How to Mix If You're Not a Mix Engineer 

If you're not a mix engineer, a mix to put it sort of simply, is 90% volume balance. The overall balance of sounds against each other (volume, panning), the volume of frequencies within a track (EQ) against other sounds and the volume of certain parts of a track like the transient, body and tail (compression) against other sounds. The other 10% is FX (delay, reverb, etc). Theres a whole world within those things to learn, but if you remember that simple concept it makes mixing a bit less intimidating. Happy mixing everyone! Go create some good vibes :)

Greetings from aleppo Syria , just rebuilt my studio after the devastating Earthquakes 🥃🤦 guys you're a true blessing to my career , thank you so much !

I would learn to mix, but hold on, I'm achieving analog warmth.

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1">00:01</a> 🎧 Mixing is complex, involving many tracks and potential issues. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="30">00:30</a> 🎶 Quality ingredients like good recordings are essential for a great mix. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="70">01:10</a> 🎛️ Organizing the mix session is crucial for efficiency. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="174">02:54</a> 🧹 Listen for pops, clicks, and other issues before diving into mixing. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="306">05:06</a> 🎤 Repair work includes handling plosives, clicks, and mouth sounds. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="393">06:33</a> 🎵 Tune vocals and instruments as needed for pitch correction. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="475">07:55</a> 🥁 Address phase and polarity issues for a better drum sound. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="532">08:52</a> 🌀 Experiment with polarity inversion to enhance your mix. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="610">10:10</a> 🥁 Fix time-of-arrival phase differences for coherent drum sound. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="660">11:00</a> 🎶 Explore sample replacement or enhancement for drums. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="719">11:59</a> 🎧 Trim unnecessary audio parts and use fades for cleaner tracks. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="797">13:17</a> 🔇 Use noise gates to reduce background noise in recordings. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="852">14:12</a> 🎚️ Start building the foundation of the mix with fader adjustments. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="965">16:05</a> 🧩 Use stereo bus compression to glue the mix together. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1020">17:00</a> 🎤 Work on individual track processing, starting with drums. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1128">18:48</a> 🎸 Consider high-pass filtering to reduce muddiness in tracks. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1178">19:38</a> 🥁 Neutron's Track Assistant can help set up processing chains. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1260">21:00</a> 🎙️ Process vocals with tools like EQ, compression, and de-essing. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1370">22:50</a> 🔊 Adjust vocal levels to ensure they sit well in the mix. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1394">23:14</a> 🌟 Reference tracks can provide guidance for vocal loudness and placement. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1420">23:40</a> 🎸 Acoustic and electric guitars benefit from compression and chorus effects, respectively. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1447">24:07</a> 🎛️ Be cautious not to over-process guitars to preserve their original tone. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1503">25:03</a> 🎶 Experiment with panning guitars to create a balanced mix. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1553">25:53</a> 🎹 Pay attention to potential clashes between keys and vocals and use tools like auto unmasking. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1580">26:20</a> 🌟 Set up auxiliary tracks (auxes) for time-based effects like reverb and delay. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1660">27:40</a> 🔊 Experiment with parallel processing on auxes to enhance mix elements, but do it carefully. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1743">29:03</a> 🎚️ Use volume automation to highlight specific elements in the mix. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1858">30:58</a> 🔄 When preparing for mastering, maintain the same format, bit depth, and sample rate as your mix files. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1905">31:45</a> 🎨 Practice listening, experimenting, and being patient in your mixing journey.

the best mixxing tutorial for not mixers with not ironed shirts i ever seeen

Ive been making metal for two years now and I have picked up on many of these things without ever being taught, but this video taught me the reasons for some of the things and a ton of small tips and changes I could be making. Knowing the reasons for things allows me to mske my own educated decisions whilst I am mixing if something doesn't sound quite right. Thank you for the video!

Welcome back - you are the best that iZotope has doing these videos. I can watch from beginning to end without going to 2X speed or skipping ahead. Your attitude and presentation is perfect - no fluff or histrionics. Thank you.

My new "mix agenda very first thing to do" will be now to watch this video again for every new mix session. Thanks Geoff and iZotope!

How funny that in this video you’ve explained more about mixing than most of the online video tutorials and tips available on RU-vid! I wish I had this introduction to mixing when I first started, it explains in a very simple way a lot of basic critical things you should consider first! Great video!

This video has it all: I find back every single useful tip I gathered from other sources, and then some more. Thanks a lot: as a bedroom mix engineer, this is going to help a lot!

the food analogy is perfect! i started using it a few years ago to describe what i was doing to my family who didn't understand. Multitracks: like getting a bag of groceries and a menu to prepare a meal... one assumes that one knows certain skills like knife work, or what 'saute' means, and what order to do things in, in order to get the prefect meal on the table.

I’ve been doing my own GarageBand projects for about a year now, and I know enough to know that I don’t know anything about being an audio engineer, but videos like this that help outline a workflow are always extremely helpful.

