Why You Need Tracked Out Beats

The Importance of Mixing and Creative Control

Have you ever listened to a rapper’s mixtape and thought that the vocals were too loud? Or the beat too loud? Maybe the vocals sounded OK but the beat didn’t hit as hard as commercially released music. For those of you familiar with mixing, perhaps the vocals sounded like they sat right on top of the beat, lacking cohesiveness. When we are distracted by quality issues, listeners will automatically tend to think that the mix, the song, and the artist are unprofessional. It doesn’t matter how fresh the rhymes are or how dope the beat is. Any perceived error or sign of unprofessionalism and the music will instantly be taken down a few notches on the quality scale. This is why mixing is a vital aspect of the music production process. Mixing may be done during the beat making process but once vocals are added, the dynamics change. Below are 5 reasons why it is crucial to get your beats tracked out (individual track stems) for mixing.

1. Make Room For Vocals. Vocals are the most important part of the song. Track stems will allow mix engineer to make space for your voice. This will include EQing instruments to cut out or reduce levels of frequencies that are competing with the vocals. Putting vocals at the forefront of the song can be as simple as turning the fader down on one or more sounds. The same goes for the layers of the beat. The vocals might be taking away from something like the certain notes of a piano layer in a beat. The engineer might be able to compress the piano layer enough so that the entire loop can be leveled out and heard underneath the vocals.
2. Creative control. You don’t have to bother the producer who never gets back to you to make changes to the beat. If you have all the layers for the session you can make more creative decisions such as making a verse longer or shorter, having a particular instrument play during the verse, removing a sound you don’t like altogether, or adding drops and breakdowns throughout the song.
3. Sound Replacement. I had a client who was an r&b singer purchase the stems from me after he recorded over a beat because he wanted to have a live drummer replace the drum track I produced. He was going for more of a live neo-soul sound instead of electronic hip hop. When you have the stems you can even have harder hitting drums added or even completely remix the beat. I have had a few mixing sessions where I replaced a cheesy bassline with a live bass player. Sometimes you can like the idea of a beat, purchase the stems and take it where it needs to be sonically in the mixing stage.
4. Ability to Make Multiple Versions. When promoting a single, multiple versions of a song are typically required. You might need an extended version that will play in someone’s documentary or short film, you will need snippets for social media, you will need a showmix version for live performances, as well as a cuss-free edit for the radio. All of these alternate versions can be made with the 2 track of the song but having the stems gives you more creative control. The engineer scoring a film might want to have long instrumental sections in between verses. Instead of bleeping or dropping out a bad word for the radio, you may want to add some instruments or even record new lyrics. You might want your showmixes mixed differently than the song version. When I used to perform with my group I would mix in classic hip hop drum beats into the instrumentals of our songs.
5. Professional Mixing. Make sure your music is ready for mass consumption with professional audio quality. You don’t want lack of quality to distract from the intent of your song. It always help to get an extra pair of ears to work on you song. They may hear something that you don’t notice. Or they may have tools such as high quality studio monitors in a treated sound environment to help them analyze every detail of your song. You might as well give the mix engineer the flexibility he or she needs by providing the track stems of the beat along with your vocals for mixing.

There are many benefits to having your song professionally mixed but keep in mind that while a bad mix can ruin a good song, a good mix cannot make a bad song any better. Make sure to put the work in and get constructive feedback on your work. When you have a song or songs that you are proud of and are ready to share with the world, go ahead and splurge on mixing services.