Making these choices is up to the band, the producer (if there is one) and the mixer. Some of them are obvious, like additional tracks with short melodies for certain parts of the song, a spectacular drum fill, or whatever musical gem a song has to offer. For the mixer, that often means listening to certain parts of a song or tracks without touching anything. Just listen. If you hear something that you like or think is special, chances are that others like that as well. Write those things down, and when you are done with your rough mix, it`s time to work on those details.
I've been mixing mostly in this order:
- Roughmix with faders and panning only, no EQ/Comp other than my bus compressor (which also added some brightness)
- Solve problems that can`t be fixed with volume automation, but don't change the sound of the band too much by making drastic eq cuts and boosts if not necessary.
- Check the song structure and make sure that the song slowly increases in intensity, i.e. make the song gradually louder by driving the mix harder and harder into the compressor. This happens mainly via automation
- When the song has a decent climax and sounds right, look at the list and decide for each interesting detail if it makes the song better/more interesting, or whether it doesn't trigger anything. only keep those that make you feel something. Those can be very small things, like raising the volume of the rhythm guitars in the bridge just so slightly that the bridge feels really heavy.
Please take this with a grain of salt, I didn't learn to mix to make a living, it was always something that interested me. A professional mixer might very well have a totally different approach.
I've been mixing mostly in this order:
- Roughmix with faders and panning only, no EQ/Comp other than my bus compressor (which also added some brightness)
- Solve problems that can`t be fixed with volume automation, but don't change the sound of the band too much by making drastic eq cuts and boosts if not necessary.
- Check the song structure and make sure that the song slowly increases in intensity, i.e. make the song gradually louder by driving the mix harder and harder into the compressor. This happens mainly via automation
- When the song has a decent climax and sounds right, look at the list and decide for each interesting detail if it makes the song better/more interesting, or whether it doesn't trigger anything. only keep those that make you feel something. Those can be very small things, like raising the volume of the rhythm guitars in the bridge just so slightly that the bridge feels really heavy.
Please take this with a grain of salt, I didn't learn to mix to make a living, it was always something that interested me. A professional mixer might very well have a totally different approach.