Ultimate Guide to Mixing Dance Music

5 IMPORTANT STEPS:
1. Sample Selection
- If you’re trying to mix a track that has a poorly
chosen kickdrum or ugly snare tail for example
you will right away bump into issues

2. Composition & Sound Design

- Your track aside from mixing needs to be produced
in a powerful direction, this makes mixing easier
- Each element and stem needs to be professionally
sound designed, dull sounds or out dated sounds
can really put you behind during the mixing process

3. Headroom
- When producing your track always keep in mind
to mix your levels within the mixing console very low
- This gives headroom and space to your master
channel, resulting in a cleaner mixdown & master
output when you finalize

4. Timing
- Mix your record at an earlier time, this is very important
as majority of artists will get ear fatigue throughout
the production & mixing process
- Early in the morning is when best results usually come
upon you, not at 4am after a 12 hour session

5. Highpass Almost Everything

- Grab all channels and put a highpass filter on
- With exceptions of your kick or sub bass being
elements needing response under 100hz or so
- Highpass filter until the sound is lightly affected, then
start to dial back to the sweet spot of the sound

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 Ultimate Guide to Mixing Dance Music

DO NOT DO:
1. Over Compress
- Instead of worrying so much about compression
try utilizing volume automation instead when needed
- Most of us are in the digital world; we’re not really
recording anything that has high dynamic range.
- Vocals are most likely needing compression 9/10

2. Process channel strips if not needed

- Why add a plugin tool to a channel strip if you’re
not even sure what it does in the first place
- Do you research on what these plugins do or why
you saw some famous producer use them in their DAW

3. Do not think mastering will fix your issues

- Slapping a huge master channel strip on will not
fix your internal mixing issues
- Mixing is more important than mastering your output
- You need balance & clarity done before you even
consider putting the cherry on top with mastering

4. Mix at high volumes

- Many of us get carried away with turning our monitors
or headphones up very loud to feel the music
- This actually could be hurting your chances
during your mixdown process
- Hearing elements at different volumes is always
a great idea, try changing your monitor levels
throughout the entire process slightly
- Overall mixing at a lower volume will let your ears
fight to hear stems more precise
- Your ears and mind will start to notice any elements or
stems that stand out in the mix, meaning they will need
your attention with balancing

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 Ultimate Guide to Mixing Dance Music

CHECKLIST TO DO:
1. Focus deeply on your low end
- Did you try highpass filtering all elements beside
your kick & sub bass?
- Are you focusing on stereo placement of your low
elements? Stereo vs. Mono

2. Start with most important element(s)

- Typically I start with the kickdrum. When I add an
element that causes the kick to lose precision or punch
I know I need to adjust that next stem around the kick
- Dubstep could be snare
- House or Trance could be kick

3. Start with Mixing faders all the way down

- Start mixing from the ground up, literally
- Most third party plugins implement the best at lower
levels believe it or not, they won’t clip & distort
- Build around your imperative element(s)

4. Converting MIDI to audio

- Although you do not always need to do this during
the mixing process, it is also very valuable
- Makes it easy to clear things up such as reverb tails
or delay tails most importantly
- CPU friendly & less of a headache

5. Side Chaining is vital during Mixing

- Subtle side chaining on multiple channels goes very
far during your mixing process
- Dont always have to use a kick as side chain
use something else, get artistic with it
- Some side chaining should almost not be
noticeable to the listener, but gives headroom

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 Ultimate Guide to Mixing Dance Music

ESTABLISH A MIXING SEQUENCE & WORK FLOW:

1. Your most imperative elements first
- Is your kick and bass working perfect together?
- Are they masking each other or are you over doing
it with your low end elements?
- Keep the sub bass straight to the point, this will
create space for your kick drum, very essential
- Utilizing simple side chain with your sub bass to
balance it perfectly with your bassline

2. Build from your Kick Drum & Sub Bass

- Move up the frequency range to the right from your
kick drum & sub bass in order, great place to start
- Move now to balance your sub bass with your
mid low bass or even your mid range chords
- Once balanced continue to move to the
right of the frequency spectrum
- ie: chords to leads or leads to vocals

3. Color regions & Summing Groups

- This may not be a huge deal to most, but this helps
an enormous amount with your work flow, guaranteed
- Color your midi regions or you audio tracks to
visually understand what’s going where
- Create summing groups that can be bused to
another channel once mixing is accurate

4. Mixing in specific bursts of time

- Don’t mix for hours on end straight through, give
your self a chance to adjust and have a break
- Mix for 30min straight and then walk away for
10min, than come back & repeat over & over
- Always notice something sticking out in the mix
after taking breaks almost every time

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 Ultimate Guide to Mixing Dance Music

5 ELEMENTS OF MIXING:
1. EQING (DB BOOST/CUT & VOLUME HEIGHT)
2. LEVELS OR FADERS (DB BOOST & VOLUME HEIGHT)
3. PANNING (WIDTH)
4. PROCESSING EFFECTS (DEPTH & FRONT TO BACK)
5. CREATIVITY (BREAK THE RULES)

1. EQING
- EQING is a detailed level control that lets us boost
and cut levels at particular frequencies. EQing is
the simplest way to structure the tracks in your mix so
they fit together and delivers a powerful way to add
persona and charisma to the individual stems

2. LEVELS
- Levels are pretty straight forward, when you want to
hear something louder, we turn up a fader. And the
louder stems or elements of the mix grab the listener’s
attention more than the quieter stems. It’s best
to mix low to high for you to establish the best balance

3. PANNING
- Panning would be the horizontal (left/right) elements.
Panning can be very valuable on instruments that sit in
the same frequency range. You can dispersed the two
instruments & moderate the chance of masking

4. PROCESSING EFFECTS
- Processing effects would be the division of depth
(front to back). Effects such as reverb & delay can
make an instrument seem further away, or sometimes
bigger than a dry in your face instrument.

5. CREATIVITY
- Don’t always do whats right, sometimes breaking the
rules can spark creativity & your own style

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 Ultimate Guide to Mixing Dance Music

UNDERSTANDING THE SPECTRUM:

1. Low End (125Hz and below):
- This is where all sub-bass and bass instruments exist in.
Be cautious, this frequency range is commonly better
“felt” than heard.

2. Low-Mids (125Hz–500Hz):
- Has the fundamental frequencies of a lot of lower
range instruments and can be a delicate one to
master. Over load in this range could be labeled as
“muddy”, while too little will have your mix absent of
power.

3. Mid-Range (500Hz–2kHz):
- Pretty much every instrument sits somewhere in this
range. This is where you will spend most of your time
getting your instruments to fit together.

4. High-Mids (2kHz–8kHz):
- This range is where a lot of upper harmonics live
(vocal breaths, cymbals, hats, etc.). This range is where
you will find the “snap” in a kick drum and the “pluck”of
an acoustic guitar or pluck synth.

5. High End (8kHz and above):

- This is where the “air” and “noise” lives. Too much
energy in this range can be strenuous and will make
the mix sound shrill, while too little will make the mix
dismal

Note:
- Try to put a 22hz low cut on your master channel, this
will get rid of low end rumble you do not hear, but feel
generally too much of in large venues

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