Joey's Approach to Balancing

Joey shows you his streamlined technique when it comes to balance and a few tools you can try out for yourself. What's your approach to balancing? Let us know in the comments!

0:00 Introduction
0:22 Setup
1:17 Submixing
2:04 Drums
3:53 Guitars
4:51 Bass
6:19 Vocals
7:46 Thoughts

Tags:home recording,audio production,mixing tutorials
#homerecording #audioproduction #mixingtutorials

[TianpeiWang]

One year ago I watched this video for the first time, I thought Joey has been over complexing things and handeling music like math. But now I realised this is the smartest and most efficient way. My mixes sound more balanced right from the start.

[mattwhite]

I think I’m going to need to watch this one a few times. I felt like I was struggling to keep up!

[lessthanpinochet]

This is the most important thing I've ever learned about mixing more than compression and eq.

[AnalogAndroids]

It’s honestly hard to find a good video about balancing around here. I think this is very well done. I wish I would’ve found you a few years ago. We have very similar approaches to mixing. It all makes perfect sense to me. Took me a year of trial and error to figure out this was a way that worked out well for me. I can at least now thank you for solidly affirming my personal philosophies. Thank you.

[mdue]

Haven't found anyone giving advice on levels this specific, this is great 👍

[MartinvonBargen]

This couldn't have been released at a better time. It's really helped me get over a hump where all my current mixes were starting to sound really one dimensional. It made me go back and think about the dynamics, especially where drums and bass are concerned.

I would watch this if it were four hours long.

I keep hitting pause and taking notes in my book.

[michaelmclaughlin]

Man, DAWs and plug-ins have made mixing FAR more complicated than it was even 10 years ago.

[moritzathaher]

So far this is the best advice what i've learned about balancing the mix, thanks Joey!

[joemarta]

wow this is killer stuff. Never would have thought to combine send volume and limiters like that but it makes total sense. Awesome video!

[mindsey]

honestly one of the best metal mixing tutorials on Youtube. I have always struggled with balancing a metal mix because there was too many elements. I *LOVE* the suggestion of having a submix for guitars which is "set and forget". It reduces the number of tweaks that I need to do across multiple guitar tracks (Rhythm GTR, Bass Distortion, Lead, Clean, Verb, FX). Once these are balanced it helps to simply adjust the guitar submix against the drums & bass sub mixes. You only really need to balance 3 different faders.

I also love how it makes automation of gnarly sections very very easy !!!

[DrDSP]

I’m going to have to watch this a few times. Balancing is one of the things that I’ve always struggled with

[remnantcrusade]

Great video! I love how information packed it was, nothing was dragging or unnecessary. Thank you!

[Morganwrightmusic]

The way Joey uses limiting/clipping is so fascinating to me, as I always thought that limiting is saved for the mastering stage. I guess it does depend on genre, but I could see how limiting really works in this genre specifically! Thanks!

[tabrunbaker]

THANK YOU!!! This just saved me hours on a current mix. Was going back and forth with this thing! You're great!

[MyScotty]

Is there any way we could get a more in depth look at how you set up your routing for something like this? I really like this concept.

[higashikatajosuke]

I took many notes from this because I'm mixing my band's new music but I wasn't quite happy with my mix, but we couldn't afford a professional mix. My mix wasn't horrible, but sometimes the instruments would be fighting over each other. This solves exactly what I was looking to solve. Thanks a lot, Joey!! You're the greatest!!

[joefh]

This has been unequivocally the most useful video I have seen for mixing. It has helped managing volume creep and reduced confusion and ear fatigue as I work. I can actually enjoy automation now without the constant anxiety of misjudging the moves! ❤

[ytmorgen]

Such a density of information here. I really appreciate how cut and dry, how straight to the point you are. Makes the other mixing YouTubers seem almost smarmy by comparison. The video editing is superb, too.

Thanks a lot for these videos; I can tell you're putting a lot of hard work into these, and I really do appreciate it. I'm saving this one and some others to a playlist, so you can bet I'll be adding some repeat views

[AlterSoundsPH]

these tutorials on youtube they always saying not direct to the point so im still always confused 😭but for now this is the most understandable video ive ever found so far about leveling/balancing volume.. but i have more question still not answered about balancing mix.. sorry for my grammar

[Justinjale]

I'm going to try this approach 100% on my next mix to see how I like it. It's so similar to the workflow I already do, but there were some things Joey did that had me go, "Huh. That could be useful."