[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]

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!