5 Creative Mixing Tips

Ever feel bored with your mixing approach? Is your mixing process so rigid and structured that it robs the process of its creativity?

Sometimes when we’ve been mixing for a while… we can get stuck in our ways.

So here are 5 super fun creative mixing tips!

1) Automate your automation

Automate the send amount of various tracks to a return with effects on it such as delay, reverb, phasers, etc.

Then play with parameters of the effects on the return channel and the volume in real-time. It can make for some EPIC ambiances and effect tails.

2) Use Effect Groups

Set the output of every track in your session to “sends only” and create two return channels.

This will make your tracks filter through your returns with its “sends” instead of going straight to the master.

Make one called “Wet” and the other called “Dry.”

Then place a crazy multi-effect of your choice on the wet channel and leave the dry channel empty.

Then you can route the select tracks you want to affect to the wet return and the rest to the dry return.

This allows you to create “effect groups” on the fly with your sends and process any number of tracks simultaneously.

3) Resample!

Route the output of a return track (such as your “wet” channel) back to an audio track and record the output of the effect return.

This can allow you to resample those effects in a cool way or even chop them up to create interesting mini-samples to place throughout your arrangement.

This is a million times faster than manually selecting every tiny beep and bop sound effect to sprinkle in your session.

4) Performance > Everything

Record precise DI tracks for guitar or bass with an awesome feeling and sounding plugin (I use Neural DSP stuff).

Make sure you’re in tune and get tight takes. Then you can re-amp through a killer amp or tweak the tones afterward.

If you’ve never taken the time to get extremely tight takes before, this tip may rock your world.

5) Texture Your Drums

Grab your favorite hand drum sample (tabla, bongo, djembe, etc..), pitch it down, and layer it with your kick drum.

If you’re feeling extra experimental, try adding some saturation or automating the pitch of the sample over time.

What’s one of your most fun mixing techniques?

If you’re interested in learning more, check out my  ►► 7 Simple Steps To Take Your Songs From Start To Finish. Download Your FREE Pro Producer Roadmap PDF: https://www.metamindmusic.com/workflow

My name is Alex, and I help musicians produce themselves by developing their mindset, expanding their creativity, and connecting to their inner artist in a deeper way.

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