Preparing Your Song for Remote Mixing / Mastering
Introduction
As an independent music artist, you know that one of the most important steps in the music-making process is mixing. This process involves adjusting the levels, EQ, and other audio elements of your recordings to create a balanced and cohesive final product. However, with the rise of remote work and collaboration, it’s becoming increasingly common for mixing to be done remotely, which means you need to prepare and export your individual recordings in a way that ensures the best possible results. In this blog post, we’ll cover some essential tips for preparing and exporting your individual recordings for remote mixing along with specific examples for Logic Pro and Ableton.
1. Name and organize your tracks
Before you export your tracks, it’s important to name and organize them in a way that makes sense to the mixing engineer. This means giving each track a descriptive name that reflects its role in the song, such as “lead vocal,” “bass guitar,” or “drum overheads.” You should also organize your tracks into folders that group related elements, such as all the drum tracks or all the guitar tracks. This will make it easier for the mixing engineer to quickly find and work with each individual track.
2. Decide The Vibe (Check your levels and effects)
Before you export your tracks, it’s important to check their levels and effects to ensure that they’re optimized for mixing. This means making sure that each track is properly balanced with the other tracks in the mix, and that there are no clipping or distortion issues. in short, make the individual Tracks sound how you intend them to.
You should also remove any effects or processing that you don’t want to be included in the final mix, such as EQ, compression, or reverb. If you’re unsure about any of these settings, it’s a good idea to consult with the mixing engineer before exporting your tracks. In most cases, I just follow the rule of when in doubt leave it out.
3. Export your tracks in the right format
When it comes time to export your tracks for remote mixing, it’s important to choose the right format. In most cases, you’ll want to export your tracks as individual WAV or AIFF files, which are uncompressed formats that retain all of the detail and clarity of your original recordings. You should also make sure that each track is properly labeled with its name and the BPM of the song, and that they’re all consolidated into a single folder for easy delivery to the mixing engineer.
4. Include a Reference of the song
When delivering files to a mix engineer it is good to share a separate rough mix reference of the entire song with the files you deliver so they have an idea of what you are used to hearing when it comes to the song as well as some of the initial directions you were taking for the mix while producing the song. This is also a great safety net to make sure that if there are any issues in the files can me noticed and addressed as early as possible.
5. How do you want to deliver the song (Multi-Tracks, STEMS, or Session File)
one last step is deciding which method you and your engineer would like the files to be delivered as, STEMS, Multi-Tracks, or a Session File. Every engineer has a different process and workflow so be sure to check in and ask them what they prefer when you deliver files. If you are unsure about the difference between STEMS and Multi-Tracks you can check out this article here.
Multi- Tracks
Typically engineers will ask for Multi-Tracks of your song at so they have the most flexibility when mixing your song. and is the easiest way to avoid errors when sharing files.
In logic the export Tracks as Audio files function will allow you to export the entire track including all processing and automation on the track as if you were playing it back in your session. (Cmd + E is the default hot-key)
(note that if you are selecting all the tracks with Cmd + A you will also select any hidden tracks in the session as well.)
you could also use the all tracks as audio files to be sure everything you’d like to use is exported.
In Ableton you will go to export Audio / Video and then select the settings that best match the prefered file delivery format discussed in Step 5.
STEMS
sending over STEMS will be a similar process as Multi-Tracks you will just send over groups of recordings that are summed to create files for each piece of the song ie Drums, Bass, Vocals, Keys, Guitar etc..
Session File
If you are sending an entire session file be sure that all the files are packaged or in the folder of the session file so that all the necessary files within the session can load when the engineer loads the session.
In Ableton this will be the collect all and save function.
For Logic be sure the file is saved as a package and be sure the collect audio files is selected when saving the project.
Conclusion
In conclusion, preparing and exporting your individual recordings for remote mixing requires careful attention to detail and a commitment to high-quality audio. By following these essential tips, you can ensure that your tracks are properly optimized for mixing and that you’ll get the best possible results from your collaboration with a remote mixing engineer. Good luck!
