Dinosaur Dog Studio Presents:

The Objective Mix

How To Mix Pro Songs Without Pro Gear Or Premium Plugins

By Tyson Boorman
 This book is dedicated to my son, Silas.

I pray that you’ll create a life that’s not limited by your own insecurities, but grows with your
character by doing difficult things.
Introduction
This book exists for 3 reasons.

Reason #1: To get you fast wins with your mixes using my proprietary mixing process so
you’re able to sit down to mix your next song with confidence.

Reason #2: So that you’ll tell your friends about this book because of reason #1.

Reason #3: To provide you with so much value that it will be undeniable that I can help
you implement these systems and processes into your own mixing through other offers
that I have available.

With these three reasons in mind, I’m going to be fully transparent and attempt to help you in
the most meaningful and effective ways that I know how to help you achieve a professional mix
for your music.

First, I want to help you understand where your mixes are today and where you are in your
mixing journey. This will help you focus on what next steps you need to take to improve your
mixes to the industry standard quickly, instead of waiting for a decade like I did to learn this
craft.

I’ll also cover the most common mistakes and misconceptions that may be holding you back in
your mixing journey, as there are many treacherous paths that the artist or producer may find
themselves in when they aren’t careful while trying to learn this complex mixing skill. You’ll be
able to fly by these common pitfalls to accelerate your growth to the industry standard in a
fraction of the time it takes most aspiring mixers.

Second, I want to explain why the mixing method in this book is the most effective mixing
framework out there for anybody looking to get industry standard results with their mixes.

Last, we’ll take a step by step walkthrough of how to implement this mixing system and how to
apply the principles that we learned in part 1.

The main points of this book can be easily summed up with the following simple points.

#1: There is an objective reality of what the “industry standard” is. This is based in our
biology and is universal for every human who can hear. Similar to music theory, it’s
important to learn these fundamental objective rules before attempting to chart your own
course in the mixing process.

This point was especially valuable to one of my students, a professional musician and
guitar instructor, who struggled for over 20 years with inconsistent mixes until he grasped
 the objective side of mixing and now consistently produces industry level mixes and
masters with every song.

#2: Why this mixing process is the most effective way to mix a song, and will not only
make your songs sound professional, but allow you to spend only 3 hours per mix, and
have a definitive end-point to your mixing process - completely destroying any chance of
analysis paralysis in your mixing process.

For example, I helped an EDM producer, Brian, reduce his time mixing from 12 hours per
song to around 3 hours per mix, saving him an entire 8 - 9 hours per song that he
produced.

#3: The best method to mix your songs, called the Objective Mixing Framework (OMF).
Inside this book we’ll be doing an entire overview and walkthrough of this method so you
can take this and use it in your mixes while you're reading this book, and see your mix
transform before your eyes into a far more polished, professional mix than you thought
possible from a book.

My sincere hope is that your entire mindset will shift in how you view your mixes and masters
through these pages. I’ve spent over half of my life learning about how to produce, record, mix
and master audio - and I’ve found the most joy through sharing what I’ve learned with others.

This book contains all the key moments and breakthroughs that I experienced over the last 16
years of mixing music. I hope this book allows you to bypass all of the testing, trial and error that
I endured to learn this skill.

After this book, you will no longer be confused when you sit down to mix your next song, but you
will be confident you know exactly what to do and when. You’ll be able to fly through your mix
and have it sounding like industry songs in just a few hours and dedicate the rest of your time to
producing more awesome music, chilling with your fam, or freeing up ample time to promote the
music you’ve just finished.

If you want help knowing if you’re implementing this process correctly, you can get
personalized feedback on your mixes here from myself and others familiar with the OMF
at the link below. You’ll also get access to additional example mixes and tutorials on how
to implement the framework found in this book:

www.ObjectiveMixersCircle.com
Part 1: You Are Here

Chapter 1: The Problem

If you’ve spent hundreds (or thousands) of hours on YouTube watching mixing tutorials,
thousands more producing and mixing your own music, and you’re still not able to produce your
music at an industry quality, the natural question becomes “why”?

Why aren’t you producing music at a professional level even though you’ve spent so much time
doing it?

Why are your masters still so quiet compared to the professional masters you’re referencing?

If you’re not producing music at a professional level, there must be something missing… right?

Many clients I’ve helped have started out with massive levels of frustration. They’ve spent 10
hours mixing each and every song for the last 2 years, and yet they still have yet to reach that
‘pro sound’.

Even after consuming more and more tips and tricks from YouTube, their mixes just get more
complex, rather than easier and instead of increasing quality - their mixes seem to be getting
worse! This is the death of many aspiring mixers. They know enough to get themselves into the
Fire Swamp, but not enough to make it safely to the other side.

If any of this resonates, you probably suffer from one, or multiple of these aspects in your mixes.

● Mixes that don’t translate to other listening environments.

● Lack of depth.
● Lack of definition.
● Harsh mixes.
● Muddy mixes.
● Creating clarity but sacrificing warmth and fullness in the mix.
● Lack of consistency across multiple mixes.
● The mix sounds inconsistent across different listening environments.
● Lack of separation and clarity in the mix.
● Unfocused and weak low-end.
● A mix that sounds unbalanced.
● Mixes that sound “overblown”.

If any of these points describes your mix, then you’re in the right spot. We’ll be tackling all of
these and more in the coming chapters.
But first, I need to cover why these problems exist to begin with to free your mind to grasp the
concepts in this book. Often, it is easier to identify what’s not correct first to uncover the true
principles we can take to the bank. There are 3 major misconceptions that haunt mixers still
coming up.

Misconception #1: You need pro gear to produce industry quality music.
Ah! You probably saw this one coming! This is hands-down the most over-emphasized and most
contentiously debated topic in mixing. Which limiter is the best for mastering pop tracks? Do you
need an analog signal chain to master music? Do you need an 1176 compressor for pro vocals?
Is it better than the LA2A? Does the plugin version work as well as the analog?

If the prior paragraph was just jargon-filled nonsense to you, don’t worry - you’re in good
company. And the best part is you may have just avoided the biggest waste of energy and
money in your life.

There are 5 reasons to purchase pro gear like analog equipment or the plugin-equivalent of
famous gear that you see all the top producers using.

1. It makes people feel validated as a “good” or “pro” mixer, because who in their right mind
spends $5,200 on digital to audio converters unless they were legit?
2. It makes people feel cool when using it.
3. It makes the neighbor jealous, who is an aspiring audio engineer.
4. They don’t have a stock equivalent of that particular tool, such as a clipper or frequency
analyzer.
5. It makes their workflow more efficient. An example of this is VocAlign, a plugin used to
align multiple takes of a vocal so less manual editing is needed.

Although I like #2, the only legitimate reasons to invest in premium gear is #4 and #5. The
number of plugins that various DAWs actually lack nowadays is tremendously slim, which really
just leaves us with #5 - to make your mixing workflow more efficient.

While this piece of advice, “get pro equipment!”, comes from well-meaning engineers that
remember the “good ol’ days” before music was made on a computer, it often lacks the
awareness of modern technology and how far we’ve come in the last 25 years with digital audio
processing.

For example, Phineas Eilish, Billie Eilish’s brother and producer, produced and mixed her very
first song, “Ocean Eyes”, with only stock sounds and plugins from Logic Pro X.

If 18-year-old Phineas can mix a song worthy of being an industry hit with only stock plugins,
why can’t you?
Misconception #2: It takes years to learn to mix at an industry level.
There was a kid by the name of Zach Hambrick, who has gone on to become one of the
world-leading researchers on the science of learning.

He got his start, however, from golf.

You see, while Zach was growing up all he wanted was to become a pro golfer. He spent night
after night at the driving range and putting greens honing his golf game. He expected that by
10,000 hours of hard, dedicated practice he would finally be a world-leading pro golfer. But,
while he was more dedicated to the sport than any of his peers, his peers could still out-golf him.
In the end, Zach didn’t even excel enough to play golf at the collegiate level, let alone on the
professional circuit.

Depressing, hey?

But it doesn’t have to be.

You see, Zach’s inherent flaw to understanding how to learn was based on one simple facet:
doing. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s important to get your “time under the bar” with whatever skill
you’re working on - but it can’t be everything.

If Zach had sought out a coach that could give him feedback as he practiced, he could have
shaved off thousands of hours from his learning curve. If he was practicing with a poor grip on
his club, no amount of time spent doing it wrong was going to help. He simply needed an
outside perspective to identify what flaw existed, and quickly correct it. All Zach was doing was
making his flawed approach to the game more permanent the more he practiced the game.

As one of my old teachers, Mr. Gillespi, used to say, “Practice does not make perfect, practice
makes permanent.” In other words, the longer you do something incorrectly, the more difficult it
will be to change your habits to do it correctly in the future. This is where you see an old
engineer who has been making the same mixing mistakes that he made in 1990 - and still can’t
produce great mixes.

Misconception #3: You need advanced strategies, tactics, and techniques to achieve an
industry quality mix.
Now, I haven’t heard as many people say this outright, but I’ve seen enough people living as
though this were true that I feel I couldn't pass over this point.

This is the biggest trap in getting stuck on YouTube for hours on end. We believe that we are
just missing that “one mixing secret” that will unlock industry standard mixes for us. But then we
find out there are a million tips and tricks that contradict one another. One person says to
always use side-chain compression on your kick and bass, another person says to never use
side-chain compression on your kick and bass… who’s right?
In reality, they can both be correct in the right context. Neither person is talking about the
underlying principles of what is occurring when you’re using side-chain compression vs. EQ to
separate your kick and bass. Humans and apes peel bananas differently, but the objective is still
achieved: removing the peel to eat the gooey center.

Chapter Summary:

Misconception #1: You need pro gear to produce industry quality music.
Professional quality does not depend on high-end gear. Even hits like Billie Eilish's "Ocean
Eyes" were produced using only stock plugins from Logic Pro X. Premium gear is reserved for
1) plugins that you don’t already have in stock, 2) anything that makes your mixing or mastering
process more efficient.

Misconception #2: It takes years to learn to mix at an industry level.

Effective learning and practice determine skill level. A methodical, focused approach can
significantly reduce your learning curve, and it’s not just about time spent mixing.

Misconception #3: You need advanced strategies, tactics, and techniques to achieve an
industry quality mix.
There is no one “secret” to industry quality mixes. Mastering mixing is about understanding the
underlying principles of mixing, and then applying them correctly in the mix.

Chapter 2: The Origin & Who This Book Is For

The moment that I started my journey to truly mixing and mastering at a pro level wasn’t the
most glamorous. I had been struggling to get new clients for my newly formed “studio”, and was
struggling to even get free work from friends.

At this point, one of my mentors gave me advice that I will never forget.

“If you can’t get paid work - try free work. And if you can’t get free work, you’re not as good as
you think.”

And I couldn’t get free work…

In other words - I sucked at mixing and mastering.

This realization was a slap in the face for what I saw myself as. I wanted so badly to be pro, that
I spent all my time pretending I was better than I actually was. This humbling moment was the
one thing that allowed me the mental space to finally make the changes necessary in my mixing
to start learning how to mix at a pro level.
I started reaching out to producers, mixing and mastering engineers - anyone I could get into
contact with who was involved in music in any capacity. After talking with hundreds of audio
professionals, I finally understood what I was missing in my understanding of mixing.

There were a few critical threads that were brought up again, and again. I realized that these
threads must be the key to professional mixing if everyone was doing it.

This is where the objective mixing framework (OMF) was born. I realized that nobody talks
about these underlying principles of audio because most engineers stumble upon it with trial
and error without realizing it. They spend years honing their skill with practical experience and
then intuitively start checking off the boxes of the objective mixing framework within their work.
The only reason I was able to document it was from accessing hundreds of audio engineers that
slowly revealed the truth behind the question: “What makes a song sound industry quality?”

After learning these principles I felt I needed to help other struggling artists and producers just
like myself avoid thousands of hours slogging through sets of multitracks deep into the night like
they are red vines on a road trip when there was a better way to learn mixing.

If you’re an artist, and you want to be able to produce Spotify-worthy mixes for yourself and
reach your specific artistic vision of your project, this book is for you.

If you’re an aspiring producer, and want to get to a pro level as fast as possible to start offering
mixing services to clients - this book is for you.

Or if you’re a hobbyist artist that just wants to create music that you’re proud of without
spending thousands of dollars getting your songs mixed by someone else - this book is also for
you.

And last, if you simply want to have confidence that when you sit down to mix your next song, it
will have that industry-standard quality and feel, this book is for you.

The beauty of the objective mixing framework is that it works for everyone, everywhere. It’s not
limited to a specific genre or style of mixing, nor a specific trend or tactic. You can use analog
gear with a $1,000,000 studio, or just your laptop with a simple pair of headphones.

Sounds too good to be true?

Keep reading to understand the Objective Mixing Framework (OMF), but also how it will be your
key to breaking through your current mixing plateau - or skipping the plateau entirely.

But before we can dive into the rest of the book, I’d like you to understand where you are at with
your mixing process. How professional do your songs sound today?
Complete the self-assessment below, rating yourself between a 1: not at all confident, to 5:
100% confident with various aspects of your mixes.

1. I am 100% confident that my volume balance matches the pros.

a. Not Confident - (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) - 100% Confident
2. I can always get the tones I want out of the various tracks in my mixes.
a. Not Confident - (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) - 100% Confident
3. My mix translates across any sound system I play it on.
a. Not Confident - (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) - 100% Confident
4. My tracks never feel flat or lifeless.
a. Not Confident - (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) - 100% Confident
5. My mixes have depth.
a. Not Confident - (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) - 100% Confident
6. I can use anybody’s gear, computer, or plugins to get an equally professional mix.
a. Not Confident - (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) - 100% Confident
7. I always finish mixes within 3 hours.
a. Not Confident - (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) - 100% Confident

Now add up your score. Here is what your score means.

