Best Methods for Creating a Great Audio Mix

The difference between a fantastic piece of music and a mediocre one often has nothing to do with the actual melody or music itself. Often, one music tracks sounds much better than another simply because it has a professional final mix while the other has been sloppily recorded and thrown together without skill or experience. Creating a great mix is simply a matter of knowing what to do and the following tips will assist.

1. Always use the very best and cleanest recordings or samples to create your music track. Terrible recordings will only muddy up the mix and make it sound amateur and dull.

2. Cut separate areas for each instrument within the audio spectrum by using EQ. For example, keep the bass drum and bass guitar from getting muddy by cutting out all frequencies below 80Hz on the bass drum track.

3. Use at least some panning for most of the instruments to create a nice stereo field. Cymbals, percussion, and strings sound great panned though the bass drum and bass guitar and usually kept center field.

4. Give each instrument some power by learning and using compression. Without any compression, individual tracks feel limp and weak.

5. Find favorite CDs in the same genre as your track and compare it to yours. If your track doesn’t sound as good, or has too much bass for example, then figure out why and fix the issue.

6. Let your track achieve maximum loudness by employing a limiter on the final mix which smushes down the highest peaks and allows you bring up the whole mix.

After you’ve mixed down to CD, play your fresh new track in a variety of speaker systems to make sure it holds up in all listening environments.