You’re a wonderful instructor. Your videos are a pleasure to watch. Thx a lot.

This video helped answer so many questions; thank you! Most of the content on the web never really talks about the lead-up to the mix. They just magically have perfect-sounding audio tracks to start with. There are a lot of processing steps that need to happen first. I still have many questions, but this video helped point me in the right direction. 🙂

I actually have seen this guy in a previous izotope video a while back, i learned a whole lot. Thanks guy!!!

Great presentation and delivery on the topics. Thank You. Keep up the good work.

Really useful! Thank you

I see @ManchesterMusic in the thumbnail, I click 🤘🏼

I love and agree with that first statement. "Mixing is hard".

These videos are incredibly helpful. Thanks Izotope team.

perfect help! Thanks alot. I love you guys, your work is a blessing for many many people!

Man, fantastically in-depth dive here! Subbed right away! thanks so much!👍🏼✨

good job izotope. idk why no otha audio companies upload or got semi decent content. literally 0 of the companies that make audio gear that we use and buy , make tutorials and upload content.

Already bought neutron 4 and the elements bundle.. this video is exactly what I needed

Really enjoyed watching your tutorials,helps me understand alot more.thanks

As an amateur electronic music producer who does everything myself, and likely doesn't do it right, these tips are very helpful! My mixing generally boils down to moving reducing the faders of the sounds by factors of 3, which I should probably stop doing because I'm mixing too mathematically rather than properly using my ears. As for effects I tend to just compress everything and do the bare minimum of EQing, again, something I should improve on and actually listen to what I make properly.

Hey Geoff, you just inspired the hella out of me. Your way of explaining things really clicked on my mindset on what i should look out when mixing my stuff. Thank you very much for that, and i hope to see more content featuring you, either here or personal projects. I just made a little test in one of my upcoming mixes following your tips, and d@mn... it sounds good! You deserve all the best for the patience and knowledge you've acquired through out your career, and now by sharing your knowledge with us, mere mortals haha. THANK YOU, SIR.

Beautifully organized. Really helpful.

👌That was so useful.🔥Brought me back in time when I was still in uni learning how those techniques were frequently discovered by accident, like the parallel compression bus. For that matter vinyl scratching too (not important to this topic, but) those are all now an art form of their own, and we have to keep utilising them to make greater art with. 🤩 I'm saving this to take notes from, every time when setting up a mixing session. 🤘😁 Thank you Izotope team🙏

Great video, i have always used fruity delay 3 as a kind of stereo andd reverb widener. now i am experimenting with a convolver for enhanced reverb manipulation for recordings that have quite a bit of harsh resonances. just the right amount of reverb can preserve particular distorted sounds that you might want to keep in a mix without compromising the mix. last i decided to use the techinque of adding a compressor to the master bus, that advice is paramount for all kinds of audio engineers!

This is an amazing introduction to mixing. Great job. I have a lot to learn

the type of help i really need

I already know I will come back to this video once a week 😆 great work

great Video sir, Thank you so much for all the advices and tricks

I LOVE YOUR ANALOGIES

Incredibly insightful video as usual from one of the best instructors - with, I might add, one of the most calming voices.

Hey, this was very insightful. A lot of videos don't show the ins and outs of bus routing, and other stuff you mentioned. Thanks, this gonna help me out a lot

thank u, I learned so many things in this vid !!

Such a good teacher

Bravo! Simple! Importand! Thank You

thanks guys for the easy installation

Quality video. Will recommend to anyone I'd ever need to.

insanely GOOD video. thank U.

Thanks you - highly valuable information, presented welcoming and interesting - I couldn't ask for more. I'm an amateur doing everything myself, and this video is gold for me.

Thank you so much for this!

So for me, one thing that stood out in this video was the POLARITY SWITCH!! , because I was manually tring to get the kick, in phase with the 808 by fading them and aligning just in that perfect point where a max number of 3 sines would overlap at the same poles. But switching them?! is piece I needed & I've just tried, while watching this video, and I can confirm you get different resonance on the 808, switched and distorsion applied. Would definitely try on layering drums with hats for a more acoustic ...blah blah blah you get what I mean. Thank you so much dude! The sleeping assistant there, got me unprepared hahaha^^

Great informative commentar, thank you. This notice is for myself for later watch.

Here’s I leant a lot in this presentation🙏🙏🏿✨🎩

these are such good videos! thank you

I have been [re]mixing a song, one of the first songs I did for the album. 4 days. This video is a check list of all the pain and toil I have endured for 4 days. You reaffirmed, basically what I just learned today! At the end now, I'm not even sure I want to release this new version; sometimes, songs are better left alone. Also, sometimes it is better to take one night to mix, instead of a week. Yes......

