Here’s our advice on how to prepare your song for a professional mixing engineer:

Make a Backup Copy

It’s a very good idea, once you’re reasonably happy with your recording, to make a backup copy.

That way, if you have any problems, mess things up or choose the wrong mixer, you’ve got a half-decent copy to fall back on.

It takes just a few seconds to do and can save a lot of heartaches.

Save Your Mixing Engineer Time

As everyone knows in the world of business, ‘time is money’.

If you can make things easier for the mixing engineer, they can get on with their very important job quicker and in turn it should cost you less.

For instance, the last thing your mixing engineer wants to be doing is organizing the different tracks on your recording so that they make sense.

To take the pressure off, number, and name each track properly.

By naming, we mean putting what instrument is on the track such as guitar, snare, drum, etc.

If you have more than one song, keep the positioning and naming of the tracks consistent across all your files.

Your mixing engineer will thank you a lot for this.

You should also provide a written document outlining your tracklist for each song and any other details.

Processing and Editing Your Tracks

This is often a big talking point online, especially in forums.

How much time should you spend processing and changing your recording before sending it to the mixing engineer?

Some say you should do what you want to get the sound or effect you’re after.

Others say leave it to the mixing engineer.

A happy, half-way is to submit two versions – one you have edited to your personal satisfaction and one which has not been so processed.

At least then, the mixing engineer has a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve while still having an editable file that is closer to the original.

Editing might not apply to all tracks.

There may be some tracks where you have added an effect and not done so on others.

Get into the habit of giving the mixing engineer the choice of both and label them clearly in the file.

Also, and this is one thing that really annoys mixing engineers...

Make sure all tracks are consolidated back to zero so that they don’t have to spend valuable time re-setting them.

Put in a Tempo Map

The final thing you need to do is include a tempo map in each song file.

There may be some parts of the song that depend on the beats per minute or tempo.

Without these, your mixer won’t know what to do. Most software allows you to export this in one go and it’s an easy enough job to do.

Saving and Exporting to Your Mixing Engineer

Now that you have everything ready, you will need to save it all neatly in a folder - This should be clearly named.

Inside this, you should have each song and all its information in a separate folder.

Number the folders so when they show up they will be in the right order.

You’re now good to go and can press send to your mixing engineer.

A good mixing engineer is like gold dust.

If you find one that you can afford and are able to work with, stick with them, it will make any future recordings a whole lot easier.

Prepare Your Song for a Mixing Engineer - Wrap up

The good news is that you can find and securely hire talented music professionals right here on Indiy.

We have professional mixing and mastering engineers as well as producers and studio facilities offering their services so singers, musicians, and bands can hire them.

As an artist, we believe you should have complete ownership of your content.

We are a DIY music marketplace for DIY musicians and artists - the go to place for buying and selling music services.

Get your music heard and build your audience with us, head to our home page to take a look at some of the amazing services being offered.

Search Indiy today and build the professional music support team you need.