6 - 16: You need to work on the fundamentals of mixing. You are still struggling to grasp the
broad movements of where you’re going in your mix. The biggest areas for you to focus on in
this stage is volume balancing your mix and utilizing mix references when you’re mixing.

17 - 28: You’re likely stuck in the intermediate plateau. You’ve grasped the basics of how to
utilize the mixing tools, but have yet to learn how to apply these tools in the right contexts. You
need to understand the principles of audio deeper in this stage. Individuals in this area will likely
benefit most from simplifying their mixing workflow and making it more consistent. Try focusing
on the big picture of your mix, rather than the small decisions on individual tracks. Most
individuals in this area are solely focused on the individual elements, not how they relate to one
another within the mix.

29 - 35: You’re able to produce pro results with your mixes. Congratulations! If you don’t think
this is true, then you may want to reconsider your answers and be honest with yourself. But if it
is accurate, then you will benefit most from becoming more efficient with your mixing workflow.
This is the stage where you can start to experiment with different types of gear or plugins to see
what gives you the sound you’re going for the fastest.

Interlude:
In the coming chapters, I’m going to be discussing the high-level overview and reasons why the
Objective Mixing Framework is effective in producing consistent, professional results when
applied correctly. I’ll also cover how to approach the workflow and rules that I follow to get
industry quality results.
If this overview and groundwork doesn’t appeal to you or you just have a mix that you need to
finish ASAP, then feel free to skip ahead to Part 3 of this book to see the full workflow and
application of the OMF in a real mixing scenario.

Let’s dive into the next chapter, about the problems that you encounter as a mixer, and how the
Objective Mixing Framework solves these problems.

Chapter 3: The Problems, And How To Solve Them With Objective Mixing
I’m actually a little embarrassed at how long it took me to grasp this mixing skill, and how much
faster I could have done this with a good teacher and the framework found in this book.

Today, I mix and master projects that get consistent, industry quality results. I usually reserve
my services for clients of my production studio, Nightowl Music Group.

To learn more about what we’re doing at Nightowl Music Group, you can learn more by visiting:
NightowlMusicGroup.com

The point I want to make is these are the lessons that made the above results possible. You
need top-notch, pro quality production to guarantee 100,000+ streams on a first release (one of
our offered services at NMG). The struggles and hard-won lessons below will shave off years of
your learning curve if you take them to heart.

Next, I want to cover the core problems that mixers face on their road to industry quality mixes,
in order to help you bypass these common roadblocks in your mixes to give you massive, fast
wins with this book’s knowledge.

Problem #1: “Use Your Ears”

I’m sure you’ve had this experience:

You’re working on a song that you’re really excited about.

You start after dinner, around 7:00, and you dive headfirst into your mix.

As 9:00 roles around, you’re trying to figure out your drum bus compression. No matter what
you do, it still seems like your drums are lifeless and mundane.

11:00 roles around and you’re still messing with the mix. Bringing each item up and down to
figure out where the volume balance went haywire around 10:15…

12:30 AM and you finally throw in the towel for the night. You think all your vocal effects are
vibing, but you’re just not quite sure about anything anymore.
8:00 AM you wake up and dive back into the mix, to try and ‘tweak it just a little’ before you have
to head into work… You pull up the session and hit play…

And it sounds harsh, “tinny”, lacking all warmth and - where did the low-end go???

The mix sounds 100% different than it did last night. How can it sound so different? You’re using
the same setup as last night…

This all-too-common occurrence of losing your objectivity in mixing is the pandemic that’s been
afflicting mixers for decades but never hits the headlines. Our ears and perception of sound is
so easily fooled. Our ears are anything but objective even with years of ear-training.

How can you get around your own biology, especially if you haven’t been mixing long enough to
train your ears?

The answer: measuring sticks.

Why does a meter exist? I’m talking about the length, one meter.

It exists to allow multiple people to reference a common measurement for translating

information, ideas, and plans. How would building a house work if you didn’t have any
measurements, only a simple drawing with no objective measurements associated with the
drawing? It would be about as useful as a canvas painting of a house, versus actual plans that
someone could use to build a house.

Many experienced mixers will scoff at this “peasantly behavior” of using any meters while
mixing. They are commonly caught on youTube spouting their propaganda of “you need to use
your ears!”

While I agree, “using your ears” is the best strategy if you have decades of mixing under your
belt, it’s more challenging to the beginner or intermediate mixer who still can’t relate a specific
frequency to anywhere on the frequency spectrum. This also assumes your ears are always
100% objective when mixing, which we now know is false. We begin losing objectivity in our mix
from the moment we hit play for the first time.

Why do we lose objectivity when mixing?

Our brain is designed to sort through all the information that we’re taking in and sort it into two
basic buckets of “useful” and “not useful”. If we didn’t have these innate filters everyone would
fall apart in high-sensory environments like a club with millions of lights and sounds. Your brain
is protecting itself from unnecessary information that takes up brainpower for more useful
activities.
Once you hit play on the tracks you’re mixing, your brain starts to normalize the environment it’s
in. Your raw mix becomes your new baseline of what’s normal - and therefore all its flaws are
also incorporated into your new baseline of what a song is too.

This is also why professional monitoring is helpful, but not 100% necessary when mixing or
mastering. For example, my student, Brian, was able to take this framework and produce pro
mixes all on headphones - with no outboard monitoring which you’ll find countless YouTube
producers saying outboard monitors are 100% necessary.

There are several other strategies that are utilized in the Objective Mixing Framework to help
this loss of objectivity that we’ll be covering later in this book, but metering is #1 on the list to
protect yourself from ruining your own mix with your filter-crazy brain.

Complete the self-assessment below, rating yourself between a 1: not at all confident, to 5:
100% confident with the objectivity of your mixing.

1. I finish my mix within 3 hours to ensure my ears are still objective by the end of the mix.
a. Not Confident - (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) - 100% Confident
2. I have objective measures to ensure my mix is correctly balanced, even if my ears are
tired and I don’t trust them.
a. Not Confident - (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) - 100% Confident
3. I always use references when mixing & I’m confident I know how to use them effectively
in my mixing workflow.
a. Not Confident - (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) - 100% Confident
4. My mixes always sound better than I expect after taking a break.
a. Not Confident - (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) - 100% Confident
5. I think my mixes still sound pro 1 year after mixing them.
a. Not Confident - (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) - 100% Confident
6. I always have an end goal in mind when mixing, and reach that specific goal every time.
a. Not Confident - (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) - 100% Confident

Now add up your score. Here is what your score means:

6 - 16: You are still struggling with the overall goal of mixing. Make sure you pay extra attention
to Chapter 6 which will give you the end goal of what creates a pro mix. Work on building a plan
for yourself before you start mixing - know what you want the song to sound like, and keep that
vision in place as you work throughout your mix.

17 - 28: Some of the basics are coming easier to you, yet it’s still difficult to have consistent
mixes that translate everywhere. Your mixes are hit-or-miss because you’re getting sidetracked
during the mixing process with unnecessary strategies or analysis. This is eating up valuable
time where you’re losing objectivity and can’t finish your mix quickly enough. Adopting the
workflow in Part 3 is going to dramatically improve your mixes through a consistent approach
that ensures every aspect of your mix is covered.

29 - 35: You’re on the right track! If you’re not quite getting the results you want, you likely just
need more practice mixing. Find a consistent workflow so you can improve it over time. Your
biggest areas of improvement will likely come from more practice mixing. Make sure you’re
following a consistent workflow to improve over time.

Problem #2: Complexity Is The Enemy Of Professional

All too often, as we start to dive into the world of mixing audio, we find that our initial
progression is through education on platforms like YouTube. It can be incredibly helpful to figure
out our first basic mixing techniques to level up our mixes quickly. We learn a few tricks to help
us EQ our vocals better, and we’re off to the races with better sounding mixes!

The darkside of this strategy is after we master these initial techniques, we think we need more
and more advanced techniques to level up our mixes again. We seek out more advanced tips
and tricks and find the top producers on YouTube to see how many limiters they’re using on
their mastering chain to see if 5 limiters was enough!!

This never-ending thirst for more knowledge costs our mixes dearly in making them overly
complex. This is the #1 reason the “intermediate plateau” exists or, worse yet, the “intermediate
decline” where the more we learn - the worse our mixes become. I produced one of the worst
mixes I ever produced 6 years into my journey. I had learned too much and was trying to
implement all the advanced techniques I could into a single mix… And it backfired big time.

This was the low-point of my mixing journey. Having spent 10 years trying to get better at this
skill that was kicking my butt, I couldn’t imagine continuing to beat my head against the wall
when my mixes were so clearly declining.

This was when I discovered a pillar that was a cornerstone of the Objective Mixing Framework.
After studying with Grammy winners and talking shop with hundreds of producers, mixing, and
mastering engineers, I realized that most pros don’t use advanced techniques. They only use
them in the most rare of circumstances when they need that tiny change to squeak out the last
1% from a mix.

It was mind-blowing to me when I saw a professional mixing session from a grammy-nominated

engineer, and he didn’t have a single plugin on his guitar tracks in the song - not even an EQ!!

At most, there were maybe 4-5 plugins on any one track, while my mixes had a minimum of 7
plugins per track, doing everything from stereo-widening to mid-side EQ. Techniques that were
actually degrading my mix over time, instead of enhancing it like I thought.

Another way of saying this: the most advanced mixers never don’t do the basics.
One thing that helped me understand this concept was a collegiate basketball coach in the 60’s
and 70’s, John Wooden. Wooden had the best record of any collegiate coach in the 20th
century. He won the NCAA title 10 of the 12 years he was head coach of the UCLA basketball
team.

The crazy part isn’t his record - which is indeed incredible - but the method to his coaching was
found at the beginning of each and every season. On the very first practice each year, Coach
Wooden would teach his players how to tie their shoes.

Yup - you read that right. How to tie your shoes was the very first lesson he taught his players.

It wasn’t advanced plays or shooting techniques.

It wasn’t free-throws.

It wasn’t even dribbling the ball.

It was all about the basics, the fundamentals. Because Wooden knew that if he could get his
players to master the basics of the game, they would be able to win championships.

Why does mastering the basics lead to winning championships?

Charlie Munger is well known for saying, “All I want to do is find out where I will die, and never
go there.”

In other words - his main goal for his life was avoiding stupidity.

If we avoid making these fundamental mistakes in our mixes - then we will have a great mix by
default.

Complete the self-assessment below, rating yourself between a 1: not at all confident, to 5:
100% confident with the fundamentals of mixing.

1. I can mix a song to sound like a real song without plugins.

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
2. I do not rely on any specific gear to mix. I could use all stock plugins or only premium
plugins with equally professional results.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
3. I know exactly how to create depth in my mix, and every mix I produce has depth.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
4. I can hear every element clearly in my mixes.
 (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
5. After my mixes are mastered, there is virtually no difference in quality between my mixes
and my reference mixes.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Now add up your score. Here is what your score means:

5 - 13: You do not understand the basics of how to utilize Volume, EQ, Compression & Reverb
in your mix. Avoid watching any ‘tips & tricks’ videos on YouTube, as you need a singular focus
on the fundamentals of mixing until you gain confidence and competency. Make an extra effort
to pay attention to Part 3, chapters (7-16). This is the first 90% of your mix and how to make
your mix sound pro right from the start.

14 - 22: You have some basic understanding of the mixing basics, but still need time to refine
your skills. Avoid YouTube tutorials and make 99% of your mixing practice working through a
consistent workflow and only using the most basic tools to refine your mixing skills. Avoid any
advanced techniques, as these will simply hinder your growth in mixing.

23 - 25: You have a solid grasp of the mixing basics. Feel free to utilize advanced techniques
and other creative input to your mixes, but you’ve probably already recognized that these were
never needed to produce professional mixes in the first place. Your next steps are likely to build
a consistent workflow that speeds up your mixing process with Part 3.

Problem #3: Fast, But Slow

One of the key attributes of professional mixers is that they are able to mix rapidly, making the
necessary changes to a set of tracks to blend, separate, glue, and balance tracks as needed
without wasting unnecessary time.

The problem with trying to mix quickly is many find themselves making massive moves in their
mix right away - cutting, boosting and compressing by 6db or more with their EQ’s and
compressors.

This dramatic response to trying to mix quickly ends up with an overly warm, muddy, harsh, or
‘tinny’ mix.

Oftentimes we want to hear the difference a certain move makes in our mix right away, but
mixing is an art of small, incremental changes in the right direction. You may find the right
moves are difficult to hear until you’ve trained your ears more. But you can have faith you're still
moving in the right direction nonetheless.

To put this clearly, without guidelines or rules that you place on yourself when you mix, you risk
overmixing by default, rather than reigning in your innate desire to make big changes that give
you dopamine-soaked rewards in your brain.
This desire to “do something”, which is rooted in our own insecurity about mixing, can have the
same result as making dramatic moves with our EQ’s. Just because there is a slot for a plugin -
doesn’t mean a plugin is needed. You don’t NEED to compress everything in your mix, or EQ
everything in your mix either. Mixing is more akin to using photoshop on your photos than
painting a painting. The photo is already there, you’re just here to make it ‘pop’.

Another analogy that I like to use is comparing a mixing engineer to a personal trainer. The mix
is your client, and your job is to make them the best version of themselves as they can be.
You’re not changing the person. You’re helping them achieve their highest physical potential,
whatever that means to them. It could be they just want to lose a little weight, become the next
body-building champion, or an olympic weightlifter. But inherently you can’t change who the
person (or the song) is at their core. Beginner and intermediate mixers are often found bringing
chainsaws to their training sessions, hacking limbs off their clients in order to get them to fit their
idea of what the song should be - instead of who they already are.

Chapter Summary:

Problem #1: "Use Your Ears"

The brain filters and normalizes sounds, causing initial impressions to change over time. Using
meters and objective measures can prevent over-reliance on subjective hearing, which can be
deceptive.

