When it comes to mixing your song, there are a million different philosophies to take. Regardless, the goal is simple: bring all the tracks together to create one cohesive and inspiring piece of music. That can’t happen when tracks are fighting each other for space in the mix or when you don’t have a nice balance of low end to high end frequencies. That’s where EQ can come in to play for example.
But one of the simplest things you can do to speed up your you mix workflow and save yourself hours of frustration is to start taking things out of your mix. Either getting rid of certain musical elements in a part, or cutting a track entierely. Sounds crazy, but it works.
Via Dave Dugdale Flickr
Remember The MUTE Button
For some reason most of us think that if a track is in a session then it MUST be used in the mix. I’m sure it was recorded with great intentions to help the song, but honestly just not every part has to be included. In fact, actually familiarizing yourself with the almost forgotten MUTE button in your DAW will go a long way to helping you sculpt a better mix.
Listen through your session and start muting tracks one by one. Does the song lose something instantly? Or does it actually open up? Or can you not tell a difference? As a mixer you need to have a reason for every single musical element in the mix. If a part does not serve the song in some tangible way, mute that sucker! Seriously guys, don’t be afraid. The mute button is free, and it is your friend.
Eliminate For Dynamics
Another big reason to mix by subtraction, is to create a more interesting dynamic. If you have a keyboard part that sometimes ducks in and out of the song, your ear will pick up on it and it will create pockets of simplicity and then pockets of energy throughout the song. The most engaging and dynamic tracks are the ones that aren’t just static parts playing the entire time through.
So once you’re getting a good static sound in your mix, start to think about how you can automate or mute out certain tracks at certain parts of the song. Play around with different options and you’ll begin to hear the mix in a completely different light. Ultimately you want all the tracks to serve the main melody, lyric, or beat in some way, not just exist in the mix for the sake of being there.
Less Is Truly More
If you haven’t noticed already there is a trent here that less in a mix can truly be more. When you mix you want to keep things simple. One way to do that is to use fewer tracks in the recording phase. Another way is to have really thought out your arrangement before hand so every part has a purpose.
Just remember that in the adding of effects and automation in a mix, it’s important to actually subtract things so you can uncover the song itself that can sometimes be buried in a see of plugins.
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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. 
this post is particularly relevant in today’s world of the shortest attention spans in history. 😛
Another good post…valuable information here.
As an amateur attempting to mix a busy song I found that this mix subtraction technique to be extremely useful. Thanks
Yet another informative post Gramme. Love this site! While I personally love to break the rules and experiment-one should learn the rules before breaking them? And there is allot of great advise here. I listed to a PodCast-Sessions With Slau-the other night. He had MixerMan on as a guest. MixerMan is a well respected mixer that has a popular book out called Art And The Zen Of Mixing-I’m looking forward to picking it up. I personally am fascinated with the way contemporary DJ’s approach Mixing-they mix ‘on the fly’ and that too is a deep art form. Very freaken cool!.
Anywho-thanks again for a GREAT post dude!!!!!
As always, this is great advice!! I just wanted to drop a line and say how exciting it was to see two of your video tutorials featured at the AVID website (community.avid.com).
We are really proud of you my friend, that’s a big deal in my opinion!
Thanks for your hard work and may God continue to bless you in tremendous ways!
Thanks Luis – I’m honored and blessed that Avid finds my tutorials helpful to their community. Allows me to reach more people!
The more I learn the more I believe in the “Less is More” philosophy….
I experienced this first hand very recently. Had a mix where I knew something was horribly ‘wrong’ — couldnt put my finger on what exactly it was. Sent it to two friends who know enough to tell good from bad. One said that the ambience seemed a bit jarring, and the other suggested I knock off the strings (keys) as they were clashing with the vocals — similar frequencies seemingly fighting for space. So I killed the keys at every point where they overlapped with vocals and the mix opened up so much more and sounded awesome. This also addressed the jarring problem to a great extent. And the best part — without touching the vocal track, the vocals automatically began to shine and seem so much more up-front (in a good way!).
Great advice, as always!
Another great article, love them all. I’ve always had the “less is more” philosophy, 24 tracks is my hard limit, and I rarely get that far.
When I bought the newest Logic Pro 9, they include a couple of songs from famous artists, with all the tracks available so you can ‘remix’ and practice with them (not the full sends/buses/raw tracks, just basic tracks bounced down). I opened up ‘Spaceman’ by the Killers. I had heard the song before and I liked it, but I was shocked to see there were 80 tracks involved. 80!! I was looking at 3 or 4 different bass parts, percussion, etc… I started to mute tracks to see what difference they made to the song, most didn’t matter, and some you REALLY had to listen to tell a difference, but unless you were on my Adams A7s, I doubt you could tell.
That just reinforced my theory, I suppose if you don’t work a day job and it’s all you do and there’s a big budget involved, go for it. Just seemed like wasted effort. The song was not dragged down by all the extra tracks, but I didn’t think it really benefited from them either. The core of the song is good, (the most important thing), you could sit down with a singer and an acoustic guitar and it would be good.
Then I was reading some Sound on Sound articles with famous producers who deal with 140+ tracks for some songs… wow!! One did insist on having his helpers bounce down to under 100 tracks though… hahaha…
Less is more! Just listen to Red Chili Peppers, or Cake to realize that. 1 vox, 1 or 2 guitar tracks, 1 bass, just whats needed for drums and keys, and backup vocals sometimes, and they sound so clear and big! Less tracks can actually fill more space and sound ‘louder’ than huge-track productions.
Sorry for the long ramble, really love what you do here, thanks 🙂
Mike
love your site Graham. BTW have you done any articles on what a “good room” consists of? Thanks
Hmm. When you say good room, what are you referring to? Acoustics? Gear?