different musical or mixing moves. Feeling urgent can mean something is compressed and saturated severely, but it can also mean it has to drive rhythmically. Both goals can be achieved using compression, but it’s your job to know which settings will deliver which type of urgency.
The Benefits Of Attended Mixes
Many mixers don’t like the artist to be present while they work. But although it can be very time‑consuming and distracting, I have learned very valuable things from artists sitting in on a mixing session, and learning their language has definitely sharpened my skills. Because when an artist says “I think we need more power in this part,” this can mean very different things depending not only on the artist’s individual response to the music, but also on the genre and arrangement. Maybe more low end is needed to establish the felt sense of power — or maybe it’s more punch in the drums, or louder guitars. Usually, though, people will equate power to overall loudness. This is why I like to work with different layers of compression and parallel paths, because I have different options to gain more perceived loudness without having to just rely on riding the master fader. If the artist wants more “aggression”, this could mean more distortion, more compression or simply boosting an aggressive midrange frequency. What’s even more important is their body language. If they move their body to the music, that’s a good sign. If they raise an eyebrow at a certain point, make sure you pay attention to this. Getting good at sensing what the artist feels or means in that moment and being able to make that happen has given me a lot confidence. And without confidence there’s rarely a great mix.