How to Mix an Album

Mixing one song is about making that song work. Mixing an album adds a second job: ten or twelve songs, often recorded on different days, in different rooms, sometimes by different people, have to sound like they belong on the same record. The usual way an album goes wrong is that each song gets mixed in isolation and the songs are only heard together at the end. Below is the order we work in when an album comes in, and what to prepare if someone else is mixing yours.

This guide is about the mix. For levels, spacing and sequencing in the final stage, read our guide on mastering an album.

Single mix vs album mix: what changes

“Related” does not mean identical. A ballad and an up-tempo track on the same album should sound like the same band, not the same preset.

Pick the anchor song first

Don’t start with song one on the tracklist. Start with the song that has the most of what the album is: the full arrangement, the main vocal style, the instruments that appear on most tracks. If the record has a single, that is often the one. Mix it until the artist is happy with it, and only then move on.

The anchor does two jobs. It settles the big questions once (how bright the vocal is, how much low end the record carries, how wet or dry it feels) instead of reopening them on every song. And it gives you something to compare every later mix against, which is far more useful than a commercial reference when you need to know whether song seven belongs with song two.

If the album has two very different sides, say a band half and an acoustic half, it can need two anchors. That is fine as long as the two still share the vocal and the overall tone.

Build a starting session, not a preset

Once the anchor is approved, its session becomes the template for the rest: the same bus structure, the same vocal chain, the same reverb and delay sends. Each new song starts from those settings and then gets mixed properly, because the recordings will be different. A vocal tracked on a different day or a different mic will need its EQ moved, a song in another key will need the low end retuned.

What doesn’t work is copying the full mix settings onto every song and calling it consistent. That gives you an album where every song has the same problems, and the quieter songs drown in processing set for the loudest one.

Keep the vocal recognisable from song to song

Listeners follow the voice. If the vocal is bright and forward on one song and dark and distant on the next, the album sounds like a compilation even when everything else matches. Keep the same character on the lead: a similar brightness, a similar amount of compression, the same main reverb. Change the effects where the song asks for it, but bring the core sound back.

Level is part of this. The vocal should sit at a similar distance from the listener across the record. We check it by jumping between the choruses of different songs at the same playback volume.

Match the low end and the space

Low end is where album mixes drift most, because it is hard to judge from song to song. One song ends up with a heavy bass, the next is thin, and mastering then has to choose between fixing one and hurting the other. Keep the kick and bass weight in the same range across the album, while still letting a song with a different tempo or key have its own shape.

Reverbs work the same way. If the album uses one main room or plate on the drums and vocals, the songs feel like they were recorded in the same place. Song-specific delays and special effects can sit on top of that shared space.

Check the songs in running order

Every few mixes, play the transitions: the last 30 seconds of one song into the first 30 of the next, in the order they will be released. This is where you hear that one song is suddenly darker, or that the drums jump forward. It is much easier to fix at this stage than in mastering.

Do this at the same playback volume, without the limiter you use for checking loudness. If two songs only feel different because one is pushed harder, that is a mastering question. If they still feel different when matched for level, it is a mix question.

Leave loudness to mastering

An album mix does not need to hit a loudness number, and there is no fixed target the songs should be mixed to. Leave the master bus empty and keep peaks around −6 dB on every song, so the mastering engineer has the same headroom on all of them. Mastering then sets each song’s level relative to the others, so a quiet ballad stays a quiet ballad next to a loud single, and handles the gaps and fades between tracks. More on the numbers in our guide on how loud a mix should be before mastering.

What to send when someone else mixes your album

• The multitrack for every song, every channel as its own WAV, all starting at bar 1, at the session’s sample rate. If you are not sure how, our guide to preparing a multitrack session covers it, and the difference between tracks and stems is explained in what are stems in music.
• The same folder and file naming on every song, so the vocal is called the same thing on all of them.
• A rough mix of each song, so we hear the arrangement and the effects you used.
• One released reference for the whole record, and a note if any song should go somewhere different.
• The running order and your release date, written in Notes on the order form.
• Which song you think is the anchor, if you already have an opinion. If not, we suggest one.

How we mix albums at Major Mixing

Tell us in Notes which song you want as the anchor and we can start there, so the main decisions are agreed before the rest of the album. When we confirm your files, we agree a delivery schedule for the whole album with you. Every song has 6 revision rounds, and each round usually comes back within a day.

All songs go on one order, and the multi-song discount is applied automatically: 2% for every song in the order, so 10 songs take 20% off. Prices are per song by the number of tracks in the session. If you want the album mastered by us too, Complete Mixing and Mastering starts at $133 per song: we mix, you approve each mix, and we master the approved songs as one release. If a label or another engineer is mastering, book mixing on its own, from $113 per song. Every mix comes with stems, the instrumental and a TV mix at no extra cost. How long the stages take is covered in how long mixing and mastering takes.