Mix Prep Guide

It is common to record more audio than we actually need. In the end we might struggle to decide which parts to keep.

In such cases it can be tempting to leave the decisions to the mixing engineer.

Try to avoid that, or at least reduce it to a minimum.

If needed, take a few days off and revisit the song later. It may help to hear the arrangement with fresh ears.

Sometimes you can leave a handful of decisions to the mixer, as long as you trust their judgement as an arranger. But make sure you do the heavy lifting yourself. Complete composition, arrangement and production before sending the song off for mixing. That way, the mixer can focus on mixing and the result will be better.

Comping is the process of editing together the best parts of a performance.

If you have recorded several takes of a vocal or guitar part, make sure you select and stitch together the parts that you want to use, and exclude the rest from your delivery.

Unless specifically asked to do so, you should never leave the comping up to the mixing engineer.

If your drums need a pinch of quantizing or your vocals need some Melodyne, make it part of your production work. Especially if there are many vocal tracks. Don’t leave all the time- and pitch-correction work to the mixer. Jonas is a great Melodyner, but going through 30 vocal tracks is time-consuming and there will be less time left for actual mixing. If you are unsure, send one version of the lead vocal with Melodyne and one without. Same goes for Autotune.

Need a bit of editing to tighten up the timing of the instruments? Do it before sending your files off.

Melodyning a vocal.

Remove all unwanted background noise in-between your audio events. A good tip is to zoom in / enlarge the waveforms in your DAW to make sure you catch everything.

If necessary, apply fades to avoid clicks at your edit points.

Regarding breath noises: It is almost always a good idea to keep those in the lead vocal, but you can consider removing them in vocal overdubs and backing vocals.

Trimmed and faded audio clips.

Keep a watchful eye on the peak levels of your exported files, and make sure that audio signals are not too strong and not too weak. As a loose rule, try to keep the strongest peak levels of a track between -6 dBFS and -24 dBFS.

Jonas loves tracks that peak around -12 dBFS because he prefers the way many plugins respond to that. But don’t normalize all your tracks to -12 dBFS. Rather, keep your internal balances so that your exported files resemble your rough mix when played back with all faders at unity gain. Jonas can then choose to normalize to -12 dBFS because he can compensate with the track fader. That way your rough mix balances stay intact and Jonas will have a great starting point for mixing.

Let the mixing engineer know the tempo and key of the song.

Some producers prefer to stick a little ‘Readme’ text document in the delivery folder, with information like tempo, key and a few words about the intended sound and feel of the song.

Others will just include the tempo and key in the name of the delivery folder, like this:

By sorting and categorizing your tracks using clever file names, you make sure that everything lines up perfectly when Jonas imports your files.

Consider these file names:

This works great!

Because the first unique part of the filename is the number, Pro Tools will sort these tracks automatically on import.

The three-letter abbrevations (DRM for drums, BAS for bass, GTR for guitars) make it easy for Jonas to see which instrument group a track belongs to. Feel free to invent your own abbrevations, like STR for strings, VFX for vocal effects or PRC for percussion.

Lastly, make sure that the final part of the file name is descriptive. ‘Audio 1’ is not a good file name. ‘Electric Bass DI’ is.

When prepping a session for mix there is no definite right or wrong regarding plugin processing. Some people prefer to wipe all plugins that were used during recording and leave the mixer with a clean slate. Most producers, however, use various plugins to set the mood of the song and shape the sound of their production. In that case it doesn’t make sense to remove all processing only to have the mixer try to re-create it. Under those circumstances it is better to print your plugins to the audio files.

Note: Printing plugins is also sometimes referred to as ‘rendering’ or ‘committing’.

If you have tracks with big reverbs or delays you can consider printing them dry and adding 100% wet effects as separate tracks. This will give Jonas control of the wet/dry balance, which comes in handy especially if the track needs compression.

When it comes to the lead vocal, Jonas almost always prefers a dry track. In short: Print any pitch-correction but remove all other plugins. Include a copy of the fully processed vocal track too, for reference.

Some DAWs will automatically export all tracks as stereo audio files, regardless of their actual content.

If possible, make sure you configure your DAW to export the tracks in your project that you know for sure are mono, as mono audio files. This will save Jonas for some valuable time.

However, if you are unsure whether a track contains a mono or a stereo signal, export it as a stereo audio file.

And if you have no idea what this means, you can happily move on. Everything will be fine.

In the Save Copy In dialogue, Check ‘Audio Files’ under Items To Copy.

If your song has alternative takes stored in playlists and you know that these will not be needed, you can reduce the file size of the session by selecting ‘Main Playlist Only’. This may result in a faster upload.

Finally, select 24-bit, 48kHz WAV interleaved under Session Parameters. Press OK and save the duplicated session on your hard drive. Label it «Mix Prep».

Close this session, and open the duplicate.

The Save Copy In dialogue in Pro Tools.

If your music was recorded to a click track, make sure that the correct tempo is set in Pro Tools and that the audio corresponds to the grid.

The tempo and grid settings in Pro Tools.

Clean up the duplicated session by deleting any unneccessary tracks and clips.

Reduce the file size of the session by clearing any unused clips. In the Edit Window, press Shift+Command+U followed by Shift+Command+B. In the dialogue that appears, hold the Option key while pressing ‘Delete’.

The Clear Unused Clips dialogue in Pro Tools.

Use song markers to visualise the structure of the music. Give the markers names like INTRO, VERSE 1, PRE, CHORUS, BRIDGE, SOLO, etc. Use capital letters.

Song markers in Pro Tools.

You can order your tracks any way you like. However, please group similar tracks together so that all drums are next to each other, all guitars, all vocals and so on.

Jonas prefers the drums all the way to the left in the Mix View, basses next, then guitars, keyboards, synths and other instruments, sound effects and vocal effects, lead vocals, backing vocals and, to the far right, any reverb or delay returns.

Track order in Pro Tools.

Make sure that all tracks have clear labels. For example, Kick In, Kick Out, Snare Top, Snare Bottom, Rhythm Guitar Left, Distorted Piano, Bridge Vocal Dub, etc.

You can also use the comments sections to include information about microphones used or messages to the mixer, like «Melodyne printed to track», «please double-check the timing on this» or «not sure if this is needed».

Track labels and comments in Pro Tools.

Color-coded tracks in Pro Tools.

When prepping a session for mix there is no definite right or wrong regarding plugin processing. Some people prefer to wipe all plugins that were used during recording and leave the mixer with a clean slate. Most producers, however, use various plugins to set the mood of the song and shape the sound of their production. In that case it doesn’t make sense to remove all processing only to have the mixer try to re-create it. Under those circumstances it is better to keep the plugins active on your tracks, or print them to the audio files.

If you have tracks with big reverbs or delays you can consider printing them dry and adding 100% wet effects as separate tracks. This will give Jonas control of the wet/dry balance, which comes in handy especially if the track needs compression.

When it comes to the lead vocal, Jonas almost always prefers a dry track. In short: Print any pitch-correction but remove all other plugins. Include a copy of the fully processed vocal track too, for reference.

If you intend to keep your plugins active, contact Jonas to check which plugins he owns. If you have used any plugins that Jonas do not own, you will have to print those tracks.

To print a series of plugin instances on a track, right-click the last plugin in the chain, select Commit, and keep the original track as a hidden copy for reference.

Committing a series of plugin instances in Pro Tools.