Problem #2: Complexity Is The Enemy of Professional

Early success with basic techniques often leads to an overreliance on increasingly complex
methods. This complexity can degrade the quality of mixes, creating a plateau or decline in
mixing skills. Mastering mixing fundamentals will allow you to mix industry quality songs by
default.

Problem #3: Fast, But Slow

Attempting to mix quickly with large adjustments often results in unbalanced and poor-quality
mixes. Mixing should enhance the original track, not change it.

Complete the self-assessment below. This time, the scale is 1 - Disagree, or 5 - Strongly Agree.

1. I keep my compression to less than 3db of gain reduction per compressor.

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
2. I never boost or cut more than 3db with EQ.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
 3. The majority of my tracks or buses have less than 4 plugins.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
4. I A/B changes I make in the mix with my eyes closed.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
5. I feel confident in my mixing skill and ability to know when I’m overmixing my songs.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Now add up your score. Here is what your score means:

5 - 14: You are guilty of grossly overmixing your songs. You may be guilty of making huge
changes in your mix because you can’t ‘hear’ the change happening, or you are mixing from
your ego and making changes because you think it’ll make your mix sound more professional
due to your insecurity about mixing in general. Make sure you follow the rules outlined in
Chapter 6 to stop getting in your own way when you’re mixing.

15 - 22: You’ve learned to rein yourself in some ways during your mix, but probably still struggle
with feeling the need to make changes on every track to feel like you’re “mixing” everything in
the song. At times, you’re still over-compressing tracks because you feel insecure about the
loudness or polish of your mixes. You often forget to A/B changes in your mix because you
‘know’ it’s the right move to make, and instead of testing it to double-check - you move on to the
next track. Make sure that you’re following the workflow outlined in Part 3 to ensure that you
only make the changes that are necessary to your mix for it to sound finished, and no more.

23 - 25: You’re no longer guilty of over-mixing your track due to ego or making large changes in
your mix. You feel at home behind the DAW and confident with the end results of your mixing
process. Your biggest step forward will be diving deep into relational EQ (chapter 14) to ensure
you’re creating enough space in your mix as well as mastering (chapter 18).

Chapter 4: Why The Objective Mixing Framework Works

In this chapter, I’m going to make the case for you as to why the Objective Mixing Framework
works, and why it appeals to our human sensibilities so your mix is destined to be at an industry
standard quality. Much of mixing is a game to trick our human ears to hear things that don’t
really exist. If you stop to think, it’s not natural to have some items sound further away than
others when they are both coming from the same point in space, right?

Before we continue, we need to define what an industry quality mix is. This is a term that is
widely used, yet I see very few definitions and most are ethereal like “it sounds radio-ready”,
what is truly radio ready though? Why do some songs get universally praised as sounding
excellent, while an even greater number of indie releases and hobby projects are degraded as
“unprofessional” or “amateur”?

There are 5 points that people judge your mix by to determine if your mix is quality or not.
Remember, these are just gut reactions - not something that goes through the average listener's
brain (until you’ve learned this, then you’ll think about it every time you listen to a new
production!)

This is universal to every genre and every mix. This concept works like a dam. If you don’t nail
each aspect in a row, your listener will believe the mix is at that level. So even if you nail
questions 2, 3, 4, and 5 with your mix, if you fail at question #1 - everyone will think your mix
sounds amateur.

I’ll break down each of these aspects below, and show you how the Objective Mixing
Framework solves each of these aspects of your mix.

Key #1: Volume Balance

This is the very first and most important aspect of your mix. I have an entire framework and
process with multiple checks to ensure that you nail this part of the mix. I like to refer to the
volume balance as the 90% mix, as it is where 90% of your work is done in terms of quality. Of
all the mixers I’ve talked to, the most consistent trait of amateur mixers is they underestimate
how important the volume balance is, and all the pros emphasize the opposite - how critical the
volume balance is.

Not focusing on your volume balance more than any other aspect of your mix is like putting the
cart before the horse.

The very first time I followed the Objective Mixing Framework’s (OMF’s) rules of creating a
compelling volume balance, I shared the rough mix with my wife. After about 15 seconds of
listening to the song, she looked up and said, “Wow babe! It sounds like a real song!”

While this was equally disheartening as it was encouraging, I took this to mean that I was at
least on the right track. If you can’t nail the volume balance of your song it won’t ever sound like
a ‘real song’, as my wife put it.

So how does the OMF answer the volume balance question?

The issue with mixers’ perception of the volume balance is that they simply try to listen to what
elements sound louder. Unless you have trained ears from mixing professionally, it can be a
challenge to determine if one sound is louder than another and by how much. (Programs like
SoundGym.co, an ear-training platform, have specific exercises to train you on hearing different
variations of loudness. )

The OMF flips this on its head and instead of asking, “What element is loudest?”, we ask
ourselves, “Which element is closest?”

It’s much easier to think about how close a sound is, versus how loud it is. It’s more intuitive and
natural for any human to distinguish the distance from sound, as we have been able to
determine distance from sound from birth.
While volume isn’t the only way to ‘trick’ our brains into thinking something is closer or further
away, it is the biggest factor.

Key #2: Sonic Balance (aka: Frequency Balance)

Okay, so nobody is actually asking themselves “Are the overall mix frequencies balanced?”
unless you’re a music production nerd. But people will be able to tell if the overall sonic balance
is off. You’ll often hear people saying things like “it sounds really harsh” or “this mix sounds
muddy”. These types of comments are in relation to the overall frequency balance of the mix.

So, what is a well-balanced song, when talking about the balance of the various frequencies in
your mix?

Objectively speaking, the optimal balance possible is the same as pink noise.

The official definition is pink noise is noise having equal energy per octave. In other words, it
has an equal sonic energy across the entire frequency spectrum. This makes it an extremely
useful tool in helping us achieve a similar balance in our mixes and masters.

To further drive this point home, below are several hit songs, with their frequency balances
shown as compared to pink noise.
As you can see above, almost every single professional mix and master follows the same exact
pattern of frequency balance, regardless of genre. This is the first cornerstone of the OMF and
the most impactful for most mixers.

Now, you might be thinking, “These songs don’t follow pink noise exactly…”, which is true.
There are some notable variations.. First of all, pink noise has a much greater presence in the
20 - 30 hz range. This area is mostly inaudible to the average human, so the value of having
this frequency range is little-to-none in your final mix and master of a song.

The second thing you’ll notice is that there is a dramatic drop-off around 5 khz+, compared to
pink noise which stays steady in the top-end frequencies. Most of the time this frequency range
is naturally quiet - due to very few elements producing frequencies this high. The mix and
master will risk sounding brittle if these frequencies are too present.

The key takeaway is that between 40hz and 5khz the mix follows the pink noise curve. This is
one of the easiest checks to ensure your mix is in line with an industry quality frequency
balance.

We will be revisiting using analyzers and this general concept of pink noise several times
throughout the OMF process, as it is the 2nd biggest lever in getting industry quality mixes
easily and quickly.

Key #3: Dynamics

Now, if your song has a good to great volume balance and a good overall frequency balance
your average listener is now listening to the movement in your mix.

While movement is generally more ethereal and difficult to measure, most of the movement in
the mix is determined directly by the volume balance and dynamics of the song. Of course, a lot
of the movement is already set in place with the rhythm and chord structures that are being
played in the song - but when it comes to the mix, dynamics is the biggest lever we have to
either destroy or create compelling movement in the song.

Have you ever listened to a song, and although you could hear each element, nothing sounded
directly “off” necessarily, but the whole mix felt “flat” and “lifeless”? That’s due directly to
mistakes in creating proper dynamic relationships in the song. There are massive
misconceptions about dynamics and compression that I’d like to address here.

The first misconception is that more compression does not equal less dynamics.

There are actually 4 basic types of compression that anyone can use in their mix. Only 2 of the
4 types of compression actually decrease dynamics on a track. The other 2 types increase
dynamics. The power this has in your mixes is unparalleled in creating additional movement to
your song. Does your bass part feel a little flat? Use some groovy- or punchy-type compression
to bring some additional life to it! Does your vocal sound a bit inconsistent? Use some
consistent- or thick-type compression to reign in those peaks! (You will learn all the styles of
compression and how to create them in Chapter 8).

In addition, you can use multiple types of compression to create the exact type of movement
you want or need in your tracks. For example, you can use thick-type compression to beef up
your drums, but then follow it up with punchy-type compression to be able to ensure they still
smack like you want!

Once you learn the 4 types of compression, it becomes far easier to dial in the perfect dynamic
balance for each track, but also opens the door to one of the greatest pitfalls of the intermediate
mixing level: overcompression.

Similar to our other processes inside the mix, the OMF gives guidelines on how much to
compress your tracks, in order to avoid making massive moves that end up with overmixing, or
more specifically in this case, overcompressing. The rule here is to keep any compression
moves to less than 3db of gain reduction with any single compressor. If more compression is
needed, we can use them in serial (use more than one compressor in a row). This does 2
things. First, it allows us to slowly add more layers of compression until we find the perfect
sweet spot, and second, it allows us to use multiple types of compressors and compression to
craft our tracks into the perfect blend of punchy, thick, smooth and consistent.

If only one compressor was used for your entire dynamic processing, more than likely you’ll end
up with an obvious ‘imprint’ of that specific compressor’s character on your track, which usually
sounds amateur and rather vanilla. It also has to work harder to increase the amount of
compression being added, which has a very different effect than each compressor only working
moderately hard to create a seamless, smooth reaction to whatever your dynamic goals are for
your track. This is not to say you need to use a different compressor on each stage, even if you
use the same exact model on each serial slot, you’ll get a more consistent and smooth reaction
out of the processing.

In chapter 13 I go through the simple five-stage process in the OMF for compressing your tracks
to get industry quality results.

Key #4: Clarity

This fourth key is the easiest to understand, but one of the more complex to do in the mix. The
primary way to ensure that we have each element of our mix represented in the best light is
through discussing frequencies in more detail than we already have.

Before I can share the strategy of how the OMF achieves this in our mixes, we need to discuss
the concept of masking.

According to iZotope.com, “frequency masking is an auditory phenomenon that occurs when

two similar sounds play at the same time, or in the same general location. One masks the other,
confusing your perception of either sound.”
In layman’s terms, if two elements exist in the same frequency range, they hide each other, and
you won’t be able to hear either sound in its entirety. This is a sliding scale, so the question isn’t
necessarily if two elements conceal one another, but rather how much they conceal one
another.

The goal of mixing is to enhance each element so that it sounds great within the context of the
mix, without hiding any other elements of the mix. As you can imagine - this is like a 15-sided
teeter totter with different sizes and shapes of kids in each seat - and your job is to fatten some
kids up while making others slim down based on how close or far they are from the center of the
teeter totter.

This is also the inherent limitation of template mixing or utilizing EQ and compression presets
that seem so tempting to use to shortcut yourself to an industry quality mix. With each mix,
you’re given a different number of kids of different shapes and sizes, plus the structure of the
teeter totter changes each time to present different, unique challenges to you.

While there are usually commonalities across all mixes, you cannot guarantee that your kick’s
fundamental frequency will always be the 60hz in every mix, or that you will always have 15
tracks with the same instrumentation with the same exact tones…

So, if templates and presets can’t fix our issue, what will?

The answer: gestalt.

Gestalt is a broad term used to describe anything that is perceived as bigger than the sum of its
parts. The important aspect of this is the perception of something bigger. One of the easiest
examples are languages that do not contain vowels.

For example, even in English, I can write a sentence without vowels, and I bet you’ll still be able
to read it.

“Bt y cn stll rd ths bcs yr smrt.”

The idea is that because I have parts of the whole, I am able to make sense of the whole
because the brain can’t help but create meaning from the parts and fill in the gaps.

This is also true with audio. Within a song, you can actually take out significant chunks of audio
from a track, and as long as other instruments fill out that frequency range, you’ll end up with a
perceptually “full” mix and end up with less masking because we are utilizing auditory gestalt in
the mix.
Mixing is more like completing a jigsaw puzzle than crafting a clay pot. You’re fitting each
element into specific frequency pockets rather than trying to make each element sound perfect
by itself.

This also does not mean that we need to start high- and low-cutting (or low and high-passing)
everything in our mix. This will result in a thin, awkward sounding mix.

Now that you know the general concept of how the OMF creates distinctness for each element
in your mix. This clarity is accomplished using relational EQ - which will be covered in Chapter
13.

Question #5: Does This Mix Have Depth?

Now, if all other 4 questions are answered positively by a listener of your mix, you’ll have a
pretty decent mix. But if you truly want an industry quality mix that is radio-ready and going to
stand up against any song on any playlist - even the billboard top 100 - then you need to ensure
your song has depth.

Depth can be a tricky element to create in a mix, as everything you do will impact the amount of
depth an element has in the mix. For example, the louder something is (volume), the closer it is
perceived to be. The more micro-dynamics an element has, the closer it will sound and the more
high-end frequencies in an element, the closer an element will sound.

The only predictable and repeatable way to create depth in a mix easily is by utilizing the
naturally occurring phenomenon known as reverb. Reverb is the most misunderstood element in
mixing. Most mixers view reverb as an effect to make things sound “washy”, which is true, but
the true power of reverb is actually in its inherent ability to create depth or perceived distance for
any given track. Hang with me though - there is a far more powerful way to create depth than
simply “adding reverb to make it sound far away…”.

Have you ever wondered why you can tell if someone is standing a foot away from you, versus
20 feet away from you in a room? Other than the voice being louder or quieter, we can tell how
far something is from us through reverb, or the excess sound that doesn’t come directly at us,
but instead reflects off of walls, and whatever else is in the room. This gives our human brains
the information that we need to determine several factors, such as the quality of the room we
are in (are we in a garage with hard walls or a studio with treated walls?) but also how big the
room is, such as a performance hall or a small club.

Even in rooms that you don’t perceive there to be reverb, there is an imperceptible amount that
gives us information about the space, the sound we hear, and the world around us.

