Finally! You've spent the last day, week or month recording your latest masterpiece. All the guitars, keyboards, drums, bass, vocals and everything else you wanted is all there in digital form (or analog tape if you can afford it). You take a day off to rest your ears and recover from living on cold pizza and too much coke. Now, it's time to mix your masterpiece.

>The biggest mistake that mix engineers make these days is they 'over' mix their music. They add EQ when it sounded better flat. They pour on gobs of reverb and delay to 'fatten' up the mix, but it really just adds mud. They even get the bass and drums out of whack because they didn't listen to it on different kinds of speakers.

Less is more. I like to look at the mixing process as a chance to really make the essence of the music shine - not my mixing prowess. You can accomplish this very simply by stripping things away from and out of the overall musical canvas. I like to call it musical sculpting. All the tracks are there in recorded form, but does every single thing need to be there?

You have to ask yourself this question - "does this really add to the music or is it getting in the way?" This can be really tough if you played, say, drums or guitar on the recordings. You are going to be somewhat married to your own playing - even if you don't intend to. An experienced producer (that also mixes) will have learned to be completely unbiased towards their own playing. A legend in the field of producing - Brown Bannister (the guy that produced Amy Grant, Third Day, and Michael W. Smith) - doesn't play anything on the records he produces. This gives him a very unbiased viewpoint. That allows him to see the big picture and keep the music sounding focused, clean & professional. BUT, just because he does it that way doesn't mean you have to as well. Just make sure that you give the maximum effort to see the overall picture on each track you are mixing.

>Try this technique next time you sit down to mix a song. Start with only the drums - then add bass guitar. Get both of those instruments sounding fat and tight. Once you have that down, add the lead vocal. Listen to the song and see what you think. If it sounds good, then add the guitars and keyboards and background sounds one at a time. If it doesn't sound good with only the drums, bass and vocals, then take some time to figure out what is wrong and see if you can go back and overdub a part or two that doesn't fit quite right.

Bottom Line: Give it a shot. I bet you'll find your mixes will be sounding more professional with only a small amount of effort.