Mixing A Song Start To Finish: Can You Hear The Difference?

This video is part of a series showing the complete process from songwriting through recording to mixing.

• Chris Buck - professional guitarist and content creator who recorded drums, guitar, and bass parts • Cara - professional vocalist and content creator who wrote the song and recorded all vocals

Everything was recorded and mixed using Focusrite Scarlet interfaces, Focusrite microphones, included software and plugins, and stock DAW plugins.

The plan is to start with rough levels and panning, then process each group of instruments systematically with EQs, compressors, autotune, reverb, and channel strips.

The tracks sound good on their own but benefit from careful processing to optimize their sound in the mix.

A small boost to the low end of the kick drum adds weight and makes the drums sound more confident in the mix.

Channel strips combine filters, compressors, gates, desers, and saturation in one place for efficient drum processing.

The shaker loop had excess low mids, so a high-pass filter was applied to clean up the low frequency content.

The bass was recorded live with significant volume variation, so compression was used to level out the performance while preserving transient attacks.

Harmonic distortion was applied through the channel strip to make the bass translate well across all speaker systems and headphones.

The red compressor filled in quiet sections with more volume without removing all natural variation in the performance.

Side-chaining was applied so that each time the kick hits, the bass reduces by 2-3 dB, allowing them to fit together better without buildup.

During the intro and verses, the guitars were left mostly untouched since they're the only mid-range instrument besides vocals.

In the chorus, the electric guitar was thinned slightly using a fast balancer plugin to prevent congestion from the prominent bass guitar.

The fast balancer plugin was set to neutral mode to pull more clarity into the guitar sound without making it overly bright.

The guitar processing helps it cut through the mix when all instruments play together.

Autotune was added to all vocal layers on medium setting to gently adjust pitch by 5-20 cents, making them more harmonious without obvious tuning artifacts.

A two-stage compression approach was used: a fast compressor to grab peaks, followed by gentle compression on the rest of the signal.

The dynamic vocal performance is a positive sign showing good recording technique; compression controls the range without fixing any problems in the delivery.

Compression pulled up tone and added brightness to the vocals, so EQ adjustments are applied after compression rather than before.

A pingpong delay send was configured on the lead vocals with fast timing to catch the ends of words, and EQ applied to keep delays in the mid-frequency range.

Side-chaining from the lead vocal ducks the delays whenever the vocal sings, allowing them to swell between words for a clean, professional effect.

Two reverb sends were used: a long reverb for depth and a short reverb that functions as a stereo widening effect in the final mix.

The vocal recording is clean and well-performed, so only minimal EQ adjustments were needed to help the vocals sit in the verses.

Master Desk combines compression, EQ, and limiting into one place for simplified mastering of the final mix.

The mastered track has a much higher average loudness than the raw mix due to compression and limiting, even though peak levels are similar.

After making adjustments to the master, the tracks were exported to demonstrate the difference between the unprocessed and fully mixed versions.

The final master is played against the raw mix to show the cumulative impact of all mixing decisions throughout the process.