The major misconception about reverbs is “bigger” spaces like a hall or theater will make items
automatically sound further away, while “smaller” reverbs like a room will make items sound
closer. This doesn’t line up with reality, as you can have something standing right next to you in
a hall, and still hear the hall reverb, and you can have someone who is far away from you in a
room. While there is a limit to how far away a room sound can be based on the size of the room,
there is never a limit on how close something can be in either scenario.

So this ‘depth’ reverb that we use within the OMF isn’t meant to be an ‘effect’ like you generally
think about with reverb, it is meant to give a sense of space to your mix along with a sense of
what elements are close and which are far away. I like to use photography as an easy analogy
to this process. Essentially we create 3 spaces in the mix: the front, middle and back. In most
professional photographs, there is a foreground, the subject, and then the background. This
gives a visual sense of depth, compared to most people’s iPhone photos that feel flat. This is
the same with our mixes, except that the subject of our mix is placed in the foreground, rather
than the middle area.

The beauty of this setup, is that because we can use a single reverb to accomplish this in our
mix, it provides both a sense of glue to the mix because each element is felt to be in the same
room, but also additional separation where needed so the background elements can feel further
away and be separated from the foreground and middle elements. So we are gluing and
separating with reverb at the same time.

How do we get our reverbs to do this? The secret lies in the distinct parts of reverb. There are 2
parts of reverb other than the direct sound (what you hear with no reverb).

There are early reflections and late reflections.

The early reflections are the reflections that hit 1-3 surfaces before reaching the listener.
Naturally this occurs right after the direct sound is heard. Comparatively to the direct sound, the
early reflections will be received between 1ms to around 100ms (depending on the type of
reverb). Then after this point we start to hear the late reflections, which is the characteristic
“washy” sound of reverb.

The important point I want you to walk away from this is that the early reflections give listeners
information about distance, late reflections give information about room character and size. So
theoretically if we took out ALL the late reflections from reverb, we would be left with a tool to
control how distant a sound is, whether we want that to be close and intimate or far away
without muddying up our mix with excess late reflections that muddies up our mix.

The full walkthrough on how to implement this in your mixes is coming starting in Chapter 7.

If you want to understand these 5 key aspects of mixes better, there is a video training
available inside the Objective Mixers’ Circle, a community of objective mixers helping
each other in their mixing journeys:

www.ObjectiveMixersCircle.com
Chapter 5: Why Fundamental Mixing Doesn’t Always Work
So, reading through the last chapter you may be thinking to yourself, “All of this is interesting,
but I’ve heard most of this stuff before. There was nothing that revolutionary about all this
information…”

And it’s true, inherently there is nothing truly revolutionary about the OMF. I haven’t created a
new AI plugin tool that will mix things for you in the blink of an eye, or even a brand-new plugin
that is used by the top producers that will give your tracks that “special sauce” to make them
sound pro.

All I’ve outlined is using the fader, EQ, compression and reverb in the mix and why those are all
the tools you need to create an industry quality mix.

The primary problem with this approach is that most people think they already know how to use
these tools. The theory of how these tools are used is relatively easy to grasp and start to
utilize, yet most people can’t figure out how to produce an industry quality mix, so there is a
huge disconnect.

The core issue is even when people understand the fundamentals of what is supposed to
happen in their mix, they don’t have a structure or system in place to consistently achieve all 5
key aspects when mixing.

Most people put a plugin on here, another there, and jump around in their mix like a monkey on
crack and then wonder why they can’t ever produce consistent mixes! And even if they do follow
the same format every time, they try to do too many moves all at once in their mixes.

For example, they might try to fix the tone of their guitars, make room for the bass, deal with a
harsh resonant frequency around 3.4khz, and make sure it’s not covering the vocal all in one
move! It’s no wonder that EQ seems daunting to people when they are trying to do 5 steps in 1
with it!

If you can’t concentrate on a single step at once within your mix, there is almost no chance of
doing each step well, or at all. It’s like riding a unicycle while juggling. Sure, there are those
crazy clowns that can do it but it’s not reasonable to ask us muggles to do it.

Even a consistent workflow won’t help if you can’t do two things with it: 1) answer all 5 major
questions a listener is expecting from your mix, and 2) make each step so stupidly simple, that
you can’t mess it up, or if you still manage to mess it up, it’s easy to go back and fix.

The OMF is the only framework that I’ve seen that gives you 1) a consistent workflow that
answers all 5 critical questions from your listeners, and 2) makes each step do only 1 thing, to
keep mixing as simple as humanly possible for the non-technical and technical mixers alike. It is
specifically designed to cover all of the major sonic issues that are destined to occur in any mix
to ensure it sounds industry quality, while at the same time making it as easy as possible for you
to move quickly in each step to finish quickly, and know where the finish line actually is.

Key Takeaways:
● It’s not enough to just understand the fundamentals of mixing and how to use the 4 basic
tools of mixing: volume, EQ, compression, and reverb.
● A consistent workflow is the only way to create consistent quality mixes.
● A workflow needs to answer all 5 questions listeners are asking, plus only do 1 key
action with each step to increase your concentration on that one task to do it with
excellence.

Part 2
Chapter 6: The Objective Part
The most effective mixers in the world are all psychopaths.

Why do I say that? Because psychopaths are the best at being objective in their actions toward
other people (even themselves). The most difficult part of mixing one’s own music is the fact that
we are so emotionally tied to the song we’re working on, we have an incredibly difficult time
separating our emotions from our mixing.

So, the moral of the story is hire a psychopath to mix your song who isn’t afraid of offending you
or messing with your art. And if that doesn’t seem like your cup o’ tea, then pay close attention
to this chapter, as we outline how to remain objective while mixing.

There is no mistake that I call this framework the “Objective” Mixing Framework. Without
objectivity, your song is destined to be hamstrung by overzealous mixing.

If we revisit the scenario that I outlined before, where you are mixing deep into the night on a
song that you feel really passionate about - you are more likely to make poor decisions. The key
to objective mixing is to keep your judgment clear from any preconceived emotion about the
song, and in those cases you’re not able to remain truly objective, providing guidelines and rules
to keep you from making outright bad decisions while mixing.

As a reminder: our goal is to avoid dumb decisions in our mix so that we achieve
industry-quality mixes by default.

Objective Strategy #1:

And as I’ve alluded to before, there are several key ways that I remain objective when mixing.
The first strategy is moving quickly through the process, and only focusing on a single mix
concept at a time. When I’m doing relational EQ, I’m ONLY focused on doing relational EQ,
finding the areas of the mix where there are traffic jams and releasing those jams through EQ. I
ensure I do this through a simple checklist. I follow this checklist religiously throughout the
mixing process so I know I’m not missing any steps and I can free up my mindset to only focus
on 1 single task at a time.

If you’d like to pick up my personal checklist for yourself, you can get it for free here:
DinosaurDogStudio.com/checklist

Assuming a standard song with decent- to well-recorded tracks, I’m usually able to finish the mix
within 2 hours of starting. This keeps my mind fresh while mixing, as well as allows me time to
work on other parts of the process that are a bit more time-consuming.

These results are not possible, however, if you keep second-guessing the direction of the mix
due to your ego or emotional connection to the song. The second you allow emotion to dictate
your mix, is the second you start to make (or remake) bad decisions.

Once you’ve downloaded the checklist above and commit to following it one step at a time, then
you should be ready to implement other objective-retaining strategies.

Objective Strategy #2:

The next strategy is to set a timer when mixing. This will help you stay on track and keep you
moving throughout your mix. The main point of the timer is to keep you from mixing too long.
Even though it still only takes me 2 hours to mix a song, I like to have this timer to keep me
honest in 1) how long it ACTUALLY takes me to mix the song and 2) it tells me when to step
away for a few minutes.

My personal rule is to take 10 minutes off for every 60 minutes you spend mixing. Whether that
is a 5 minute break every 30 minutes, or a full 10 minute break after 1 hour of mixing, this is one
of the easiest ways to keep your ears fresh and mind clear for the next stage of the mixing
process.

Find what cadence works for you, but do not let yourself be tempted into “pushing through” just
to finish the mix in one sitting. These tiny mental resets are required to maintain your pro-quality
mindset from top to bottom.

Objective Strategy #3:

Even when you’re taking regular breaks throughout your mixing process, there are those times
that you need a “bucket of ice water” to refresh your ears and brain. At these times, the best
strategy is to have 1-2 reference songs that are similar to the one you’re mixing. This is not
meant to reduce your originality when mixing or dictate what you do in your mix, but pros use
references for a reason - to give them a baseline of what the industry deems as acceptable
today. If your mix is relatively in line with these references, you’re moving in the right direction.

I’ll discuss more of when and how to use these references in the next chapter.

Objective Strategy #4:

The last strategy I want to share in this chapter is to use frequency analyzers. I’ve already
discussed pink noise and its relation to pro mixes, but even when EQing individual items in your
mix, it can be incredibly helpful to have an analyzer that shows you where the frequency energy
is allocated to either find gaps in the signal, or to help decide where you need to reduce energy.

While I can’t give you direction for every single sound you may encounter in a single section of a
short book, having an analyzer up throughout your entire mix will help you recognize common
issues for every track.

This will also help you train your ears quickly as you mix. You see what frequencies on the
analyzer are producing certain characteristics in your ears.

Chapter summary:
Objectivity is critical to maintain to make any mixing workflow work consistently and deliver
professional results every time.

These are the most effective techniques I use to maintain objectivity when mixing.
1. Follow a consistent process for mixing that involves focusing on 1 mix process at a time.
2. Set a timer to mix quickly and let you know when it’s time for an ear-break.
3. Use reference songs to have an auditory baseline in the same or similar genre.
4. Use frequency analyzers to help train your ear in hearing different frequencies and have
an objective view of where your song and tracks are sitting sonically.

Part 3
Chapter 7: The Ground Rules
Alright, now that we’ve covered why the OMF is valuable, why it works, and how it can benefit
you, let’s dive into how to actually put it into practice. In this chapter, I’ll be breaking down each
step of the OMF workflow in as much detail as possible in this short book format.

By following this workflow step-by-step, you’ll be able to mix efficiently, but even more
importantly - objectively professional.

Instead of just reading through this chapter, I encourage you to pull up your DAW right next to
this book and mix through this chapter and see how effective this system is for yourself. While
it’s unrealistic for your first mix to turn out 100% like you dreamed of, it will be significantly closer
and you can refine your skills and workflow with future mixes.

Try and find a simpler mix that you can utilize for this first one if you can. You’ll have a heck of a
time mixing 80 tracks if you struggle to mix a 13-track song.

If you don’t have any multitracks, and would like some to complete this section of the book, I
have provided some at the following link:

DinosaurDogStudio.com/multitracks

Alright. Without further ado, let’s get to work.

Here are the ground rules as we dive in.

1. Complete each step in order.

2. Once you have completed a step, DO NOT GO BACK.
a. This creates an endless time loop where you will lose all sense of self and you'll
end up as an empty husk of a human that even expensive therapy can't fix.
b. This rule keeps you focused on the step you're on, rather than trying to multitask
and do everything halfway.
3. Once you have finished the mix, take a break before listening to your mix again.
4. After you have taken your break, you are then allowed to revisit steps with a finishing
mindset.

Alright, with our ground rules in place, let’s start with…

Chapter 8: Mix Prep

As the wise Abraham Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will
spend the first four sharpening the ax.”

If I didn’t prepare my tracks for mixing, I wouldn’t be able to mix efficiently. This easy-to-skip
step is critical to maintaining fresh ears and a good mindset all the way through your mix. You
never want to be searching for a track or sound while mixing. To be as effective as possible in
your mix, you should be able to intuitively slide to the track you’re thinking of and take whatever
action you want.

Step 1: Importing tracks

The first step of mix prep is to import your tracks to a fresh DAW session. Whether you’re
getting tracks from clients or mixing your own music, it’s important to start from a blank slate
when you’re starting this step. If you produced the song, be sure to export all your multitracks as
if you were going to send them to a mixing engineer so you can import them yourself to start
mixing. This prevents you from thinking about production while mixing, and therefore increases
your quality of mixing because you have focus.

Make sure all your plugins you had during the production stage are either baked into the track or
removed for intentional mixing at this stage.

Step 2: Set The Tempo

Most DAW’s have an automatic way to determine the BPM of a song. Just google it and you’ll
likely find a stock plugin that has this function.

If your DAW is missing this function, then I recommend this process:

● Find where a new measure starts, somewhere around the beginning of the song.
● Cut the track at the beginning of the measure and lining that up with the beginning of a
measure on your DAW’s grid.
● Adjust your track’s tempo until it aligns with the audio. Make sure you don’t have any sort
of “flex” timing enabled to avoid changing the length of your tracks.*

*Warning! Ableton users need to turn off the “warp” setting before importing new multitracks into
a session, otherwise your multitracks will not align correctly.

If you still can’t figure out the BPM of the song, simply ask the artist or producer who sent them
to you, or open your old session if you produced it yourself to find the tempo.

If you’re using the multitracks I provided, the tempo is 110 BPM. (Again, you can download the
multitracks for free at DinosaurDogStudio.com/multitracks)

Step 3: Import References

DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP.

References are key to getting industry quality mixes. They’ve already done it - why would we
want to start from scratch again?

Next, you’ll want to find some similar songs as references to the song you’re about to mix. If
you’re mixing someone else’s song, I recommend asking them for references they’d like their
song to sound like, to honor their vision as much as possible. Other than that - there’s really no
“wrong” way to select your references other than they need to have reasonably similar
instrumentation to the tracks you’ve been given, or at least the overall sound quality that you’d
like your mix to have.

