[Dana Nielsen]

Amazing topic, @Nate — and one for the ages!! I’m posting my process below in 4 individual steps in case anyone wants to add-to or follow-up on any 1 specific step rather than the whole giant response.

I’d love for other members here to chime in on this discussion too with their own thoughts, tips, plugins, questions, and ideas! That’s the fun of a forum and discussion, right?!

Ok here goes …

[Dana Nielsen]

3. Back to the bigs for the moment of truth:

• Once u feel good about your small-speaker balance and have been listening and adjusting and mixing on those for 20mins or more so your ears are totally in that small speaker zone, switch back to big speakers for a real surprise . The low end issues will be extremely apparent now! Keep the faders where they’re at and use Hi-pass, low shelving, and/or bell-curves to reign in subs and lows to taste while remaining confident the bass instruments are still going to speak on the small speaks just the way u had them.
  • pro tip: adding harmonic distortion/saturation often helps low frequencies speak on small speaks!
  • pro tip 2: the TC Elec Clarity meter (or similar) will give a visual representation of lurking low end where it’s unnecessary like vocals etc. Carve that shiz out w no remorse and free up valuable frequency bandwidth for bass instruments that need it.

[Dana Nielsen]

2. Make it rock on the smalls:

• Once you love your stripped-down mix rockin’ on the big speakers, switch to a set of small speakers and make sure everything is audible and balanced on those (i prefer my small speakers pushed together for a mono sound and located on a shelf somewhere on the other side of the room, not at all in the “sweet spot”). Honestly, I do at least 60% of my mixing on the small “other side of the room” speakers!

• When I first switch to smalls, I’m usually like “I can’t hear the bass anymore!” and I sometimes turn my bass/808/low-end faders up SIGNIFICANTLY until I’m like “yeahhh, that’s how it’s supposed to sound”.

[Dana Nielsen]

1. Strip down to the bare essentials:

• In an orch/electronic score this might be one bass instrument, a main “kick”, main “snare”, the main melodic instrument (voice, synth etc), the main rhythm instrument (piano, string ostinato, etc. — just pick a single rhythm inst if u can — the one that starts and carries the song/piece!). Now build an amazing mix with ONLY those items.
  

• Give yourself plenty of headroom during this first step. Turn ur speakers up loud if u like to vibe out loud (i often do, to start!) but make sure the big kick booms or snare cracks or lead instrument — whatever’s driving your mix — isn’t peaking at all. I like to keep a comfy 3-6dB buffer on my meters in pro tools (i.e. -6dBfs, so my loudest momentary peak would be -6dB below full scale / peaking). I always meter in pro tools “classic” mode – but you do you!