my typical mixing process involves a lot of listening.

when i first start a mix, i set up and organize the song, get the essential elements going - balance, reverbs, busses, saturation, etc. - make a few quick broad stroke decisions that are usually quite obvious, and then just let the track play.

when i hear something that takes me out of the listening experience, big or small, i fix it. and then i keep listening.

sometimes this is done in one sitting, sometimes it's over the course of a day, or a week. to emphasize, the vast majority of the work is listening to the song, both actively and passively, letting the song tell me what should be happening at any given moment. not turning knobs or making adjustments or writing automation or a/b-ing plugins. of course, i also do all those things, constantly! but as i am doing those things i am first and foremost listening to the song, and letting it guide me toward every decision.

and then, once i have a draft of the mix? more listening. in the car. on the bluetooth. fresh, first thing when i wake up in the morning. and again, if anything affects my listening adversely, even slightly, it gets a look in the session.

occasionally, a client wants to attend a mixing session. i have done plenty of mixes while the client is in the room, and i don't think any of them have turned out necessarily poorly... but unless the client has exceptional patience and self control, the process is often very different.

instead of listening to the song, i am now listening to the client.

the client has many concerns. they want the drums to be louder and the synths to be brighter and the bass to be deeper, they want an effect on the vocals here and a long delay there, they want to hear this and try that and do this and fix that and go here and tweak this and eq that...

now of course, most or all of these things will be addressed during the course of a mix, whether the session is attended or unattended. but in the attended mix session the song is no longer guiding my decisions. satisfying the client is the mission. the client conveys their ideas via words, and those words are what gets the attention.

all that said - either way, the song gets mixed, and the client is happy.

👻