13 Mixing Basics

Mixing is the process of combining all of your edited material into a final presentation for the audience. This can take many forms from a simple mono voiceover recording to be broadcast on the Internet to a stereo music mix that could be heard on anything from an iPod to a high-powered club system with subwoofers. In the video and film world, the options for delivery expand to include multiple surround formats for theater, DVD, and broadcast; stems mixes for archival and foreign language versions; downmixes for stereo and Internet streaming; and more.

With all these varied delivery formats, the mixing engine needs to be flexible enough to provide many different things all at the same time. Part of that process involves the ability to listen to your mix on several monitoring systems and compare with external sources for reference material in a calibrated and controlled environment.