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Hiring someone to mix your record: what to expect and what to send

· 3 min read

Most mixing jobs go badly because of what was sent, not what was done. Here's how to hand over properly.

A mix that comes back wrong is usually traceable to the handover rather than the engineer. Badly labelled files, missing stems, no reference, and no clear brief will defeat anyone.

Here's how to do it properly, and what to expect in return.

Before you send anything

Finish the arrangement. Mixing is not the stage for deciding whether the second verse needs the extra guitar. Every structural change after the mix starts costs a revision, and revisions are finite.

Fix performance problems. A mix engineer can do a lot. They cannot make a flat vocal in tune without it sounding processed, and they can't tighten a drum performance that drifts. Fix those first or accept them as a feature.

Clean the session. Delete muted takes, unused tracks, and anything you're definitely not keeping. A session with 96 tracks of which 40 are dead is an hour of someone else's time before any work begins.

What to send

Consolidated stems, all starting from the same point — usually bar one, even if the track doesn't start there. This is the single most common mistake and the most annoying to fix.

Named sensibly. KICK IN, KICK OUT, SNARE TOP, BASS DI, LEAD VOX. Not "Audio 1-14".

Dry, unless the effect is part of the sound. If a guitar was recorded through a specific pedal chain, that's the sound and it stays. If you added reverb while writing because it felt nice, take it off — or send both, labelled.

At the session's sample rate and bit depth, not converted. And say what it is.

A rough mix. Essential, and often forgotten. It tells the engineer what you were hearing and what balance you had in mind. It's the single most useful file in the folder.

References. One or two tracks that sound like the target. Not your song — commercially released music you're pointing at. Say what specifically you're pointing at, because "make it sound like this" is ambiguous.

The tempo and any tempo map. And say whether it's to a click.

What to say

A short brief beats a long one. Useful things to include:

That last one saves a lot of back-and-forth. If the vocal is buried on purpose, say so, or you'll get it back louder.

How revisions usually work

Most engineers include a set number — commonly two or three rounds — and charge beyond that. That's not meanness; it's what stops a job running forever.

To use them well:

Collect all your notes into one message. Drip-feeding five separate observations burns three revision rounds on one round's worth of changes.

Be specific about time. "The vocal disappears at 1:42" is actionable. "The vocal needs work" isn't.

Describe the problem, not the fix. "It feels cluttered in the chorus" is more useful than "turn the guitars down 2dB" — they may have a better solution than the one you'd have picked.

Listen on more than one thing before sending notes, and not immediately after the last version. Fatigue produces bad notes.

Mastering is a different job

Worth separating, because people conflate them.

Mixing is balancing the parts. Mastering is the final treatment of the finished stereo mix — level, tonal balance, and preparing it for release across formats.

A mastering engineer can't fix a mix. If something's wrong at the mastering stage, it goes back to the mix. Booking mastering to solve a mix problem wastes both.

Also: get it mastered by someone who didn't mix it, if you can. Fresh ears at the final stage catch things the mixer has stopped hearing.

What it costs and what you're buying

Rates vary enormously and the price mostly reflects experience rather than equipment. What you're buying is judgement — the same thing you're buying from any experienced person.

A cheaper engineer who takes four rounds is not cheaper than a better one who nails it in two.

Find mix engineers — many list remote work with stated turnaround and revision counts.