This is my second installment of “Simple Audio Mixing Tips,” so I’m back to share five more interesting tips to try out while mixing your audio! Ok, lets just get right to it:

1) Mute vocal tracks when there is a break of more than a second or two to kill any unwanted noise. In my experience, vocal tracks tend to be the noisiest and contain the most artifacts out of any other instrument. I think it is because much more sensitive microphones (LDC’s, in particular) are being used that pick up everything happening inside and immediately outside of a room (damn you airplanes!!). To cut back on some of the noise in your mixes, try this simple technique to eliminate unwanted breaths, licking of lips, or any other interesting noises that really don’t belong in your audio. A great way to automate this “muting” process is to use a noise gate, which kicks in once the track falls below the dB threshold that you specify.

2) For drums especially, import a known good track into the session, and see how yours sounds compared to the reference. Mix to get yours sounding more like the reference. This is an extremely helpful technique. You should always A/B a reference mix that has certain qualities you may want to emulate. It is much easier to hear it than to think you know what it sounds like already, because you are most likely wrong. Use this technique for any instrument, and for entire mixes, its really helpful!!

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