How to Send Your Tracks to a Mixing Engineer

Getting a great mix starts before the mixing engineer ever opens a session. How you prepare and send your tracks directly affects how quickly you get your mix back and how much of the engineer's energy goes toward actually mixing your music versus sorting out a disorganized session. Here's how to do it right.

Export Settings

Let's get the technical stuff out of the way first. The best export settings for your track are simple: 24-bit, 48 kHz WAV files are what your engineer needs to properly mix your project (not-so-coincidentally, that's how your tracks should be recorded in the first place). This is the standard format for professional audio work, and it gives your engineer the full quality of your recordings without compression artifacts. MP3s and other lossy formats are not acceptable for mixing. They permanently discard audio information, and no amount of processing will recover it. 

As far as levels are concerned, aim for your audio to sit around -18 dBFS on average. That gives your engineer enough headroom to work with during gain-staging. The most important thing is that nothing is clipping. A clipped recording is damaged permanently. If any of your tracks are clipping, go back to the source and fix it before you export.

Sync Your Tracks

I once had a client send me tracks that weren't synced properly. I had to spend way too long referencing the demo and finding the right placement of each audio file before I could actually start mixing. It required a lot of trial and error, not to mention energy that could have been spent on the mix itself.

Before you export your tracks to send to a mixing engineer, make sure that each track starts at the same point in the timeline, from the very beginning of the session, even if the instrument doesn't come in until halfway through the song (Every DAW has a way to do this, but the terminology may differ depending on which one you use). This will allow your engineer to drop everything into a session and start mixing, without having to hunt down the start point of 24 separate tracks.

Send a Demo

Remember that demo I mentioned earlier? I wouldn't have been able to mix that song without it (well, I could have, but not as well). A demo gives the mix engineer both an idea of how the song should sound and a reference point in case there are sync issues. 

The quality of the demo doesn't matter. It could be a rough mix from your recording session, or a phone recording taken at band practice (just don't put the phone too close to the drum set). As long as the song is relatively understandable, it will go a long way towards helping the mix engineer understand your vision for the song.

Label Everything Clearly

Every track should be named so that anyone opening the session knows exactly what it is. Kick, Snare Top, Snare Bottom, Hi-Hat, Guitar L, Guitar R...you get the idea. Sending a session with tracks named "Audio 1" and "New Track" wastes time and creates confusion. Clearly labeled tracks mean being able to focus on the actual mix sooner.

If you have multiple takes of the same part, either choose the best one before you export or clearly label each take so the engineer knows what they're working with.

How to Deliver the Files

Google Drive is the most straightforward option for most bands. If you're lucky, your engineer will set up a folder for your band in their own Google Drive that becomes the official file transfer point for the project (Riot Anthem Studios does this. Why pay for storage if you're not going to use it?). If that's not the case, create a folder, name it clearly with the band name and song title, drop all your exported tracks in, and share the link with your engineer. Make sure the sharing permissions are set so anyone with the link can download.

Pro Tip: Uploading and downloading usually go faster if you compress the files into a zip folder... you're welcome.

The Bottom Line

A well-prepared session means less time spent organizing and more time spent actually making your music sound the way it's supposed to. If you're working with Riot Anthem Studios and you have questions about how to prep your files before you send them, reach out before you export. It's a lot easier to fix a problem before the files leave your hands than after.