The Ultimate Guide to Preparing your Tracks For Professional Mixing.
The article also available here
Music Production is on an all-time high, more people are Making music at home than ever before. Mixing is where a lot of people get intimidated and have a hard time figuring it out. Be it theoretically or practically. I know it is a bit hard and takes time to figure out.
Most times it is better to send your tracks to a professional audio engineer to get them mixed and/ or mastered. There are a lot more reasons but I’ll get into that in another article.
Why should you prepare your tracks before sending them to a Mix Engineer?
Well, it throws away any confusion and guesswork out the window, saves time, and frankly avoids a lot of angry phone time off you and your engineer making the process smoother and faster. and that’s what we all want right?
After Recording and Mixing for over 4 years, watching a bunch of videos, and talking to a lot of engineers that I worked with I have come up with an ultimate guide to make this process a lot smoother. This will be a longer article but will make your project universally compatible and most engineers will be happy.
So… Let’s get right into it
Things to Keep in Mind while Recording
Make sure you record the tracks properly. Make sure none of the tracks are peaking/clipping and do not mix up bit depths and sample rates.
COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY (Part 1: Edits)
This is going to be the theme throughout the article.
Get it clear with the engineer of what exactly you want. Do you want him to edit your track as well or are things like pitch correction going to be needed?
A lot of engineers expect edited tracks and the only thing they want to focus on is mixing or maybe provide editing as a separate service.Ask if any alternate takes will be needed.
Clear this out before you send anything.
Remove unnecessary tracks
Create a duplicate project (Optional, Since I keep the original as a backup) and remove all the tracks you don’t need. Any alternate takes or optional tracks come under this category.
Editing, Clean-Up, and Crossfades
After it has been decided if you're the one editing the track. Do the necessary editing. timing correction or any pitch correction as needed. Clean the empty regions and make sure there is no unnecessary noise coming from any of the tracks. Make sure all the edits are properly crossfaded to avoid any pops or clicks that may pose a problem and can become very evident.
SIDE POINT: DRUM TRACKS
If You’re using a Virtual Acoustic Drum Instrument, Make sure to Split The Output from the Instrument and get separate files like “Kick in” “Kick Out” “ Snare Top” “Overheads” etc.
Every Modern drum program like Steven Slate Drums 5.5, Addictive Drums, etc. will let you get those files as separate tracks. One Single Stereo Acoustic Drums is not going to work. Samples or Audio Loops are an exception.
COMMUNICATION (Part 2: Processing)
Communicate with the engineer if any track has the processing printed on it. This can include pre-processed synths/ instruments, Guitar Amp Simulations. or any specific sound design that you’ve created. So we can get the unprocessed file If in any case, the processing doesn't work in the mix.
Dry/unprocessed tracks should be provided if that is the case.
Dry Guitar Tracks
Engineers know Guitar tone is incredibly subjective but keeping a Dry Direct Injection (DI) Track as a safety option is always a good idea if your tone doesn’t work in the mix. Even if you like your tone, the engineer might be able to come up with a tone you might like even better. The DI Track should not include any processing or pedals on it so we can get the cleanest signal possible.
The only exception to the last point might be a wah or a volume pedal if any.
Label and Number your Tracks
Label Your Tracks Properly with self-explanatory names. we want any guesswork to be avoided (since there is always this one random track named Audio 1 we don’t know where to put it).
Arrange your tracks and number them starting from ‘01' and not ‘1’.
Do this even if your DAW has track numbers since we’re trying to set up an export system that may or may not be printed to the audio files themselves.
If you’re sending multiple songs/Projects as a part of a collection. Keep the labeling consistent.
Label Your tracks short and clear
Name your tracks according to the instrument/part and not the person playing it (a common mistake). The engineer may or may not have an idea of that. Keep the Names as short as possible, and use acronyms if possible
Eg. ‘AG 1' for Acoustic Guitar 1; ‘VOX’ or ‘LV’ for Lead Vocals; ‘OH’ for Overheads etc.
Tempo Maps and Markers
Make Makers in the projects according to the song structure.
If your song has a variable tempo, create a Tempo Map in your DAW. This will be exported as a MIDI (.mid) file. when imported into another DAW this will place the markers and tempo changes correctly in the session.
Consolidate your tracks
Consolidation means that all your tracks start at the same point (usually the beginning of the session. This means if you have a piano part coming at (let’s say) 1:26, space will be added to the track so when importing it doesn’t create any shifting or timing errors. The files don’t have to end at the same time but have to start at the same time. This also commits your edits, fades, etc, and creates 1 single audio file per track. There are different methods to consolidate tracks in each DAW, you might want to figure out the way in yours
Once Consolidated, EXPORT Tracks (To Wave)
This is the most Important Step
After your tracks are consolidated, the tracks need to be exported out of your DAW as high-quality uncompressed audio files (mp3s don’t work AT ALL), usually to a wave format (.wav) at the sample rate and bit depth you recorded at. The standard is 24bit 48kHz or 24Bit 44.1kHz at minimum.
Make sure all tracks are exported properly and nothing is missing, and check for fully Blank empty tracks.
Export your files to a new folder. If multiple songs are being shared each should have its own individual folder.
Export a Midi File which includes the session data, like markers and tempo map as a MIDI (.mid) file.
If Your DAW doesn't support exporting a track. Get a Real DAW.(I’m looking at you Garageband)
Export in Proper Format
Make sure the tracks are correctly exported in their native format. Mono tracks like Vocals (All Vocals), Kick, Snare, etc. are exported as mono, and tracks like piano or strings are exported as Stereo. Tracks like Stereo overheads or rooms are some exceptions and can be exported as stereo or dual-mono (One Containing Left and One Containing Right) depending on the engineer.
Include Other Information (readme)
Once all tracks are appropriately exported to a new folder, create a readme file (PDF or .txt would work) that includes information like:-
1. Bit Depth
2. Sample Rate
3. Song Tempo
4. Song Key
5. Track Abbreviations (Optional)
6. Reference Tracks
or any other points to keep in mind (Mix Points, errors, etc.) that you need the engineer to check/read before starting the work. This also makes things smoother.
Rough and Reference Tracks
I always prefer the artists send me a rough mix. This doesn’t have to be a great mix, just faders, and pans. This provides the artists' vision with the tracks and can be used as a guide so the engineer doesn't go too far from what the artist want. The engineers also prefer if a reference track is provided. A reference track is a commercially available song (in a similar genre) that the artists consider a Good mix. Both of these give a clearer insight to the engineer.
Organize your tracks into Folders (Optional)
The tracks can be organized into categories according to their type. For Example, all drum tracks can to a drums folder or the and so on. This isn’t super important but definitely saves time.
Compress the folder to a Zip File
That’s almost it. Compress the folder to a Zip (.zip) file and send it using a file-sharing medium like Google Drive or We Transfer. Make sure not to use any other formats like .rar since they can get corrupted easily and aren’t compatible sometimes.
Communication is Key (Part 4: Notes and Deadlines)
Make sure to be as clear and precise as possible with any mix notes/revisions needed. And make sure to communicate about the deadlines of your tracks.
And That’s pretty much it
The whole point of preparing the tracks like this is to remove as much friction as possible, help focus more on making the song sound good and not spend dealing with the hundreds of tracks sent, fighting around the organization and save time for everyone.
