1. Know your gear

Historically this statement meant: know your outboard gear as well as your console if you had one. In the context of most home recording studios these days (where most mixing if not all is done “in the box”) it means, know the strengths and weaknesses of digital recording in general, and know your plug-ins. When it is all said and done a compressor is a compressor and an EQ is an EQ, and the main difference between EQ A and EQ B is some mathematical formula used for DSP. The controls presented to you are your only input to the equation so learning how to manipulate these controls to get the sound you want is paramount. Very seldom will you find something “out of the box” that will perform the task you need perfectly, and more importantly, just because you paid $X,XXX dollars for it doesn’t mean you can get the sound you want out of it, or if anyone can for that matter. At the end of the day you can only get the sounds out of your gear that you know how to, so the more sounds you how to get the stronger and more versatile engineer you will be. Invest your time in learning what you have well before investing your hard earned cash in too many plug-ins that will be useless until you really learn them too.

2. Use Your Ears

Now here’s an novel idea for a sound engineer/musician: Use your bleedin’ ears. With all these beautifully designed GUI’s that we are presented with these days it’s easy to get distracted and start mixing with our eyes. I’ve even caught myself thinking “yeah that looks about right.” It’s good always remember that sound doesn’t look like anything unless you are on hallucinogens.

3. Trust your Ears

Just because certain guidelines or “professionals” say to do it one way doesn’t mean that you should always do it that way. Remember that every mix is unique and every mix will have it’s own sound and feel. Read the lyrics or listen to the demo to try and understand the message that the singer is trying to portray and use the mix to enhance this message. Come up with a plan for the mix in your head and trust your ears to implement it. You can often even feel the tension in your shoulders release when the the sounds you are creating match the sounds of the plan in your head.

4. Get a Second Opinion

Your ears will undoubtedly get tired and often you will become hyper focused on tweaking a very particular part of the mix. This is always a good time to take a break, let your ears rest, and find someone who’s opinion you value to listen to what you’ve been working on. Often times people will agree that the sound you are aiming for is worth pursuing, but they won’t necessarily know how to achieve it. Typically you are trying to create a mix that will resonate with the masses. As an engineer you have the know how to get the mix to sound how you would like it to sound, but you must remember that you are providing service to a client (even if you are the client as well, it helps to consider the workflow this way).

5. Use multiple monitors

Using multiple monitor sources is very important to creating a good balance in a mix. Always consider where your mix is most likely to be played and make sure that it sounds good on that source. Use your studio reference monitor primarily, but demo you mixes on a home stereo, computer speaker and in headphones as well. Not every one has the caliber of speakers that we use for reference monitors and the most assuredly will not have the same frequency response. If you can demo the mix on a audio system with a well balanced sub woofer this can help a great deal when balancing the bottom end.