Balance

Balance is focused on volume and panning.

Here is a list of things to look out for when trying to balance volume:

• that all the instruments/tracks can be heard.

• that the instrument carrying the melody sits on top of the mix.

• that the overall output doesn’t clip.

Things to consider when balancing panning:

• make use of the full stereo field (not just centre, hard left and hard right)

• have an even amount of tracks panned left and right.

• where you pan your parts within the stereo field replicate where instruments might be placed on a stage in a live setting (eg. vocals centre, snare slightly off to the right, keys hard left, lead guitar panned slightly left etc.)

Blend

How well your tracks blend together is affected by EQ, compression and reverb.

EQ allows for each instrument/part/track to have their own ‘space’ in the frequency spectrum. If you have two instruments with similar frequency ranges, without EQ, they will be competing for space and it might be difficult to hear them both clearly. By EQing them both slightly differently, the two instruments will heard clearer and they will blend much better in the mix.

Compression narrows the dynamic range of a signal. Without compression, the perceived levels of each track/instrument can vary massively and therefore, where the track may blend in well in one part of the recording, it may stick out in another part where the musician played a bit louder, for example. Applying compression keeps the individual tracks consistent in terms of volume and will therefore blend better in the mix.

Lastly, applying reverb can ‘fill in the gaps’ in your mix with reflections that give the impression of your mix being in a real life setting and make it seem as though all those instruments (that were probably recorded separately) were recorded at the same time, in the same room.