If you don’t already have an established way of gathering references, I’ve found great luck with
Amazon mp3 to download references. Yes, they are mp3 files, but in my experience that won’t
hinder your ability to use these songs as references. You don’t need a full WAV file in order to
get a good baseline on where a song is at mix-wise. It is also a nice nod to the artist and
producer who mixed the track, as you’re effectively donating $1 to their art and work.
Step 4: Sort, Color & Group Tracks
This is a weirdly satisfying part of the process. Right now, all you have are random tracks
spread out in your DAW. This step is to first sort your tracks in a logical format and make
obvious visual changes so you can identify the various elements in your mix.

Personally I like to sort tracks from rhythm to melodic. So from the top down in my session I will
have drums, bass, guitars, lead guitars, piano, other synths & horns, strings, then vocals at the
bottom of my session.

I also color them in the order of the rainbow - so I always know what color means what -
ROYGBIV - drums always being red, and vocals always being violet and everything else in
between.

There’s no need to follow my system exactly - whatever works for you is great! My only
recommendation is to keep it consistent from mix to mix, as the increased consistency will allow
you to make moves faster without needing to think about where things are at in any particular
mix.

The last step here is to group tracks. While this “group” term can mean different things in your
DAW vs. mine, this “group” means to create buses to send elements to. Kind of like the kid
transportation vehicle - assuming that each grade was separated onto a different bus - you’re
taking different types of tracks and throwing them all through a single track to create a way to
process all the tracks together. For example, I will send all my drums (or all my “red” tracks) to a
drum bus that will be able to compress and EQ all the drums at the same time. I do this
regardless if I’m mixing live drums, midi drums, or synthetic drums.

I like to follow the ROYGBIV grouping method, where each bus represents a single color in the
tracks. This makes it easy to track what’s in each bus.

The very last bus you’ll need to create is a “mix bus” which contains all the other buses that you
just created. So, all-in-all, there are 3 layers of processing between any track and the end mix or
stereo out track.
If you’re lost on how to create buses in your specific DAW - there are tons of great, helpful
tutorials out there on mechanics of how to use your DAW. If you’re confused, just google “how to
create buses in [your DAW]”.

Chapter 9: Gain Stage

We’re ready to dive into the mix in earnest now that our session is nice and organized and is
colored like the rainbow (or not, if you chose bland colors… just warning that lame colors result
in lame mixes...)

The very first step is actually not volume balancing, but rather gain staging.

Gain staging is incredibly mis-understood, so I want to take a minute to explain exactly what this
concept is all about.

In simple, practical terms, gain is the strength of a signal going into a process, and volume is the
strength of a signal coming out of a process.

GAIN IN > (PROCESS) > VOLUME OUT

This is why a single point of the process could either be described as gain or volume in different
contexts.

This “process” can be anything from a single EQ plugin, compressor or an entire combination of
multiple plugins and processes.
The reason we care about gain is summed up with these 2 reasons:

Reason #1: A well-gain staged track will result in less headroom issues for our mix bus and
mastering processes.

If our tracks are at an appropriate level at the very beginning, then we won’t have to fight a mix
bus that’s clipped and causing digital distortion in the track. It’s rare that I have a mix that has
less than 8db of headroom. (headroom: difference between the peak mix volume and 0db).

Reason #2: Plugins have an “optimal” signal strength to bring out their best character.

Plugin manufacturers needed to decide what the “average” volume should be for tracks going
into their plugins for the optimal performance. For most analog gear, this is right around 0db in
order to maintain the lowest noise-floor leakage possible. In the digital realm, the noise floor is
so low (or non-existent) that we don’t care! But the drawbacks to 0db is digital clipping so as a
community, the standard was brought down to between -12db and -18db.

This means that if your tracks are often sitting around -3db on the way into your plugins - they
are far louder than the manufacturer intended and they won’t sound as good as they could.

The rule that we want to follow with gain staging, is to ensure that no track is peaking above
-10db on the fader, and not below -20db. This is measured when the fader is at unity (0db).

To learn how to adjust the gain of your tracks or regions - type in google “how do I gain stage
tracks in [Your DAW]”. There are plenty of helpful tutorials to teach you the technical function of
how your DAW does this.

Go through your tracks and regions and make sure they aren’t peaking above -10db or below
-20db.

Chapter 10: Volume Balance

Step 1: Volume Balance Plan
This step is what I like to refer to as the 90% mix as the volume balance is 90% of our mix’s
quality.

Before we start moving faders, I want to take us through a quick exercise that will inform where
items should go in our mix and we have a plan going into this step. I like to call this exercise the
baseball field strategy.

To complete this exercise, you will first need to draw a baseball diamond and field on a piece of
paper.
Now imagine you are standing where the umpire stands, and all the mix elements are players
on the field. Imagine the loudest and closest elements are the pitcher. And now start to place
other elements on the field. Where are your electric guitars? Maybe the first and third basemen?
Where is your piano? Where should your toms be, and your high hat?

Go ahead and write the names of elements on the field on the paper next to you where you
think they should go in the mix. If you’re not sure on an element, consult your references, close
your eyes, and imagine where that element would be on the field.

Now you have a definitive plan to follow when volume balancing your mix. Now let’s start
moving faders!

Step 2: Up From Nothing

To start off your volume balance you will first want to take all the faders of the individual tracks in
your mix and bring them all the way down so there is no sound coming from your DAW. Now we
want to focus on the top 3 elements of our mix. I usually pick the lead vocal, snare and kick -
unless the song calls for something else. Whatever element represented by your pitcher in the
exercise we just finished.

Bring up the loudest element of your mix, let’s say the snare, so the peak volume is around
-10db. This benchmark will keep your mix from being too loud once you have all the elements
brought in. Now, bring up your second loudest element; let’s say it’s the kick. Turn up the kick
until it sounds like it is just barely tucked behind the snare, focusing on distance (which element
sounds closer to me?). If the kick feels closer than the snare, then you’ve turned it up too much.

Keep bringing elements up one at a time, always relating them back to your plan and turning
them down when they feel closer than other elements on your baseball field plan.

Pro Tip #1: Don’t listen to the element you’re bringing up. Focus on the guitars when
you’re bringing up your piano, or focus on the drums when bringing up your bass guitar
to ensure that you’re not over-doing any one element because you want to really hear it
in the volume balance.

Some items will be difficult to place without additional compression. They may be too loud or too
quiet in separate areas of the song. This is okay and expected, just get it as close as you can.
When you find yourself turning items up, then down, then back up, you’re close to where you
need to be from a volume perspective.

Pro Tip #2: If you are wearing headphones to mix, I HIGHLY recommend doing this part
in mono. This will enable you to have the most accurate volume-picture of your mix and
references to nail this critical aspect of your mix.
Step 3: Panning
Now it’s time to start separating our elements through the use of the stereo spectrum - aka:
panning.

In the OMF, I like to use the 5-point panning method.

The 5-point panning method is similar to LCR (Left, Center, Right) where items are either 100%
left, dead-center, or 100% right. This can be effective, but I find that it is rather constricting when
you only have 3 options. I find that adding in a 50% left and 50% right to the mix opens up the
mix nicely.

The few rules that I follow when panning are simple.

● Bass, kick, and other low-end elements should always be centered, as humans have a
difficult time hearing stereo panning with anything below ~100hz.
● Lead vocals should also be centered, along with any other main melodic element, such
as a guitar solo.
● If there are intentionally doubled instruments with 2 takes or stereo images of the same
take, then pan these hard right and left to create the most space in the mix while
maintaining 100% balance as well.
● Try not to overload one side of the mix, keep an eye on your stereo bus to ensure that
either the right or left side of the mix is not significantly louder than the other (less than
1-2 db is a good rule of thumb here).

Other than those basic guidelines, have fun with panning! Be creative and experiment. If you
ever get confused, references will help keep you in line from doing anything weird that will
negatively affect your mix.

Step 4: Objective Volume Check

Now it’s time to check our volume balance against our objective sources before continuing on in
the mix.

Our first test of our volume balance should be against our references. Switch back and forth
between your references and your mix. If you’re mixing a song with vocals, then you usually
want to focus on 4 elements that are usually the hardest to nail:
1. The vocal
2. The snare
3. The kick
4. The bass guitar

Once your mix sounds roughly in line with your references, especially with the 4 items listed
above, it’s time to turn our attention to our next test, pink noise.

Pull up your analyzer and hit play on the biggest, loudest part of the song, usually the last
chorus. See if your song roughly follows what pink noise does. You will likely have some minor
variations, but if you see big pockets of missing sound, or areas that are too high - you’ve gone
astray and need to track down those elements of your mix that are contributing (or not
contributing enough) to these areas of the frequency spectrum.

After the pink noise test, go back and double-check your song against your references. If
needed, go back and forth between your references, pink noise, and your mix to ensure you’re
ready to continue to the next step. If your volume balance isn’t excellent at this point, it’s going
to be extremely difficult to complete the rest of the mix well, so do yourself a favor and spend
the time necessary to be 100% confident in your volume balance before continuing.

The one last minor check that I want you to do before continuing to phase 3, is ensure you have
some headroom in your mix. This means look at your mix bus fader at the loudest part of the
song. If the loudest peak is ~-4db or less, you’re in the right range. If it is above that, select ALL
your tracks, and bring them down 1-2db. This should maintain your volume balance as is, but
simply allow the entire mix to be a bit quieter. It’s easier to reduce that peak volume level now,
rather than have to try and fix it at the end of our mix after we set up processing on our buses.

Chapter 11: Tone & Sonic Balance

Step 1: Tonal EQ
Pull up your frequency analyzer and get busy with EQ.

Listen to each element individually - yes in solo. All we want to do is fix any raw mistakes or
extremely offending elements before we start volume balancing. For example, if our vocal was
recorded on an SM7b microphone, then we’re going to have a very warm and bottom-heavy
frequency distribution that will not sound professional and will harm our mix. We want to fix
these ‘core track issues’ as much as possible while still following our set rules.

During this stage, do not boost or cut anything more than 3db. Avoid narrow cuts or boosts, I
recommend sticking to a Q value of 1 or lower to maintain the integrity of your tracks.

If you’re still unsure of the common issues with tracks and would like a helpful guide in where to
boost or cut on most tracks, I recommend referencing the Instrumentation Equalization Guide
that was included as a bonus to this book, or you can also download a new copy here:

DinosaurDogStudio.com/EQ

Use your frequency analyzer in this stage to start recognizing where various items live in the
mix. This will be helpful later when we’re starting to build relationships between our mix
elements. It’s helpful to write down notes about where items live, especially if you’re still new to
mixing.
Just remember, lower frequencies tend to take up more room in the mix, so don’t be alarmed if
you pull up your vocal and see massive low-end peaks. This is normal, although most vocals do
need some extra top-end boosts to get the proper pro-tone you’re looking for. (Again, please
reference the instrumentation equalization guide above!)

While it can be tempting to camp out on this step, the objective is to mix quickly and only make
a few moves (at most) for each track. Try to determine the 1-2 moves that are going to fix 80%
of the issues for the track and keep within the 3db limit for boosts and cuts. We have plenty of
time to fine-tune each element later in the process.

Do not feel the need to EQ each and every track in this step either. Sometimes an element
sounds great the way it is and does not need any tonal adjustment before the next step.

Step 2: EQ Check
Before we move on, we need to ensure that we are still adhering to the proper overall mix
objectives that we set out to accomplish. Namely, we are looking for the overall balance of
frequencies across the entire mix to roughly match our pink noise and references, and that our
volume balance has remained consistent from the prior step.

If you notice any gaps or unwanted boosts in the frequency spectrum after comparing against
your references and pink noise, then feel free to revisit your Tonal EQ. It’s better to address
these issues now, then coming back at the end after we’ve done even more processing to
cement our decisions.

My one word of warning is to recognize there is more EQ and tonal shaping of our mix to come.
Don’t get too caught up in over-analyzing this step. A good benchmark to hit is never spend
more than 30 minutes on this step. After this point you’ll start to become ‘frequency deaf’ with
imminent bad mix decisions incoming. Once you’ve gone through the entire mix process 2 - 3
times you’ll find your rhythm and be much more confident with all your EQ decisions.

Once your mix is sitting relatively in line with your references and pink noise, we’re ready to dive
into the next phase, compression!

Chapter 12: Understanding Compression: The 4 Styles Of Compression

Before we continue on in our mix, we need to establish the basic understanding of what
compression is doing to our tracks. This chapter will teach you the 4 styles of compression that
we’ll use in the dynamic processing section of the OMF.

I had one student who had been mixing for over 20 years, and still didn’t know what he was
doing with compression. He was far more advanced with EQ and crafting his tracks through
frequency, but couldn’t figure out the ‘secrets’ of compression.
After working through my flagship mixing program he was able to fully understand, develop and
compress items in his mixes and within just a month was producing industry quality mixes for
himself that met his specific vision that he had for his project.

My goal in this chapter is to dive into the most over-complicated aspect of mixing but have you
walk away with 100% clarity on what you’re doing with compression and how to wield this tool
with the best of them.

What is compression doing?

The very first thing we need to cover is what is compression actually doing to our tracks? In
order to understand this, there is some basic terminology that you’ve probably heard before, but
may not know how it is related to compression.

The first thing we need to cover is transients.

Transients are the biggest, loudest part of a note, usually referred to as the ‘impact’ or ‘peak’ of
the note. This is the beginning of the note, and can range, depending on the track, from 0 -
30ms (usually a punchy synth or percussive element), or 0 - 150ms for something like a violin.

The second term we need to cover is tail. The tails of notes are everything else, after the
transient has passed.

Compression is impacting one, or both of these aspects of a note. Depending on where the
compression is actually compressing determines the style of compression we are using. Now
that we know the basic parts of a note, let’s dive into the styles of compression.

Styles of Compression
In order to create the various styles of compression, we only need to understand the attack and
release functions.
The attack is how long a compressor will wait to start compressing a signal, after the threshold
has been reached.

Release is how long the compression continues to operate, even when the threshold is no
longer triggering the compression.

Combine these two controls, and we can create any impact to the two parts of a note we want,
and also create the 4 styles of compression.

