Now let’s look at how your brain functions during the mixing process, because in actuality, the human brain is a dual processing system—and that impacts artistic activities. The left hemisphere is involved in more analytical tasks, such as math, decoding directions, reading, and so on. The right hemisphere is more involved with creative tasks and emotional responses; it’s the part that “feels” rather than “thinks.” This is not some weird new age philosophy—it’s possible to hook up electrodes to people’s heads, and see which hemisphere of the brain is working during a particular task.

So what does this have to do with mixing? Everything, and here’s why.

In general, it’s difficult for people to switch back and forth between the two hemispheres. Every musician knows what I’m talking about: suppose you’re in a right-brain groove, generating an idea a minute, when all of a sudden there’s a technical glitch. Now you have to switch over to left-brain mode and begin the troubleshooting process. When you start playing music again, the groove is gone, because your brain became stuck in left-brain mode.

In a conventional recording studio situation, the engineer lives in left-brain mode, the artist stays in the right brain (e.g., doesn’t have to worry about level-setting and such because the engineer takes care of that), while the producer has the difficult job of trying to integrate the two. If you’re trying to perform all these functions at once by yourself, you’ll find it’s not all that easy. This is why it’s always great if you can have associates to help during the mixing process.

However, if you’re flying solo, there are still ways to reconcile the right brain/left brain dichotomy. The most important goal is to make sure you don’t have to think about left-brain activities, so you can stay in right-brain mode. If working with your multitrack recording system of choice becomes second nature, it will be that much easier to stay in right-brain mode. Here are some tips on how to do this.

• Learn the keyboard equivalents for various operations. Once memorized, it takes less effort to just hit a couple of keys than to locate a specific area on the screen, move your mouse to it, go down a menu, select an item, etc.
• Use Layouts to organize specific combinations of windows for certain tasks, like mixing, overdubbing, different types of editing, etc. This requires less effort than opening windows and dragging them around.
• The use of color and graphics goes well with right-brain thinking, as your brain can decode colors more easily than words. This is why it can be helpful to color-code tracks, especially if you’re consistent about it—e.g., always making the bass tracks or guitar tracks the same color.

A lot of you have asked for tips on how to make your mixes better, so let’s give a few tips.

An important point is to realize that the idea of a single person writing, recording, producing, and mixing is a relatively new concept. Until the advent of the home studio, the musician was traditionally part of a team of (hopefully) experienced and musically intelligent people. Two of the people who play an important role on this team are the producer and engineer. In a home or project studio environment, the musician doesn’t necessarily have access to these high-powered talents, and has to perform those roles from within. Although this may seem difficult at first, this experience is probably one of the greatest teachers you can have in learning how to be objective about your playing, your style, and your sounds.

During the mixing process, it helps to be aware of the ideal role of each of the three participants (musician, producer, engineer) so that you can assume those roles at will.

The producer oversees the process, rides herd on the arrangement, gauges the overall emotional impact, and makes artistic judgements about what does and does not work. To fulfill the function of a producer, you need to see each piece as part of a whole, and each track as part of a final composition. If you know where you are going, it’s a lot easier to get there; the job of the producer is to figure out where you are going.

The musician participates in the mix on any one of several levels, from simply observing the producer to making sure the production remains true to the original intent of the music.

The engineer is the one at the session who doesn’t drink, smoke, talk much, or complain, and is responsible for translating the producer’s needs into a technological solution. If the producer says the vocals need more “presence,” it’s up to the engineer to decide which tweaks will result in that particular effect. Of course, this is a stereotype and no stereotype is accurate, but every engineer I ever worked with respected the job and took it seriously. It can be helpful to adopt an engineer’s attitude when mixing; forget about whether you could have done a better solo, and simply work with what you have.

By becoming familiar with these roles, you can apply their differing outlooks to your music and obtain a more balanced perspective. Above all, don’t just mix the music; produce it. (But don’t overproduce it—sometimes tracks are best left unprocessed, and sometimes parts should be removed to create space for other parts. Don’t fall in love with the elements that make up a particular piece of music; keep your focus on the final result.) Always keep in mind that the whole point of mixing is to turn a collection of tracks into a cohesive musical statement.