The idea of mixing fast is not a new one – but it’s a smart one.
The longer you take on a mix, the less objective you become. This leads to making bad mix decisions.
That’s why I’m a fan of mixing quickly – especially if we’ve already set our mix up correctly.
In today’s video I’ll walk you through a mix I pulled together in about an hour and show you the four elements you need to cover in that time frame to go from raw tracks to mastered release!
Do Not Create Another Song Until You Read This Guide
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Discover the 6 Steps for Creating a Radio-Worthy Song From Scratch
My name is Graham Cochrane and I'm the founder of The Recording Revolution, one of the world's most loved audio recording and mixing blogs with over 200,000 readers each month. 
Love this approach.
This minimalism mindset, the understanding that all we do in mixing is BALANCE, really makes the music making process a lot more fun.
We just need to stop overthink things and get to work!
I’m actually at the peak of a mixing weekend!
Gonna take these important reminders and have some fun!
Thanks 🙂
P.S:
Graham, have you ever mixed a song like this, only to end up throwing that mix away and starting from scratch but without a time limit?
I actually have done the opposite. Mixed a song for 4+ hours – only to scratch it and mix it again in only one hour and with far fewer plugins. And it sounds better 🙂
Graham, This was a great two-part series! I don’t usually use a mix/sub-mix bus, saving the brightening/moving forward saturation for the mastering piece. But I see how that could be an advantage to keep it in the mixing process. Because in answer to your question, I do sometimes bounce back and forth from evaluating the master to making a few tweaks in the mix and then mastering again – and your approach could potentially reduce/eliminate some of those iterations. Thanks again for your great content – always a pleasure!
Glad you enjoyed it John! Oh – and great last name you have there 🙂
Graham – BTW I really like that song and artist! Can you share the song title, band/vocalist, and if/when it will be released?
“Country Wild” by Ridin’ Shotgun. Not released yet.
Hey Graham, thanks for your guidance in all its forms. I have an issue I haven’t seen you address in your videos thus far. I consistently find that when I track and mix I am inspired by what I’m hearing in the headphones–smooth EQ, balance, punch and clarity–but when I listen to the playback on the studio monitors it’s usually a different story: tending to be tinny/harsh with reduced separation and punch. So I spend a LOT of time trying to optimize (compromise?) the mix for the monitors and then various end-listener formats. I’ve done basic treatment to my home studio and have played with monitor placement and settings. I know the reference monitors should be “flat”, but how can I get the final mixed/mastered result to sound more like what I’m hearing in the phones? Getting from my cue mix to monitor mix to final format mix is my biggest hurdle. Thanks in advance for your suggestions! (Studio One 3 Pro, Presonus 1818VSL interface and Presonus Eris E8 monitors,Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones.)
I would take one headphone off of one ear, and compare how different your monitors are to the headphones, and then use the EQ adjustments on the E8’s to match as best you can. If you can’t get them to sound like your E8’s go to the store to get some monitors with a Ribbon tweeter instead. lol 🙂
Hi Brian – one thing to remember is that each speaker and pair of headphones sounds different. You will never get your monitors to sound like your headphones and vice versa. Plus you will never create a truly “flat” listening environment. No speakers are flat. And even if they are, no room is flat.
So that’s not the goal.
The goal is to get a good mix that sounds good on any playback device. To do this, I use reference tracks a lot so I know what a good mix should sound like on my speakers, in my room, etc.
Hi Graham,
I’ve taken ReThink Mixing, Top Down Mixing and other courses. What surprised me about this tutorial is that there was no group busses or parallel busses set-up to route the tracks to. Though, you did have a couple of “auxiliary tracks” for the guitars.
I was kind of expecting you to start on the mix bus, put EQ and compression on the group busses and parallel busses, and lastly treat the individual tracks, if needed. Has your approach changed since those courses? Are you mixing without group busses and parallel busses these days? I’m now very curious. Thanks!
It just depends on the song. Most of the time I use group tracks for each instrument type (Drums, Bass, Guitars, Keys, Vocals).
Mastering For -23 LUFS or -1 DBFS?
Now that we are all publishing to streaming services, there is a lot of discussion about mixing and mastering to loudness rather than peak level.
Broadcasters like youtube actually will reduce your level if higher than -23 DB integrated LUFS. Although some sites recommend mixing to a bit louder than that (~-18 LUFS)
I’ve found recently my mixes sit around this level before mastering even with the peak sitting between -5 to -6 dbFS.
What is the ideal thing to do here?
Should I still master as described, but then normalise to -23 DBFS (reducing the overall dynamic range but keeping the loudness approximately the same).. Or just ignore the whole LUFS scale.
I always try and master for an average loudness level, because two songs can have the same peak level but be completely different “real” volumes.
Thanks Graham,
As always a quick response with an answer that should be clear, but information overload can sometimes make confusing.
I just want to listen that song Graham.
🙂
Oh my my, I’ve been mixing for a year now. A veteran musician but just a noob to mixing. I’ve yet to really complete a song..there complete as far as lyrics and main guitar (im a guitarist) yet since I’ve nvr been able to add other elements myself (intill now) I spend so much time exploring and experimenting….As a matter of fact I started with the 6 steps on this particular song and lo n behold I’ve already added effects the limiter on the master buss, even done a s*#t load of automation and I’ve not even finished recording all the lyrics…I’m a sad case of a mixer I know.Especially knowing that I have the 6 steps to guide me..Under a hour u ask? Not me not yet..BUT this video has opened up my eyes n showed me what I’m really doing wrong…thanks u r appreciated…
AS an electronic musician, I found this an easy trap to fall into.
It actually sped my process up when I break down my composition and mixing into different steps (and sub steps of those components).
Glad to help!