My first few years of recording and mixing all I could do was a static mix because I didn’t have any eq or compression. I would record my tracks to tape and all I could do is adjust the level. I did my best but it just wasn’t very good. After awhile I figured out how to use the eq in one of my boom boxes but it was still less than ideal. Wow I’m glad I have all the toys I have now. It makes a big difference having everything you need available. These days the static mix is just the first step in a long journey.
So what is a static mix? You ask. A static mix is the first step in mixing. There’s no eq, no compression, nothing, only the relative volume of the tracks are adjusted. I think of it like a sketch, you know, a quick drawing so you can get a better idea of how things fit together. That’s exactly what’s going on here, you want it to sound good about 80% of the time or so but there are going to be rough spots. I do tend to put an eq on the master bus at the end of my static mix before I go into the tracks. At this point a lot of people put an eq and a compressor on the Master Bus but I just don’t like mixing into compression. It’s a technique called top down mixing and It can save a lot of work down the line.
Mixing isn’t something I can really show you with pictures and text so I’m just going to let the video do all the work here. So here we go: How To Do a Static Mix or (Don’t Just do Something, Stand There!)