Very good video, I use Reason for drums hence no phase or bleed issues 😀

Fantastic thank you so much 🙌

Amazing clarity of thought!! Thanks for such videos!! One thing I wanted to point out as a budding Mix Engineer - Trusting your ears; and that has training your ears as a precursor. After, years of learning mixing (as a hobby for now to turn it into profession) it was just decision I had to make for myself- Trust my ears. I had to tell myself (after sufficient second guessing and self evaluation) that, if I understand music and sounds therein, I have a good sense of notes and rythm, there's no reason I should not trust my ears. So as you asked, my tip for mixing is to 'make a good listening environment in your room, learn your room and your speakrs and trust your ears'. Then what you said will be totally valid- what sounds good, it IS good. 😊

You told everything about mixing what needs to know, this Video is superdupa. Again you did it. Thank you

high value information! great channel! thx a lot!

Probably one of the best beginner mixer videos.

..amazing tutorial..respect

My new album is produced / mixed and engineered using every plug it. Took me almost 3 months of trial and error to even find a balance. Ty so much for all yall work

Good lord was this a good video! Thanks man!

Incredible content!! Love it 💝

This was a great video. Would love more in depth videos on this as there are still a few elements that were mentioned that I'm not sure how to set up.

Love these vids! So informative and educational! Keep them coming 🔥👍

Tego mi trzeba było...miks czy mastering to narazie dla mnie "czarna magia" ale dzięki waszym filmikom moja wiedza powiększa sie, dziękuję, pozdrowienia z Polski 👍

Many thanks!

Thank you!

This is super helpful, thank you 🎧

Thank you. Some times my timing is off, and mixers have fixed them--- kudos to engineers.

This video audio is an example it self. I made a hit song, and using this trick is making 3x better sounding, the vocal is now clear and very uplifting!

bravo....great video

This is the best video on RU-vid.

Excellent.

Thank You Sir ...🎚🎙🎹🎧🔊

This video is awesome, subbed instantly. I’ve been a musician for almost 2 decades now but just started producing too and I love it!

cause you are the man.!!

Thank You

Very useful to me 👍🏻🎼

Great Video Guys 🫶

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1082">18:02</a> O_O NEVER heard that b4!!! But i'll definitely consider it!

Excellent

MY HERROOOOOOOO Thankkk youuuu!!!

Very helpful tips but would it possible to have a video tutorial on mixing a dance or Edm tracks. Thanks.

Oj the subject of phasing - you can use it to kill off problems in a DAW. If you have a wave that's got too much going on below say 120hz (common frequency for kick drums)... Copy it and flip the phase - drop the volume to around -4dB to give you some space for adjusting... Obviously, if they're 100% antiphase - you're going to get dead silence. However... On one track, boost a frequency with a broad single paramedic eq... Say 500hZ with an octave above and below that frequency. When you play both together .... All the anti phased bits that still match, will be totally nullified. The frequency range you boosted won't. There's many ways to do a similar thing, but I've used it recently to avoid the results filtering or EQ can cause and it's certainly a process that ill use again... It's almost like a combination of gate and filter... But seems more accurate somehow.

Im here for it

Ohh lovly video advice thnx lot need more about 5 1 mix

this was very informative.

I love your class, bro

Wrinkled shirt looking good :)

This is the best video on youtube ! I love izotope !!

Great!

I sometimes shift the vocals slightly out of phase intentionally to drive it into the reverb realm for just one bar or even half especially in punk or hardcore that normally has one maybe two vocal tracks tops and the amount of instruments reflect the amount of tracks more often than not too so thickness at key moments is very handy and avoids printing effects. Old punks do these kind of things still in the studio believe it or not. Lol 👽✌️

Thanks so much for this informative video! Regarding the dead air matter, I have a current project where I'm using sampled one-shots for the drums. I was in a pickle because although I like the kit, the kick sample seemed to have a lot of white noise. I did try EQing it out but I wasn't particularly successful. But graciously, the creator of the samples also included a long clip of the room noise. It pretty much perfectly matched the noise I was hearing from the kick sample. So I decided--and I don't know if this is normal--to have an audio track that is just that noise on loop, with side-chain compression sourced from the kick. That way, when the kick isn't hitting, I've got the noise, and when the noisy kick hits, the noise track ducks out so it's not double noise. Because to me the issue wasn't so much the noise, but the presence and absence of it. It was only a little bit of noise so it's not bothersome. It's only bothersome when it changes, like if a relatively quiet fan startles you by turning off.

genius bro

video utile e informativo bro

Thankz

Coloring stuff is soooooooooo useful

Thanks. And for electronic music context, please.

I couldn't agree more. PRODUCTION (for me) is knowing what I want to hear. MIXING is more technical KNOWING HOW TO GET WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR. I've worked in many studios, I'm not an engineer. with the computer at home I'm FAILING TO GET WHAT I WANT TO HEAR

I'm going to rec my first musics now at home (with just a phone and simple stuff) and maybe if I'm about to do try make a decent audio version this is going to be very very helpful. thanks!

beautful video

Little too for logic users - name the tracks then highlight all the regions and pre ALT-SHIFT-N That will name all your regions to the track name 👊