Nothing is more frustrating than when the song you’re mixing just isn’t measuring up to other professionally made tracks, and we’ve all been there. While there’s no replacement for years of practice behind the mixer, here are a few of the tricks that I’ve found to be enormously helpful in making my tracks sound more like the ones winning Grammys. 

Bus Compression - My greatest “eureka” moment as an engineer happened the first time I tried mixing with a stereo compressor on the Master channel. While this helps with dynamic control of the mix, its greatest gift is providing glue, vibe, breath, whatever you want to call it. It makes the mix a cohesive unit instead of just a bunch of unrelated tracks playing at the same time. The same goes for putting a compressor on group busses for drums, instruments, vocals, etc, the compressor will allow those groups to behave more as a single organism. I should note that not all mix engineers use a compressor on the Master channel and prefer to leave that to the mastering engineer. For me, mixing with a compressor on the Master 2-bus is an essential part of my mix process, Fair warning though, it does take a while to get used to, and the mastering engineering can’t uncompress your mix so use caution. 

Saturation/Harmonic Excitement - Gently (or not so gently) distorting certain tracks with analog tape, transistors, tubes, or software plugins can help them shine in the mix. Take care when saturating a signal though, because it can have complicated, multi-faceted effects. Saturation occurs when a signal is run through a device at such a high level that the input signal can no longer match the output level in a linear fashion. In other words, you crank the gain until the signal hits the ceiling of the device and starts to break apart. This simultaneously limits the amplitude of the signal and generates harmonic overtones, affecting the dynamics and tone of the signal. 

So what separates saturation from compression and EQ? There is some overlap between compression and saturation, as both can be used to bring down the dynamic range of a signal. Some compressors also saturate the signal to some degree, contributing to the “color” of the compressor’s distinct sound. However, compressors are generally designed to be able to control the level to extreme degrees with minimal distortion, while devices used for saturation usually color the sound more and more the harder you push the signal, until it eventually gives way to full-blown distortion. Compressors also usually have more controls over how the signal leveling occurs, like threshold, ratio, attack, and release controls, while saturation devices commonly have only input and output gain knobs (they may have other adjustable parameters, but these are usually the only ones that affect the dynamic range). 

As for the difference between saturation and EQ, there is a pretty hard line between the two. While EQ’s boost and attenuate frequency bands, saturation generates entirely new harmonic content that wasn’t there to begin with. So while driving a solid-state preamp into the red may make the signal sound brighter, it’s not actually boosting the existing treble frequencies, it’s adding new overtones to that region. When the new frequencies are added on top of the existing ones, the overall sound is brighter. It’s important to note that saturation can also reduce the perceived level of frequency bands as well as add to them. For example, that same preamp that brightened up the signal when overdriven may reduce the low-end impact. Magnetic tape (and plugin emulations) also tends to have an inverse effect on signals, thickening up the low end while reducing the high end transients. That’s why it is so important to be careful when saturating a signal. If you’re only focusing on the low end thickening affect of the saturation when you’re dialing it in, you may kill the high end sparkle on the track, or if you’re only paying attention to the tonal change, you might end up squashing the dynamics too much. 

EQing/Compressing Reverb and Delay - Reverb and delay can make a mess out of a mix real quick, but there is a lot you can do to overcome that. More often than not, I filter out the low end on the reverb channel anywhere from 100Hz - 600 Hz. That portion of the reverb signal usually just muddies up the low end and is not missed at all on a busy mix. I might also try rolling off the high end down to about 10Khz and cutting a few dB around 1-2Khz where it might be masking the vocals. If you want to hear more of the reverb tail, try compressing the send. And if you want a super wet vocal sound without sacrificing clarity, try putting a sidechained compressor to the reverb channel that’s keyed to react to the vocal, getting the reverb out of the way while the vocalist is singing. 

Stereo Wideners - There are plenty of natural ways to make individual elements of a song and your whole mix sound wide: stereo miking, double tracking, bold panning, etc. However, sometimes when you start to mix a fully recorded song, you find out that the recording engineer didn’t think to record certain parts in stereo, or that they only gave you a single comp’ed take so you can’t double that part, or the part was recorded in stereo, but the stereo image is so narrow it’s practically mono (*cough* “XY” *cough*). On top of that, some electronic instruments only give you a single mono output. Whatever the case is, sometimes you just need a bit more width (or a lot more). That’s where stereo wideners can come in handy. 

I’ll preface this by saying that I don’t use stereo wideners on every mix, only ones that benefit from it. Wideners can make an element lose punch and focus, or negatively affect the tone, so use wideners carefully, and always bypass it to check and make sure that the widened track sounds better than the un-widened track. That being said, these things can be seriously cool in the right context. My favorite use for stereo wideners is on mono electronic elements like synths, since they are already artificially generated there’s almost no risk of making it sound “unnatural”. If used more sparingly they can also bring life and excitement to practically anything, whether it’s electronic or acoustic in origin. I would recommend refraining from using it on low frequency elements under 100 Hz, because it can make your mix lose focus. Also be careful with it on lead vocals for the same reason, you generally want those dead center and laser focused (background vocals on the other hand can sound lovely with a little widening). 

Each one of these tools has been a game changer for my mixes. They take some time to learn and get used to, but once you overcome the learning curve, your mixes will be on a whole ‘nother level. I hope this blog post gave you some inspiration for your next project. Happy mixing!