In this video, learn how to quickly start your mix with the all-new Mix Assistant, plus best practices for setting it up in your session.
Mix Assistant gives you a starting point for your mix by automatically suggesting gain levels for all the tracks in your session. While analyzing your session, mix elements are bundled into logical groups (Focus, Vocals, Bass, Drums, and Musical), allowing you to quickly make broad-stroke adjustments to the initial suggestions. In just a few clicks, you can achieve a roughly balanced mix for even the most complex sessions. Further adjustments can be made on a per-track basis within the Visual Mixer or using the faders in your DAW.
Mix Assistant expects a certain setup in your session; follow these steps to make sure it will function as expected and quickly give you initial levels for your mix.
For a developer’s take on this new mixing tool, including best practices from the people who built Mix Assistant from the ground-up, head here.
Note that Mix Assistant registers every instance of a compatible plug-in as a new signal. If we had a kick drum channel, for example, that had one instance of both Relay and Neutron 3, Mix Assistant would register this as two separate signals. Both the kick Relay and kick Neutron would show up during the selection process.
However, if Mix Assistant registers any Relays in the session, it will automatically exclude Neutrons from being included in processing. To be safe, double-check that only one instance of each mix element is being mixed.
Similarly, we would run into signal doubling if the kick drum channel was routed to a submix / bus / group and both had an instance of a compatible plug-in. Even though the kick signal can only be heard once, Mix Assistant is reading it twice and would make adjustments accordingly.
This can impact Mix Assistant’s ability to accurately set initial levels. In this example, Mix Assistant would set the kick much quieter than it actually should be, since Mix Assistant would receive two kick signals and “hear” it as being louder than it is.
Follow the steps below if to use Mix Assistant for setting levels for submixes / busses / groups.
Want to explore the ideal setup for Mix Assistant in your DAW? Click any of the links below to download a DAW-specific session template.
Note: The track names in these sessions are completely arbitrary; regardless of the instrument, individual tracks should all have compatible plug-ins like a Relay on them.