If you want a more thorough review of the controls and functions of compression, you can pick
up my compression guide for free at the link below:

DinosaurDogStudio.com/EQ
Punchy-Type Compression
The first style of compression is punchy type compression. This is characterized by a long
attack to avoid compressing the transient and a long release to compress all, or most, of the tail.
This results in a note where the transient is emphasized, as the tail is compressed. The larger
the difference between the transient and the tail is perceived as punchiness, hence the name,
punchy compression.

We use this type of compression when we want something to have a bigger impact,
aggressiveness and/or to bring it forward slightly.
Consistent-Type Compression
The next style of compression is consistent-type compression. This is the only style of
compression that doesn’t impact the transient vs. the tail differently - or at least that is the goal.
This type of compression is characterized by a fast attack to reduce the signal immediately upon
crossing the threshold and slow release to ensure the entire note is reduced, not just the
transient. The overall intention is to reduce both the transient and the tail by relatively equal
amounts, to reduce specific notes in the track, not necessarily to create or change
microdynamics within notes. This is a great way to create a more consistent track that simply
has a few loud notes that stick out unnaturally in the mix.
Groovy-Type Compression
The third style of compression is the opposite of consistent-type compression. I like to refer to it
as groovy-type compression. Groovy-type compression is characterized by a slow attack to
avoid compressing the transient and fast release to avoid compressing very much of the tail.
The beginning of the tail is the only place that receives any compression. This creates
“micro-pumping” that is usually not audible, but you’ll feel more groove in a track when this type
of compression is applied properly.
Thickness-Type Compression
The last possible type of compression is thickness type compression. This type of compression
is characterized with a fast attack to capture the transient of a note, and a fast release to avoid
compressing the tail, or anything that is below the threshold. This results in a visually thicker
signal after compression and has a heavy, weighty quality to the sound. This type of
compression is the secret to making audio loud, however, comes with the risk of compressing
the life and feeling out of track as well. Wield with caution, my friend.

All compressors are able to produce one or all four of these styles of compression. Some
compressors have built-in attacks or releases so you have very little control over how it reacts
with your audio, but the principles above still apply. If you’re ever confused about a particular
type of compressor or piece of gear, look up the manual, as it will always tell you exactly what it
is designed to do and any hard-wired parameters. You can make a more informed decision on
what will work best for your goals with compression.
Last Note About Hearing Compression
Being able to actually hear what compression is doing to your tracks is one of the most difficult
ear-training activities you’ll encounter. I know very few people who are able to hear detailed
compression within their first year of mixing, sometimes longer.

This is one reason that many mixers tend to over-compress their tracks, because they want to
‘hear’ it working. My recommendation is to trust the process of compression, knowing what you
are doing IS making a difference - even if you can’t hear it.

It’s like that time a coworker or a roommate walked in, and you sensed something was different,
but you couldn’t place it. It could be hours before you realized they just got a haircut! Even
though you can’t physically hear the change in the moment, it did make an impact, you simp[ly
may not be able to hear exactly what it was without increasing the intensity of the move.

Chapter 13: Dynamic Processing

Now that we understand the 4 styles of compression, we can start to utilize these in our 5-step
process for dynamics.

At this point, your mix should sound relatively stable, albeit a bit quiet and likely lacking some
punchiness. This next phase is one that can really enhance or break your mix.

One of the most common problems with intermediate mixers is their propensity to over
compress everything to try and make it ‘loud’. Recognize that much of the loudness in songs
you hear on Spotify comes from the mastering process, and as long as your mix is dynamically
stable (there aren’t any major peaks or loud parts of the song that threaten the dynamic integrity
of your volume balance), then you are well on your way to an industry-standard, loud mix.

With those words of warning, there is 100% a place for dynamic processing in our mix. I refer to
this as “dynamic” processing rather than “compression” - because not every step will be
compression.

There are 5 layers of dynamic control in our mix.

1. Gain Automation
2. Consistent Compression
3. Thickness Compression
4. Punchy OR Groovy Compression
5. Volume Automation

Step 1: Gain Staging Automation

The first defense we have against too-dynamic tracks is automation of our gain staging. This is
usually not that common except for 1) live drums, and 2) vocals.

Before we start throwing compressors on our drums or vocals, we should ensure that they are
as dynamically stable as possible. Don’t worry about your drums losing life or impact by being
more dynamically stable. There are far more aspects to the “tone” of loudness or softness of a
drum hit than just volume.

Again, the goal here is to ensure that they are all within our “sweet spot” of -10db to -20db of
peak volume. Often vocals will be peaking at -10db, but lack enough signal on quieter notes.

For those words and phrases that are getting lost in the mix, it’s helpful to simply cut out that
section (whether it’s just a word or an entire phrase) and then bring that up to 3db using gain (or
more if the problem is extremely severe). The goal isn’t to have a completely dynamically flat
track - but control enough dynamics to be able to understand each word of the vocal
performance, or each hit of the snare, depending on what track we’re working with.

Although I only mentioned two examples in this section, these are just the most common you’ll
run into. There will inevitably be a track that you need to do this on other elements as well.

Notes on how to compress your tracks

Now that our track is at a very high-level, dynamically stable, we can start to dive into
compression.

When we are using compression we need to follow the rule of 3db. This means that we will
NEVER get more than 3db of gain reduction (the amount of compression) with any 1
compressor.

There are three primary reasons for this.

First, we want to ensure we aren’t over-compressing our tracks, and the easiest way to do that
is to add it slowly, layer by layer, to ensure that we aren’t being too heavy-handed.

The second reason being compressors will react more naturally if they aren’t driven too hard.
This will keep a more natural-sounding quality to your tracks, even if you do decide to use a lot
of compression. Adding 4 compressors all doing 3db of gain reduction actually will sound more
effortless than 1 compressor doing 12db of gain reduction all at once.

The third reason we do this is to allow ourselves the flexibility to slightly change the attack or
release for our various layers of compression and to evaluate each stage by itself. As the
compressor will change how it reacts to the audio given a more compressed signal than a less
compressed signal. It’s like a garden hose that is all of a sudden given twice as much water. You
probably won’t have to use your thumb quite as much to get the water shooting out with greater
force than when you had half as much water pressure.

If needed, we’ll use compressors in serial (one after another) to get even more compression if a
single compressor didn’t solve the entire problem.
Step 2: Consistency Compression
Our initial goal with compression is to create even more consistency where it’s needed. You’re
going astray if you’re using this on every single track in a mix.

WARNING: Not every track will require consistency compression (or some of the subsequent
layers). This step does not indicate “put consistency on everything”. This step is to evaluate
whether additional consistency is required.

Focus on any dynamic tracks that you have in your mix. Vocals, acoustic guitars and keys are
all prime targets for this type of compression.

Add your consistency type compression (fast attack, slow release) so that your compressor
stops compressing before the following note(s), and captures the loudest notes with no more
than 3db of gain reduction.

After adding your first layer, listen to the section again before adding more layers of consistency
compression (fast attack, slow release) with another 3db of gain reduction to the track. Ask
yourself, “Can I hear every note of this performance?” If you answer “yes” - your track is
consistent!

Step 3: Thickness Compression

Next, we want to focus on thickness. Any element that doesn’t have enough “body” even after
EQ could likely use some more thickness. This is also one of the “secrets” to loud mixes, but
comes at the cost of reducing a lot of dynamics in your tracks.

For any element that you determine you would like additional thickness, (usually most elements
in the mix, outside of already thick elements like distorted electric guitar), add your thickness
compression in layers of 3db with fast attack and fast release to only compress transients.

Don’t be afraid to use a 0ms attack. I’ve seen many videos and producers coming down on
people who do this, but I’ve never had an issue, because I add dynamics back to my track after
this step. Using a 0ms attack can be extremely beneficial to ensure that we capture the entire
transient - especially on items like drums.

You’ll find that adding thickness compression will make some elements sound extra “dead”. This
is a direct result of reducing the power of the transient, and therefore “punch” to the note. There
are 3 ways to avoid this:

1) use your thickness compression in parallel - after setting it up, then you can use the “mix
knob” to mix it in by a certain percentage, such as 50%, so you get some of the raw,
uncompressed signal alongside the thick, compressed signal. This is a great strategy for
ALL thickness compression, and I use this method on more than half the tracks in my
mixes.
 2) Be extra careful to add punch back into the track with additional dynamic processing
(See step 4 below).
3) You may not need thickness compression. If it sounds dead, the signal may already be
thick enough, and no additional compression is needed.

Step 4: Increasing Dynamics With Compression

Our goal with the last layer of compression is to increase dynamics. All the layers thus far have
been decreasing dynamics. Now is our chance to breathe life back into our tracks.

The first way we do this is through either punchy or groovy type compression. Both of these
have a long attack, meaning we are increasing the transient of the note and increasing the
microdynamics of each note in the performance.

As long as we did our consistency and thickness compression correctly, we should have
consistent tracks that should be pretty easy to dial in either punchy or groovy style compression.

Go through your tracks and evaluate what needs more life. This will be 95% of tracks.

Add your punchy (slow attack, slow release) or groovy (slow attack, fast release) compression
to each element in your mix, with no more than 3db of gain reduction at its peak.

It is rare that you’ll need more than 1 punchy or groovy compression in serial, but needed
occasionally.

Step 4b: Bus Compression

Before we move onto step 5, we need to ensure we don’t miss out on our bus compression for
various elements.

Go through the buses in your mix and add dynamic processing to them using steps 2 through 4
in processing dynamics with compression. Most will need little to no compression, except for
notable exceptions such as your drum bus will always benefit from additional compression.
Remember that this compression will “glue” the tracks together that are inside that bus - so be
careful if this is a character that you don’t want in your mix.

For example, drums can always use some more glue to sound more cohesive in the mix and
feel like they are moving together to increase their impact as a single instrument, rather than a
collection of random hits and bangs.

After you’ve compressed all the buses in your mix (or at least those that needed it!) You’re ready
to continue on to the last stage of dynamic processing in the mix.

Step 5: Volume automation

The last and final step of dynamic processing in the mix is through volume automation.
This step is the easiest to understand of all the dynamic processing steps in the mix. It’s just
volume balancing, but actively throughout the song. Songs are dynamic in nature - so why
should our mix be static?

The biggest areas that I look at for volume automation are vocals - as bigger sections tend to
drown out our lead vocals that we need to still be present, we can automate our vocals up even
0.5db which can make a world of difference in a song.

The other area that I focus on are any one-off “fills” that happen throughout the song. This is
primarily drums, but not exclusively. If there is a cool little bass riff that is thrown in halfway
through the song - then I’ll bring that out temporarily to ensure the best parts of the song are
emphasized.

Throughout the song, I’m always asking myself, “What do I want the listener to hear at this point
in the song?” Often it’s the lead vocal - but sometimes it’s not. Use this question as your guide
to what should be emphasized throughout the song with volume automation.
Dynamics Summary
One last thing I would like to make sure is clear is that the entire process for dynamic
processing is kind of like the circle of life.

We start with raw tracks that are too dynamic and inconsistent to do much with.

We then start into the process of dynamic processing:

1) Reduce macrodynamics from a phrase-to-phrase perspective. (Gain Automation)
2) Reduce the macrodynamics from a note-to-note perspective. (Consistency
Compression)
3) Reduce microdynamics. (Thickness Compression)
4) Add microdynamics. (Punchy or Groovy Compression)
5) Add macrodynamics. (Volume Automation)

Chapter 14: Relational EQ

This will allow us to create that elusive clarity in our mix, by cleaning out unnecessary noise and
masking that isn’t serving our song.

The way that I like to visualize this step is thinking of traffic on a busy highway. An ideal mix will
look something like this:
Whereas at this point the mix is more closely represented by this:

The mix has major blockages where multiple items are clashing and attempting to override one
another to fight for space in the mix. We need relational EQ to build “lanes” for each element in
the mix to be able to be heard clearly, without sacrificing the tone of it, or the items we move to
make space.

This is where the rubber meets the road with EQ.

This is where the concept of gestalt comes in.

While most “pro’s” do this step intuitively, the OMF breaks this down into 3 distinct steps to
make it as easy as possible to follow. These steps are primarily designed to identify areas of
masking, while using the same general approach to fixing it once we’ve identified it.

WARNING: This is the most technical part of this entire process and book. Do not be alarmed if
you need to read and re-read the next section a couple times before you ‘get it’. I also highly
recommend following along in your own mix step by step to see this in action in your DAW to
help connect the dots.

Step 1: Common Masking

The first step in this process is to identify the most common masking issues and deal with that
first.

The most obvious and common masking issue that occurs in a mix is in the low-end, between
the kick and the bass guitar.
The reason is that the low-end of the mix has the least amount of frequency space. These
low-end frequencies have waves that are so big - there’s only room for a few of them before
things get messy.

Here is the step-by-step process that I use to tackle this particular masking problem:
1. First, identify if masking is occurring. Often you can just tell by looking at an analyzer, but
the other method is to listen to the bass, then mute the kick. If the bass pops out a bit
with more low-end and increased clarity, you know there is masking occurring.
2. If masking is occurring, then identify the fundamental frequencies of the bass and kick.
(Keep in mind, the fundamental frequency of the bass will move somewhat with different
notes, so pick a section that has the most representative bass part.) The fundamentals
will be where the lowest and strongest frequency lives.
3. For these low-end elements, we will be decoupling these fundamental frequencies to
prevent excess overlap between the two. We do this with the following steps:
a. Give a slight boost to the kick fundamental, starting with 1db boost with a Q value
of 1.
b. Do a 1db boost to the bass at its fundamental frequency, with a Q value of 1 or
less depending on how far apart the bass’s fundamental frequencies are between
notes.
c. Cut the frequency on the bass that you boosted on the kick by 3db with a narrow
Q value, start with 2.
d. Cut the frequency on the kick that you boosted on the bass by 3db, using a
slightly more narrow Q value than you used on the bass’s boost.

