Home Studio Mixing Tips, Pt. 2

This series goes over some quick tips for mixing audio in a home studio. Check out my Mixing Cheat Sheet for the full details on the complete mixing process.

Do I need to buy expensive studio speakers for my home studio?

It depends. Mixing only on headphones can lead to overcompensating with your panning, compression, and reverb choices. Mixing only on headphones can also lead to inconsistencies and frustration when working with sensitive parts of your mix, like the vocal and bass areas. For that reason, I generally recommend using both speakers and headphones in combination during music production, not one or the other.

You might be able to get away with using only headphones in an informal home music writing situation, but I’d advise against releasing any work made in that setting without first double-checking your own rough mixes inside of a properly set up, professional quality mixing room. You can rent mixing rooms for a day or two quite affordably in many larger metropolitan areas.

When you’re ready to upgrade to studio speakers, keep in mind that it’s not just the speakers you need to buy. Investing in acoustic room treatment, and properly setting it up, is a critical step in being able to get the most out of your studio speakers. To the point where I wouldn’t advise purchasing speakers until you can also set up your control room properly; cheap speakers placed inside of an uncontrolled or improperly set up acoustic space won’t be much better than mixing on headphones alone.

There’s a lot of bad free information on acoustics all over the Internet, so be sure to vet your information sources carefully when looking for information on how to properly set up a mixing room. My series on DIY Acoustic Testing is a better place to get started with acoustics design, because it uses the proper acoustics textbooks as its primary source material.

Any tips on compression?

Make sure not to over-compress your material. Your mix should retain musical dynamics and a clear, open sound. Be extra careful when using master bus compression during mixing: a little can be tasty, but it’s very easy to overdo it.

My mix sounds completely different when I play it back inside of my car. What do I do?

If you’re DIYing a mixing project, check your mixes on at least 3-5 different types of playback systems, both headphones and speakers, before finalizing the mix. This will help you catch problems that your room acoustics or equipment could be masking.

Part 1 and Part 3 of this series have even more mixing tips.