Great advice from The Recording Revolution.
There are an infinite number of paths to achieve a good mix, but I completely agree with mixing without plugins (until later in the process).
A quick list of my process:
Monitor in Mono until further notice!
1. Assemble the tracks. Edit each for time, tuning, level (per section, phrase, or even note).
Balance the tracks with one another using a gain control, not the channel fader. This is the same whether mixing in the box or on a console (it's usually called input trim on a console). If your software doesn't have a gain control as the first think in a channel strip, add one as your first plugin. SONAR has had this smart feature for a long, long time.
2. Solo the vocals. Set them to average about -20 to -15 on the master output, depending on how many tracks are playing in the mix. More tracks mean that the vocals should start lower, to allow for headroom in the final mix.
3.Balance the drums against the main vocal. Start with the snare, bring up the kick, hat (there's never too little high hat in a mix...) toms, overheads, room mics, etc. until the drums complement the vocals.
Pan the instruments even as you monitor in mono. Trust me on this.
4. Balance the bass with the vocal and drums.
5. Add background and double vocals, guitars, keyboards, etc. Again, balance the mix with gain controls and pan while monitoring in mono. I tend to use mono tracks for everything, except for truly stereo things like drum overheads, and to hard pan Left, Center or Right - anything else decreases spaciousness and puts the stereo image of the mix in a box.
6. Bounce a mix in mono. Listen on various speakers and headphones. Right now is when you can start making decisions on further tracking, track editing, and balance.
7. Make a bus for each instrument group, assigning vocals to the vocal bus, drums to the drum bus, etc., and a bus for each reverb, delay, etc., that you want to tracks. Depending on the style, bring in a little room sound (I use Reverberate to host IRs of appropriate rooms) and reverb (often UAD EMT-140) on all tracks to taste. A little bit of tape delay on a bus, can make important tracks shine.
7. Apply appropriate compression per track or bus to tame tracks or groups of instruments. Which one you use and how hard you push it depends on the style of music, etc.
8. Add specialty effects per bus, track, section, or note.
9. Bounce a mix in stereo. Make panning and level adjustments and bounce another.
I guarantee that at this point (and this process minus the editing, depending on the number of tracks, shouldn't take more than 10-20 minutes) the mix will be most of the way done. if you paid attention to balancing the tracks, the master fader should average at around -9 to -6, with peaks getting nowhere near 0. You can add a compressor to taste on the master bus, but be careful. Check the mix with a limiter plugin to see how the mix survives rough limiting, but never print this to send to mastering (rough mixes for artists and labels might need this, but again, be careful).
A quick list of my process:
Monitor in Mono until further notice!
1. Assemble the tracks. Edit each for time, tuning, level (per section, phrase, or even note).
Balance the tracks with one another using a gain control, not the channel fader. This is the same whether mixing in the box or on a console (it's usually called input trim on a console). If your software doesn't have a gain control as the first think in a channel strip, add one as your first plugin. SONAR has had this smart feature for a long, long time.
2. Solo the vocals. Set them to average about -20 to -15 on the master output, depending on how many tracks are playing in the mix. More tracks mean that the vocals should start lower, to allow for headroom in the final mix.
3.Balance the drums against the main vocal. Start with the snare, bring up the kick, hat (there's never too little high hat in a mix...) toms, overheads, room mics, etc. until the drums complement the vocals.
Pan the instruments even as you monitor in mono. Trust me on this.
4. Balance the bass with the vocal and drums.
5. Add background and double vocals, guitars, keyboards, etc. Again, balance the mix with gain controls and pan while monitoring in mono. I tend to use mono tracks for everything, except for truly stereo things like drum overheads, and to hard pan Left, Center or Right - anything else decreases spaciousness and puts the stereo image of the mix in a box.
6. Bounce a mix in mono. Listen on various speakers and headphones. Right now is when you can start making decisions on further tracking, track editing, and balance.
7. Make a bus for each instrument group, assigning vocals to the vocal bus, drums to the drum bus, etc., and a bus for each reverb, delay, etc., that you want to tracks. Depending on the style, bring in a little room sound (I use Reverberate to host IRs of appropriate rooms) and reverb (often UAD EMT-140) on all tracks to taste. A little bit of tape delay on a bus, can make important tracks shine.
7. Apply appropriate compression per track or bus to tame tracks or groups of instruments. Which one you use and how hard you push it depends on the style of music, etc.
8. Add specialty effects per bus, track, section, or note.
9. Bounce a mix in stereo. Make panning and level adjustments and bounce another.
I guarantee that at this point (and this process minus the editing, depending on the number of tracks, shouldn't take more than 10-20 minutes) the mix will be most of the way done. if you paid attention to balancing the tracks, the master fader should average at around -9 to -6, with peaks getting nowhere near 0. You can add a compressor to taste on the master bus, but be careful. Check the mix with a limiter plugin to see how the mix survives rough limiting, but never print this to send to mastering (rough mixes for artists and labels might need this, but again, be careful).
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