If this was a little confusing, I recommend opening up your DAW and following along
step-by-step. You’ll soon be de-masking and creating clarity in your own mix in no time!

But, you might be wondering now - “that’s great for my kick and bass, but what about the rest of
the mix?!? It still sounds a bit messy…”

You will want to follow a similar, but slightly different process for the rest of the elements in your
mix.

First, there are a few ways to identify if masking is occurring:

1. Listen to an element that you think could use more clarity.
2. Mute other elements (or groups of elements, like buses) one at a time until the element
you’re focused on jumps out of the mix with dramatically increased clarity. (Yay! You
found masking!)
3. If step #2 didn’t work, but it still doesn’t sound clear to you then pull up an EQ and do a
sweep across the frequency spectrum with a bell. Use a Q value of 1 and don’t boost
more than 5db. As you sweep across the frequency spectrum, you should hear one or
two spots that the element really jumps out of the mix. If you hear it everywhere you’re
boosting - then try less gain on your bell curve and repeat the exercise.
a. Wherever this pops out is where your element is naturally living in the mix.
 b. Pull up an analyzer and focus on whichever areas you identified your element to
live, and solo items that live in a similar range and see what other elements are
strong in those spots, these are the culprits of masking that’s hiding your
element!
4. If you still can’t find where masking is occurring - then pull up an analyzer and look at
where an element is strong that you can’t hear in the mix. Using your analyzer, pull up
other elements that you might be covering up the element in that spot. This will allow you
to identify masking without being able to “hear” it.

Relational EQ Summary:
To put this process in a nutshell, take the following steps to properly evaluate and apply
relational EQ in your mix:
1. Make a list of all the elements that share fundamentals in the most common frequency
ranges: sub, low, mid, and high.
2. Mute one element at a time inside those ranges to see what elements are being ‘hidden’.
3. If elements gain tremendous clarity, apply relational eq using the steps above between
the element you just muted and the element it was masking.
a. Don’t forget to record where you’re boosting each element to prevent
over-emphasizing any one area.
b. You may need to fine-tune your elements as you go, as multiple elements desire
to share the same boosted frequency.
4. Continue to evaluate the entire mix until everything is either clear and when you mute
any single track no other track is brought out dramatically.

Chapter 15: Reverb & Effects

The objective side of effects and reverb is to add additional depth to our mix. While we should
have answered almost every question that a listener has up to this point, we still have that very
last element to conqueror: Depth. There are a few things that I always do to achieve depth in my
mixes.

Step 1: Creating The “Depth Matrix”

Our very first step in creating depth in our mix is the depth matrix. This is a series of effects
buses that are created in order to create that front, middle and back spaces that I discussed
earlier.

Just follow these steps in order to create your depth matrix and hear your mix completely
transform in front of your ears.

1. Create 3 buses, one for each space: Front, Middle, Back.

2. Add a ‘send’ from every single track inside your mix (not buses, just tracks) to all 3
buses. We’ll remove the ones we don’t want later. Only enable the “Front” send for now.
 a. At this point, you should have everything in your mix going through the ‘normal’
routing, plus an additional send to the depth matrix ‘front’ space.
3. Add a reverb plugin to the ‘front’ space. If you’re using Logic Pro, I recommend using the
stock “ChromaVerb” plugin. It makes this easy.
a. If you aren’t using Logic Pro, find a reverb plugin that has the following two to
three functions: 1) Pre-Delay and 2) Distance and/or 3) early/late reflection
balance control.
4. You will have massive amounts of reverb in your mix at this point. Step 4 is to find what
type of space you want to use. Think about your song, does it carry a vintage concert
hall vibe, or a more modern club feel? There are no wrong answers, just pick one that
feels right for your mix.
a. I recommend keeping your delay’s decay to a half note or less.
5. Now you want to copy your reverb plugin you just dialed in to the other two buses
(middle and back) and dial in the following settings for each:
a. Front Reverb:
i. Pre-delay between 25 and 40ms (Usually higher for large spaces, such as
halls.)
ii. Distance should be 0 - 10%.
iii. Early/Late Reflection balance should be 95% early, 5% late.
b. Middle Reverb:
i. Pre-delay between 12 and 20ms
ii. Distance should be 50%
iii. Early/Late Reflection balance should be 75% early, 25% late.
c. Back Reverb:
i. Pre-delay between 1 and 5ms
ii. Distance should be 95%
iii. Early/Late Reflection balance should be 50% early, 50% late.
6. Now it is time to decide where to send all your mix elements. Turn off the current send
(so no reverb is heard in the mix), then go through your mix elements 1 by 1 and send
each to one of the three spaces above. Try and keep the majority of elements in the
middle space, and only 3-4 elements in the front, and 3-4 elements in the back space at
any one time.
7. Once every element in your mix is going to one space, back off the volume fader on your
reverb buses to nothing.
8. Slowly bring up the “front” bus. Bring it up until you can barely hear it, then back it off by
3db. You shouldn’t ever be able to ‘hear’ this reverb, only feel it.
9. Move up the ‘middle’ reverb bus until it is exactly 3db louder than the ‘front’ bus.
10. Bring up the fader on the ‘back’ bus until it is 3db louder than the ‘middle’ bus.
11. You’re done!

As long as you follow this outline exactly, you’ll have an incredibly rich mix with real depth.
Step 2: Creating Additional Depth With Effects
We aren’t quite done with depth in our mix, even though we’ve already set ourselves up for
success with our main mix elements. It is now time to add even more fuel to the depth fire for
our mix.

This next step is more subjective, so please feel free to take liberties in your own mix, but there
are some key lessons that I want you to take away from this section.

As we’ve spent so much time already creating a soundscape of depth in our mix, what I don’t
want to do is put that depth into jeopardy by adding, say, a reverb directly on my lead vocal. This
will directly counteract the work we did with our depth matrix.

But what if we still want that “washy” sound to enhance our vocals? Luckily there is an easy
solution that both adds some fun reverb effect to our vocal, without sacrificing its place in the
forefront of the mix either.

My solution? Reverb is never placed directly on my lead vocal - even if it is from an effects bus.

My first step to adding the oh-so-delicious plate reverb on the lead vocal is to add an effect send
from my lead vocal to a bus where I add a delay. Depending on the mix this delay can vary, but
my personal favorite is a slapback delay. This is where the delay is only delayed around
100-130ms, and only happens once, rather than a continuous delay that decays over time. This
helps keep my mix clean of excess delayed noise that clutters up the mix.

At this point I will usually add an EQ to the delay, in order to separate it from the main vocal and
reduce the high-end as sibilances are often emphasized by reverbs in a way that’s not very
musical. I’ll use a gentle roll-off of all high-end frequencies above 3 khz, as well as anything
below 300 hz.

My last step will be to either add another send from my delay to my plate reverb, or add the
reverb directly onto the delay bus, depending on if I want any direct slapback in the mix or not.
Again, this is completely subjective so experiment on what you like most for your mix.

This has now created a completely separate signal for my reverb to trigger off of, and it doesn’t
impact the perceived depth of my main vocal, but still adds some nice reverb smoothness to the
vocal.

The only place this methodology will struggle to sound natural is on very transient-heavy
elements such as snares or other percussive elements. In this case, I would create a send from
the snare to an effects bus with a reverb without a delay. I would just try and use plate reverbs
or ambience reverbs, as these types of reverb do not contain any early reflections, and
therefore do not inform us how close something is to the same extent as other reverbs, and you
have the best chance of maintaining the depth matrix’s benefit by choosing these reverbs over
other types.
Step 3: Additional Effects
This is where you can get creative with effects. I’m not going to dictate what you do, but keep in
mind that every element you add into the mix could potentially add or take away frequency
balances that you worked so hard to create up to this point. If you’re lacking a certain area, you
can help nudge delays and reverbs in that direction to not only avoid additional masking, but
also create more overall balance in your mix.

Ultimately, have fun on this step! Just don’t over-do it. Remember, if your mix didn’t sound pro
by now, effects aren’t going to help it. They are just fun to add some more flavor to the mix.

Chapter 16: Finishing The Mix

Step 1: Re-Volume Balance
At this stage you should revisit your volume balance just in case any effects you added nudged
something slightly out of balance. Use your references at this point with the 4 main elements -
kick, snare, vocal and bass - to ensure you’re still on the right track, and check your pink noise
track as well against your nearly-finalized mix.

Hopefully you only need to make a few tweaks here. Again, if you can’t obviously tell something
is off at this point, don’t change it. You are well into the mix at this point and your objectivity is
likely starting to come into question.

If you haven’t already - take a break. If you need to, grab a snack, go for a walk - something
more significant than 5 minutes. I know that you’re excited to just be done with the mix, but it’s
important this last step isn’t done hastily.

Have you taken a break?

Go rest up and refresh your ears!

Okay, thanks for taking a break. Now let’s continue to the final 2 steps of your mix.

Step 2: Mix Bus EQ

During this stage I want you to take a look at your references against your own mix again, as
well as the pink noise, to determine what moves you likely need to tweak to nudge your mix in
the direction of either pink noise or your references. The maximum move you should be making
here is 1.5db of a wide (Q >=1) boost or cut. If you’re needing to make bigger moves than this to
bring your mix in line with either your references or the pink noise, you need to address
something inside of the mix itself, whether that is adjusting the top-end of your drum bus or
simply bringing up the high hats.

Be thoughtful here and focus on balancing the loudest part of the mix, as we want everything to
climax at this part of the song and therefore want the best possible frequency balance here.
Step 3: Mix Bus Compression
This is the last move of your mix.

As far as mix bus compression goes, I like to use either punchy-style compression, groovy-style
or thick-style compression. I listen to my mix and ask myself if I want a more punchy, groovy or
more thick mix.

It’s not as important the style of compression, as we will be very subtle with this move, but rather
far more important to provide some sort of ‘glue’ to the mix overall. No matter which style I
choose (90% of the time it will be groovy or punchy), I will dial in that style of compression with
only 1 db of gain reduction. Again, the goal is that this provides just a touch of movement that
brings the entire mix together. Don’t be too upset if you can’t ‘hear’ this move. Many won’t, but
you are doing something to your mix that will translate once it’s mastered.

Congratulations! You’ve just finished your very first objective mix. Hopefully this has opened
your eyes to how helpful a more objective approach to mixing is, and also how much more
organized this approach is than randomly applying plugins and somehow magically arriving at
the end of your mix with a professional result.

You may have had a slightly more or less difficult time getting through this mix based on how
experienced or not you are at this point, but it often takes 2-3 mixes to really get the hang of the
objective mixing framework workflow. Remember, it’s unreasonable to expect perfection the first
time you do anything! Give yourself some time to practice and you’ll be mixing like a pro before
you know it! Reps are far more important than perfection right now. Remember to set timers for
yourself when mixing and make sure you keep your entire mix below 3-4 hours per mix. If you
can, try to get your mix down to 2 hours or less once you’re comfortable with the process.

Step 4: Feedback
Psych!!

You’re not quite done with your mix. You’re done with the first draft of your mix. Just like if you
have ever mixed for someone else, or have someone else mixed a song for you, there is usually
a revision process needed before the mix is truly finalized. If mixing for someone else, we want
to send them this version of the mix to see what feedback they may have for us to incorporate
into the mix we already have in place. They may want some small tweaks to the reverb, or they
don’t like how dark the guitars are, etc. I used to be internally offended when I would get any
feedback other than “this mix is awesome!”. But that was just my internal meter going off that I
knew I wasn’t as good as I thought at mixing.

Feedback and revisions always make the project better. Don’t shy away from this process
because it can be uncomfortable having others look at your work with a critical eye. Lean into
the uncomfortable task of getting good, solid feedback.
Send your mix to 2-3 people who you trust to give you feedback on your mix. I have a few
friends who are producers that I send 90% of my mixes to in order to get feedback. It’s
invaluable to have just a few people in your corner for this purpose.

If you don’t have a friend who can fill this role for you, just any friend, spouse, partner, or
coworker can also give you feedback, but it may be more work for you to interpret their
feedback because they don’t have the technical expertise to give you more actionable feedback.
Any feedback can be helpful though. Just try to avoid anybody who just gives you only positive
feedback. It feels good, but it doesn’t actually help improve your mix - which was the point to
begin with!

Once you’ve received your feedback, go back to your mix and revisit any step in the process
that is applicable to the feedback you received. Don’t be afraid to give yourself feedback as well,
listen to the song if you’ve spent a few days away from it and write down a few things you’d like
to hear yourself fix in the mix.

Your last step is to get your song mastered. There are tons of options, and there are equally bad
and good options. AI mastering is big right now, but as of the time of this writing, I have yet to
find a reputable AI mastering company that actually delivers better masters than any musician
with a decent framework. Which is why I wrote Chapter 10 in this book - to give you that
framework.

Part 4
Chapter 17: How I Use Saturation & Distortion For More Pro Results
Saturation is one of those elements that is thrown around a lot as the ‘magical ingredient’ for
more pro-sounding mixes. But there is often mass confusion around it. What is saturation, and
how is it different from distortion?

In essence, distortion and saturation are the same thing. I can say that because the main goal
of both of these processes is to add additional harmonics to a track. Harmonics is just a fancy
way of saying “more noise”. Saturation is considered its own functional tool because it’s simply
less intense compared to distortion.

So the natural question is, when should you use saturation vs. distortion and what is its purpose
in mixing?

There are 2 main uses of distortion or saturation in your mix.

Dynamic Control
The first is adding thickness to a track. Think of this as easy-access thickness type compression
without needing to dial in as many settings on your compressor, and also color your tracks in the
process. Think of it like saturation in a picture. If you’ve ever taken a photo on your phone and
cranked up the saturation, you’ll know what I’m talking about. While a little bit can go a long way
in making your mix (or photo!) more vibrant, it can also very easily be overdone and has the
potential to ruin a mix if abused. However, this is a great way to control some of those small,
microdynamic changes that tend to cause trouble in the later stages of the mix for tracks that
are recorded (as opposed to samples or midi tracks), as recorded tracks tend to have slightly
too much dynamic variation.

