Acoustica User Forums

I recently watched Joe Gilder's latest YouTube video [on The Recording Revolution's channel]

Here, he advocates setting up two submix tracks - one for drums and bass and the other for 'Everything Else' and then mixing each individually, then blending the two. I thought this made sense as drums and bass are the foundation of most songs. Of course this has to be genre specific and dependent on your normal workflow; but I discovered a slight variation which works really well for me and my type of music.

I generally balance things as I progress in the production, but when it comes to the final mix, I tried this:

Mute the drums and the bass. Now we're dealing with mostly all the midrange instruments. Fine tune the volume and pans as required.

Then un-mute the drums and blend to taste.

Finally, un mute the bass and sit that in the mix.

I was really quite surprised on the last couple of my productions. They all needed fine adjustments and are now sounding a lot better.

Reason is (I think) is that if we mix 'all' together, the low end can get in the way and cloud our judgments.

Thanks for the tip. It is an approach to consider and experiment with.