One of the most frequent questions I get asked when working with either producers or artists is “How do you want me to send you the files/session?” and to this I say….well it depends ..lol.

So let me share my philosophy on this with you:

When it comes to my mix approach 9 times out of 10 I want to start where you left off.

You have worked tirelessly on this song, production, & mix before it reaches me and the last thing I want to do is zero out your mix and try to rebuild the vibe that you already had going.

If you have management & a label involved everyone has already gotten very attached to the rough mix, the last thing I want to do is blow up your rough and start over. My goal is to retain as much of what you have in your rough as possible and figure out what you love about the balance & current sonic textures.

In some cases, the producer or artist will come to me beforehand and say “ Hey, I am not really digging the current rough, Can you just do your thing and just make it better?” In this case, I will ask a few more questions about inspiration on this track to make sure my compass is calibrated and then really dig into the mix and make it as energetic and compelling as possible!

But….most of the time the producers that I work with these days have a really cool rough mix going and they just want me to improve their low-end & overall clarity which I am totally cool with. After all I am in the service business and my number 1 goal is to make the client pumped about their record, regardless of whether or not I agree with certain mix decisions… it’s their record not mine.

Ok, so let's talk about actually preparing, exporting & delivering the files:

Track Clean Up

Any spot where there is no important audio information on a track just go ahead and cut that area and add a fade on the front and back of the clip so that we don't have any unwanted hiss or amp buzz accumulating across the session, you'd be surprised how much hiss can add up.

Track Consolidation

If you are sending audio tracks outside of the daw be sure to consolidate all audio files so that every track in the session starts at 0 (first downbeat of the session). This way when I import these into my Pro Tools session the time/relationship of all tracks stays the same as what you have in your session.

File Naming

Drums

KICK

SNR TOP

SNR BTM

HATS

OHS

ROOMS

Guitars

AG 1 RHY

AG 2 RHY

AG 1 STRM

AG 2 STRM

EG 1 RHY

EG 2 RHY

Pianos & Synth

PNO 1

PNO 2

SYN 1

SYN 2

PAD 1

PAD 2

Vocals

LV VOX

BGV 1

BGV 2

DBL 1

DBL 2

You get the idea..haha.

If you want to go a step further you can also add each group of tracks into their own subfolder, extra brownie points for this.

Notes Document

Please include a document somewhere in the main folder that indicates the BPM of the song and key if you know it. Also, here is a good place to tell me about any references used for the song. It’s always very helpful to know what some of the inspirations were.

Bit Depth & Sample Rate

I like to mix the session at whatever bit depth & sample rate you used while producing the track. Just be sure to at least give me 24-bit files.

I still see a ton of sessions come in at 44.1 & 48 and the rare time I’ll see 88.2 and 96. I’ll leave this totally up to you, but if you are not sure which to use I recommend 48.

Exporting

If you are producing in Pro Tools just delete all files that are inactive in the session (to make the file size smaller) and zip the whole session folder and send via Wetransfer or Dropbox.

If there are any plugins that I don't own that you are using all over your session I will most likely just buy the plugin. But If it’s a few tracks that really add to the sound I might hit you back and ask you to commit/bounce those and send them back.

If you are in Logic, Cubase, Ableton or any other DAW this is the preferred method: Print stereo tracks of parts that are alike and include all plugins and fx so when I import into Pro Tools your mix recalls.

The only tracks that I don't want the effects baked into are any lead vocal parts. Just bounce out those reverbs/delays etc. separately so I can play with the dry/wet blend on those.

Also, print all tracks individually without plugins and FX that way if I can't get what I need out of the stereo tracks I can import the raw file and rebuild that sound from the ground up. Put these in their own folder labeled “raw.”

I hope you found this helpful. If there are any other areas that you are not sure on please leave a comment down below and I will reply asap!

Cheers!

-Stephen