Setting Up a Basic Mix with Just Two Knobs

You just got a zip file with your collab partner's stems. Or maybe you downloaded something similar from one of those sites where you can practice your mix skills on a known/published song by a famous artist. Where do you start? In this quick read, I'll lay out how I approach setting up a basic mix with just two knobs.

With All Things Equal, Know Each Track's Purpose

When I say equal, I typically drop all the stems into my DAW at once. The tracks are automatically created and all the knobs & faders are at unity. From there, I quickly identify what each track is: Drums, bass, guitar, vocals, and such. If it's a large project, at this stage, I might start bussing some of the tracks together. For example, the drum tracks and any percussion elements go together. Electric bass, synth bass, anything bass goes together. Rhythm guitar, lead/solo, harmonized guitar, acoustic guitar, all together. You get the idea. Here's where the two magic knobs do their thing.

High Pass Filter

Also known as HPF or Low Cut Filter, this knob carves out your desired low frequencies from your track. In my DAW (Reason Studios), I have the option of using "physical" knobs or a graphic window in the sequencer area.

Low Pass Filter

Also known as LPF or High Cut Filter, as you would guess, does the exact opposed of HPF. This carves out all of the unwanted high frequencies from your track.

Applying HPF/LPF

Modern DAWs afford a ton of flexibility. You can apply your settings individually to each track, apply them to a bus (a group of tracks), or globally (to the master bus that affects all tracks); not to mention the creative potential of automation (the magic behind some pretty innovative EQ VSTs that create crazy movement & color to your sound). Personally, I like to apply HPF/LPF filtering to each track individually. Here's my go-to settings before even playing back the mix:

Drums

HPF & LPF Applied to Kick Drum

Depending on how your stems were imported (each drum individually or 2-channel mix), you'll approach your filtering accordingly. In my example, we're working with individual drum tracks. A drum kit is a full-range instrument, so kick & bigger toms live in the low end while the snare, high toms and percussion reside in the upper end of things.

• Kick Drum: HPF cut around 40Hz-50Hz, slight LPF filter around 10-15 kHz

• Toms: Floor tom same as kick, then increase as much as 500Hz as toms get smaller

• Cymbals & Percussion: Aggressive HPF cut at 150 or more, very small LPF cut

  
  

Bass & Bass Synth

HPF Applied to Electric Bass

Bass is pretty easy for me. If I'm working with an electric bass track, I'll roll off the bass around the same place as the kick, 40Hz or so. Depending on the genre, maybe even go to 50+Hz. It seems my magic number is often 57Hz. With bass synth, I might be more conservative with the cut. In both cases, I'll apply a slight LPF filter (like I did with the drums). This is just to make sure there isn't any anwanted noise, clicks or neighbor's dog barks slipping into the mix.

Guitar

HPF & LPF Applied to Electric Guitar

Guitar is a very general term, so let's work with electric guitar here. I'll start with a minimum cut around 90Hz. As a rule of thumb, anything below 200Hz is typically "mud", so I may quickly go back and cut more after hearing the mix for the first time. With the highs, I'll start cutting around 10-12kHz, then tweak later by ear; stopping where I start to hear the cut.

Synthesizers/Textures/Sound FX

HPF & LPF Applied to a Moog Synthesizer Lead

Often filling the full spectrum, these tracks are completely dependent on the context (and hopefully with some decent track names). For example, if I have a track labeled "Boom", I can be confident it's some sort of low-end explosion, right? Or if it's something like "Glass Break", it's probably calls the higher frequencies home. For pre-listening settings, I'll probably stay the course, cut the lows around 50Hz and the highs around 15kHz. Things change quickly once I've heard the mix for the first time.

Vocals

HPF & LPF Applied to Vocals

A singing or spoken word voice can have the same full-range as a piano or synthesizer. Radio warmth starts around 100Hz, so that's a good place to make an initial HPF cut. With sibilance starting around 7-10kHz, my LPF starts there.

Setting Up a Basic Mix with Just Two Knobs

I've found that by setting up initial low-end and high-end cuts, my ears are less fatigued and the tracks are sitting much better in the mix, versus, throwing everything into my DAW and pressing play. What's your mix setup process? I'd love to learn what others are doing so I can experiment more and improve my mixes.