Many producers work ‘chronologically’ and forget the bigger picture of the mix. Picture this scenario… Let’s say you work on the lead vocal. You get it sounding perfect by itself. You move on to the backing vocals and get them sounding perfect when soloed. Now you want to get all the vocals sitting in the mix, but the Lead and BV’s don’t fuse together well and feel foreign within the context of the mix. You now have to rework the vocals and spend more time to get a good result.

The timesaving remedy to this scenario… Start by listening to the whole mix and focus on how the vocals sit in the mix. You can now EQ, compress and make any other changes to get the Lead sounding great in the context of the whole mix. Once that’s done you can work on the BVs to compliment how the Lead sounds in the context of the whole mix. This way you only have to do things once.

Endless tweaking will lead to hundreds of unfinished tracks piling up. When you’re confident you’ve got a specific channel sounding great, print it. If you’ve ‘worked backwards’ as stated in the previous tip, then you know how the channel works in the context of your whole mix anyway, so you shouldn’t have any nasty surprises later. Just make sure the source material is awesome enough to commit to keeping it.

Keep your ears calibrated on how a great mix sounds. On your next mix or master try listening to at least 6 seconds of a reference track every minute and watch how fast you achieve your results. Check out the 15 day free trial of our referencing plugin to save even more time.

Endlessly adding layers and channels will result in a cluttered and congested mix. AND it will take more time to work on those extra channels. Keep your productions lean and focus on what your track really needs. Some of the best mixes I’ve worked on have had less than 30 channels in total. The most difficult have had over 80 channels. With that in mind, consolidate channels when you can. For, example if you have 5 different claps all panned differently, bounce them down into one manageable stem.

Don’t get stung by the same time-consuming mistake more than once. When you run into something that’s held you back, put in a new system to resolve the issue. Invest minutes now to save hours in the long run.

When you have a roadmap in your mind of the steps needed to complete your track, you can keep moving forward towards that goal. Without a plan, you’re aimlessly shooting for an unspecified target. If you want a resource to help you with this, I put together my most valuable information into a 124 page eBook called ‘Never Get Stuck Again’. It will help you turn your musical idea into a quality finished track.