Some of you may be looking at the image below and thinking, “Gosh! That last picture has a
vibe though!” And you might be right. As I mention in the accompanying mix walkthrough
videos, I tend to have very saturated mixes because I like the presence and aggressiveness it
provides to my mixes. This is a matter of taste, but please err on the side of caution.
Overly-saturated mixes are far worse than clean, unsaturated mixes.

Additive EQ
The second use case for saturation is when using additive EQ (i.e. boosting using EQ).
Sometimes a track won’t have that much energy in a certain area of the frequency spectrum.
For example, you could have a kick that doesn’t have much top-end energy. If you boost with
your EQ, without anything else, it can sometimes feel weak or thin because an EQ can only
raise the volume of energy already present, it can’t create additional harmonics (with a few
exceptions). In these cases, saturation can be your saving grace. By adding saturation before
your EQ - or use an EQ plugin that adds its own saturation - you can add additional harmonics
to the sound, effectively increasing the amount of noise in your desired frequency range to be
able to effectively boost it without it sounding thin, unnatural or flat.

The most common areas that saturation can be a game-changer and help is on drums that are
lacking top-end, vocals that were recorded too dark, or your mix bus if you’re trying to fix some
frequency areas that can’t be fixed with volume balance corrections or other EQ moves on your
individual tracks.

What About Distortion?

Distortion can be used for both the uses above, plus as the traditional effect that we all know
and love. The reason I wanted to make a special note about distortion is that it is used a lot
more than many beginner and intermediate mixers are aware. Two notable places where
distortion is used heavily are drums and, to a lesser extent, vocals. If you’re struggling to get
your drums or vocals to sound as bombastic as you’d like them to, try adding some distortion
(preferably before your EQ) and see how much thicker and more powerful your drums and
vocals become.

This isn’t 100% foolproof, but was a pivotal moment for me to discover how to get great drum
tones in my mixes and fix some vocal tracks that were a bit lackluster.

The last place I use distortion in almost every mix is on delays. By applying some distortion to
delays on my vocals, the delayed vocal signal is pushed back in the mix, creating additional
separation between the lead vocal and the effects. It keeps the main vocal up front and
personal, while also adding additional thickness to the vocal and overall mix.

Chapter 18: How To Master Your Mix For That “Radio-Ready” Sound
This is probably the most ambitious chapter in this entire book, but also possibly the most
valuable. Given the rise of AI mastering, I’ve kept my ear to the ground and tested all of them.
I’ve yet to find any that are actually worth using. Most degrade your audio so much that sounds
cheap, even if it does a half-decent job in making your song more balanced.

I’m writing this chapter with the goal of getting your masters to a level that you can beat any AI
mastering service out there. As of right now, it’s not a difficult feat to achieve, so buckle up and
be prepared to save yourself time and money from using AI and learn the true fundamentals of
mastering in your mix!

What I’ll be teaching in this chapter is a simple, but effective, mastering process. It will not
prepare you for all the one-off issues and problems that you may encounter with various tracks,
however, it should give you the tools to effectively master a track to sound professional
assuming the track you’re mastering is mixed well. If you’ve followed the mix process in Part 3
this master should have your song sounding Spotify-worthy in about 20 minutes. So export your
mix from Part 3 and let’s finish it off with your first professional master!

Preparing Your Mastering Session

The first step in mastering is to get your session ready.

Recommended Measurement Plugins:

The only things we need to start are 2 measuring tools and our unmastered, and not-limited mix.
We need a frequency analyzer (preferably one that measures RMS, or average volume of
frequencies, rather than peak volume), and an volume meter (again, that measures either LUFS
or RMS - both are averages of volume and the difference between them is insignificant enough
that it won’t matter.)
Add the 2 plugins above to your stereo-out in your mix and also add your own mix to your
session (as an exported stereo file) and let’s dive into completing your very first professional
master!

Mix Requirements Check

Ensure you have at least 6db of headroom at the LOUDEST part of the song. Simply use a gain
plugin or gain function to reduce the gain of the region/track down as needed to meet this
requirement if it isn’t already met.

Identify Sonic Issues

Go to the loudest part of the song and loop it. Play through this section multiple times and listen
and monitor your frequency analyzer. Compare your mix against both pink noise and any
references you’d like your master to sound like.

Identify any sonic balance issues in the song and make a note of any issues that you're going to
solve.

Common issues:
● Low-end rumble (anything <30hz)
● Too much "mud" in the 400hz region
● Not enough fullness in the 400hz region resulting in a "scooped" feeling with not enough
mids and low-mids.
● A lack of top-end “sheen”, etc.
Fix Sonic Issues
With your first EQ, use a transparent digital EQ to cut any unnecessary noise out of the track.
(e.g. low rumble <30hz). Next, fix additional issues elsewhere in the frequency spectrum.
Remember to use wide Q values (recommended .7 or less) and no more than +/-2db boosts or
cuts.

At this point, you should have fixed the majority of all the sonic issues in your song. Try to
balance fixing any issues you see or hear, and keeping this step simple. Go for no more than 3
or 4 cuts or boosts, as we’re using wide Q values, this is usually the natural limit of moves you
can make.
Enhance Using EQ
Utilize another EQ, (my personal favorite are pultec-style emulations, but use what you have!)
and enhance the low- and top-end of the mix, (maximum 3db!). If needed, feel free to add a
saturation plugin before this EQ if you’re afraid of adding too much harshness or you’re desiring
your master to be smoother with your EQ adjustments.

For the bottom-end of the mix, try to find the fundamental frequency of the kick drum, or the
lowest element of the mix and boost there to "stretch" the sonic spectrum just a little. The lowest
I’ll usually go is 40hz, but this can really add some ‘meat’ and perceived fullness to the mix if
done correctly.

For the top end of the mix, try to boost as low as you can before it starts to sound harsh with a
high shelf. Aim for about a 2-3db boost unless your mix is already bright. Usually this ends up
being around 8khz - 12khz. Watch out for the vocal sibilance, as this can often emphasize this in
a non-musical or pleasing way.
As the very last step, add an additional EQ. Move the center of your band as high as the EQ will
go - often between 20khz and 30khz, and then boost by 6db. Adjust the Q value until your
master starts to sound overly harsh and then back it off. The goal is to really bring out the
‘sheen’ of the master, and this move will bring out the brightness of cymbals, hi hats, and vocal
polish.

If you’ve done all of these steps properly, you should have a very balanced and significantly
better-sounding master. The one last thing we need to do is add some groove or glue to the
master and then make it loud! If your master isn’t sounding smooth, full and balanced, then feel
free to re-do the EQ steps. Oftentimes you’ll find issues part of the way through that you should
have dealt with in the first step. This is normal and totally acceptable to tweak this until it’s right.
Rely on your analyzer and pink noise as the objective truth as well if you start to question what
you’re doing!

Glue With Compression

This step is only 1 of 2 compressors that we should need to use on our master. At this point,
you’ll have 2 options for style of compression, groovy- or consistent-type compression. These
two types are the magical solution for 99.9% of masters. Remember that consistent-type
compression is fast attack, slow release, and groovy type compression is slow attack, fast
release.

In order to help me decide which I’m going to pick, I look visually at the mix. Are there obvious
peaks that look overly dynamic? Or is the mix a pretty flat-looking worm on the screen? If it
looks overly-dynamic (or sounds overly-dynamic), then I’ll reach for consistent-type
compression. If it is flat-looking, I’ll reach for groovy type compression to breathe a bit more life
into the master. 80% of the time I’ll pick groovy first - then adjust to consistent-type compression
if I can’t get the loudness I want from the track (more on that in a second!).

For groovy-type compression I’ll usually start with around 30-50ms attack, and 20-30ms release.
I then bring my threshold down until I’m getting 1db of gain reduction at the loudest part of the
song. This should return all the way back to 0 between major beats or peaks in the track.

For consistent-type compression, I start with 1-10ms attack and a 100ms - 200ms release. I
then reduce my threshold until I’m getting around 2db of gain reduction, with the meter returning
to anywhere between -1db and 0db of gain reduction between peaks.

And that’s it! It’s very easy to over-do this, so be sure to use a light-touch and don’t worry if you
can’t really “hear” what’s happening with the compression as long as you’re getting some gain
reduction and there isn’t any pumping in your master, you’re on the right track!
Make It Loud With Compression
As I mentioned earlier, you’ll be using 2 compressors in the mastering chain. The second
compressor is actually a brick-wall limiter. I call it a compressor because that’s what it actually
is. A limiter is simply a compressor with an infinite ratio, so it doesn’t allow any sound to go
above the threshold that you set.

The next step is to add your limiter to the end of your mastering chain and increase the input
until it gets ~3db of gain reduction. As long as your EQ mastering chain was successful, this
should be all be that’s necessary to get your song up to an industry-standard level. Using your
RMS or LUFS meter, you can double-check that you’re getting your master up to around -8db at
the loudest point of the song. This is, in my experience, the optimal loudness level for most
purposes, whether that’s burning to a CD, streaming or pressing vinyl records. Your peak
volume should be around 0db, I often set my ceiling to -0.3db just for extra safety, but as long as
you’re not peaking below -1db or above -0db you’re in the right spot with your master.
Congratulations for finishing your first professional master! Just like any skill, mastering takes a
bit of practice to figure out what you’re doing and to feel confident, but this simple approach will
take any good mix and make it into a professional master, far better than any AI mastering
service out there.

Chapter 19: The Most Important Chapter

At this point, my sincere hope is that you feel far more confident you’re on the right path to
getting professional mixes and masters with the songs you’re privileged to work on. Whether
you’re producing mixes for a friend, a client, or yourself - committing to the best work you can do
will pay off. I trust this book has shown you it’s possible to produce professional mixes without
tons of gear or advanced tactics and techniques. Side-chain compression seems cool, but it
can’t surpass the basics of a simple, clear Relational EQ move to ensure that both your kick and
bass work together in harmony.

I want to go back to a quote from an earlier chapter of this book, “The highest level mixing and
mastering engineers never don’t do the basics.”

All listeners are evaluating your mix on the following keys when they hear your song for the first
time. (Consciously or not.)
1. Volume Balance
2. Sonic Balance
3. Dynamics
4. Clarity
5. Depth
If you took nothing else away from this book, I want you to remember just the key elements of
the Objective Mixing Framework (OMF) so that you can implement these principles into any mix
or master that you ever have in the future to get pro results.
1. The biggest lever you have in your mixes is the volume balance. This is 90% of your mix
and should be treated with appropriate care in your mixing process.
2. All professional mixes and masters have the same relative frequency balance, and this
roughly matches the same balance as pink noise. If a mix or master varies from this
objective standard significantly, it will not sound professional.
3. The only way to create clear mixes with distinct parts, is to utilize the power of gestalt. If
more than one element tries to exist in a significantly similar frequency range, then
neither element will be able to be discerned and the mix will be perceived as muddy,
unclear, and amateur.
4. A pro mix can be achieved with the most basic mixing tools: volume, panning, EQ,
compression, and reverb.
5. The longer you mix a single song, the less objective you’ll be and therefore your
judgment will be impaired. Finish mixes quickly, take breaks frequently and seek out
feedback to ensure that your mix sounds industry quality before releasing it.

The next thing for you to do is start implementing this framework as soon as you can. If you
haven’t already, get your latest mix that you’ve worked on, or been meaning to work on, and go
back to part 3 to implement the OMF for yourself!

If you’re looking for the fastest way to ensure you’re hitting the 5 keys of an objective mix, I’d
like to invite you to join the community of objective mixers helping each other achieve top-quality
results with their mixes here:

www.ObjectiveMixersCircle.com

What you’ll experience inside the community:

● Feedback to ensure you’re implementing the lessons in this book correctly in your mixes.
● Additional lessons & ways to implement the OMF in your mixes.
● Active discussion around mixing techniques and what’s working for others in the
community.
● Real mix examples run step-by-step through the OMF.
● Live community events where you can ask questions and gain deeper insights to the
world of mixing and mastering music.

This is just an opportunity to explore how we can help you achieve your mixing and mastering
goals faster.

My goal throughout this book was to help you as much as possible inside a short book in mixing
like a pro. The reason I offer additional education is because there is only so much you can
learn through the written word for mixing. In addition, mixing can become extremely nuanced.
There will be different tracks, different scenarios and problems that you’ll run into that won’t be
fully explained how to deal with in a short book. I want to be able to serve you as much as
possible and give you the results that you want so you can get whatever results you desire with
your music.

As someone who struggled for 7 years before asking for help, I can attest to the value in getting
the help you need to move on to the next skill you’ll need to progress with your music. Whether
that is having me and my team help you get to that next level, or someone else, you owe it to
yourself to get to where you want to be with your music faster than it took me. I regret spending
40% of my life struggling to learn these fundamentals when there was someone out there who
could have potentially saved me all the heartache and pain I went through to get to where I am.

But regardless of where you are at in your journey, and no matter where your ultimate
destination is, the one thing that you’ll need to do is take that first action. Even if you read this
entire book, if you don’t apply the principles that you’ve learned here into your first objective mix,
you’ve effectively wasted all the time spent reading this book.

So if you haven’t started yet, here is your call to arms. Put down this book (or turn it back to Part
3) and get started with your first mix with your newfound objective mixing knowledge and see
what this can do for your music in bringing it to life as you’ve never heard it before.

Your music matters. Even if it only impacts one person out there who resonates with it deeply,
you owe it to them to present your music in the best light possible for them to enjoy it and be
moved by it.

Again, my deepest desire is to see you achieve whatever your goals in music are and it would
be a pleasure to help you achieve those goals in whatever capacity I am able. If you’re ready to
take that next step or just need someone to hold you accountable to take action, then go to the
URL below and see how I can help you achieve your music goals faster.

www.ObjectiveMixersCircle.com