Sometimes a reduction in parameters actually generates more creativity. Being aware of a set of limitations, or guidelines, can actually allow you much more creative control over your final mix.

This could mean limiting the amount of effects that you allow yourself to use, or a more obvious one is to only use a particular set of effects that suits the genre or style. If you have the permission to do it, perhaps editing tracks or even muting/removing “surplus” instrumentation or vocal is the first step.

Approach-wise, ideally you want all aspects of a song to reinforce together and create a stronger impact, and if you aren’t aware of what you’re doing, it’s very possible (in fact more common than you think) to get a generally nice balance of instruments that somehow doesn’t “gel”. You can hear everything, but it lacks emotional impact.

So here are some ideas to think about next time you’re mixing a song. There are certainly many more ideas and concepts to experiment with than just this list, but it’s a great start.

1- Know What the Song’s About

Clues are in the lyrics. Knowing what it’s about gives you the opportunity to amplify the concept rather than inadvertently fighting it. That doesn’t mean you have to “follow” the lyrics with the mix in a literal sense – you might do nothing at all in that regard, but at least you won’t be fighting the meaning of the song without even realizing it, and when it comes to trying to think of creative mix directions, it’s yet another clue to help you.

2- Know the Context of the Music

What’s the genre or style of the artist? How does it relate to the artist’s identity? Being aware of this really makes it much more likely that you’ll promote that artist’s identity and overall concept, plus the artist will be more likely to appreciate what you do with the mix. For example does the artist exemplify “authenticity” where a raw, “character” sound with any intonation problems remaining unfixed is most desirable? Or is it about slick and smooth production?

3- Be Adventurous

A mix is not just a simple balance of the levels of the instruments in the mix, it’s about featuring various aspects that you think the listener would like to hear, or more accurately needs to hear at any given section of the song. Pretend it’s a movie – how do you present each section of the song?

Don’t be scared to go “over the top” with effects, fader moves and featuring of mix aspects – you can always tone it back if need be. Don’t be scared to turn the vocal up – trying to hide weak vocals makes it even worse. Even ugly actors have to have close-ups in a movie to make it effective.

4- Think About Texture And Tone

It’s partly tone, partly level, partly how dominant something is in the mix. If you compress something – its texture changes. Listen out for it’s tonally as a sound, rather than just checking its variation in level. How pervasive is it compared to everything else, despite its volume in the mix. How does it link into the overall texture of the song?

Textures are like a tonal color palette – you probably don’t want to mix a neon green element in with some nice earth tones (remember there are no rules!), but then again you don’t want everything the same shade of beige.

5- It’s About Melody

Even in the most distortion-fest mixes, our human nature will use our built-in pattern-detecting algorithms to extract a melody out of it somewhere, whether it be in the movement of the harmonics in the wall of guitar noise or in the groovy bass line. Make sure there’s one dominant melody at any given instant, or if there’s more than one, that they aren’t fighting and clashing with each other.

6- The Pocket

It’s more than something to put your wallet in. It’s that magic interaction of instruments when it all suddenly locks into a groove. Spend some time adjusting relative timing of instruments to see if you can help the groove “gel”. You’ll know when it happens because it’s magic and you’ll start moving with the music whether you want to or not.

Note that Beat Detective and other forms of quantization can fight this effect – it’s “felt” rather than being on an exact grid. With that being said, if the playing is too loose than a timing grid can be a step up. Compression, particularly rhythmic release times can help achieve some degree of further “groove gel.”

7- Keep it Simple Stupid

Less is more. These things are fundamental truths despite our over-familiarity with them, often leaving them as meaningless statements in our minds. Think about the mix as a photo – the more people you want to appear in the photo, the smaller they’ll have to be.

Don’t be scared to bring the main things to the foreground, and push other things back to the point of blurriness or being hidden behind the main elements. A good mix is not about individual band members’ egos, it’s about the overall blend.

When you think about it, the individual band members have the least idea about what the mix should sound like – they all hear completely different versions of a mix depending on where they stand/sit when they perform.

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Here’s a preview of the remaing 6 tips…

8- Three “Tracks”

13- Use Sub-mix Busses for Elements of the mix

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13 Tips To Improve Your Mixing is a post from: Home Recording Studio Guru

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3. Mixerman Mini Seminar On Vocal Mixing

Dave Chick

1. Computer-based music recording lets people construct tunes without composing, i.e. without figuring out anything in advance. I know I’m guilty of that. It means that it becomes a process of construction rather than of composition. Some great and interesting music can come about that way, but it also prompts further laziness — just sit down and build a song, rather than trying to write one.

2. How often now do we get a bunch of musicians in a room and into a groove? No matter how much “swing” you add to MIDI quantization, it’s not going to sound like that, and music with bands even laying down a rhythm track live in the studio is pretty rare these days, at least in pop, R&B, hip-hop, and rock. Those jazz cats still do it, as do others, but you don’t hear much of it.

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Modern Music Making Tools = Increased Suckage Factor? is a post from: Home Recording Studio Guru

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1. Music Technology & a Few Sucking Sounds … Part II
2. How To Build A Home Studio For Computer-Based Music Recording
3. Kenny Gioia – Music Production With Pro Tools Vol 1 – Pop