How to Use Reference Tracks for Mixing (+ inside my reference playlist)

We all know that it's important to reference other tracks with our own mixes.
But sometimes referencing can actually hurt your mixes more than it helps.
This video explains the ideal ways to use reference tracks. Plus, I show you my reference playlist, play some examples and show you why I picked them.

[axisgarret]

Thanks for this, Jordan. I prefer videos like this. Giving samples of your reference list and what you listen for and to is vital in order to learn and teach.

I have been Recording / Mixing and Engineering for more than 30 years now. I began as a musician, so I have learned mixing and recording more from a musician's perspective. I have taught and worked at Full Sail here in Orlando. I began working with them almost at their inception with their first groups of students. I was just then learning recording, mixing and engineering. Digital was still just a dream. So, I am an old-school analog guy that had to "relearn" to mix and listen to music via digital.

Amazingly, I believe it is so important for many younger guys / gals today to grasp the roots of recording and engineering. Digital has made things so much easier. At the same time, it created a sound and style and a tone that made music less and more of an "art form".

The positives are cleaner mixes and more control over each channel and EQ. You can perfectly isolate more tracks and expand tracks, grouping them / bussing them so much more conveniently today. Sadly, there are fewer and fewer "happy accidents" that occur in mixing today. Those "happy accidents" were when you were so limited with what tracks you had to work with and "bleed" and EQing and post-compression tracks blended together allowed for an amalgamation of unique sounds, tones and frequencies that todays mix engineers work so hard to avoid. (i.e. Queen's Album - A Night at the Opera or Tom Petty's - Damn the Torpedoes, to name a couple.)

The negatives are a mix that does not "breathe" much at all. AS in one of your song reference tracks, you point out that the "breathe" is as loud, if not louder, than the actual voice itself (overcompression is common today. Thus, the irony.) All of the sound of "music" today is literally sucked to the roof too often, in the final mixing and mastering. Dynamics are now completely synthetic and unnatural sounding. At best, most engineers today are working to digitally create "space" that once occurred so naturally in many of the final tracks / takes. I kind of miss those days.

I am a Neve fan. When I first began working in a recording studio, I got to record and mix on a Neve Console. It spoiled me. I now listen always to bring my tracks and recordings to "life" from that "reference". As I never heard recordings "unmixed" with little to no effects sound so natural and spaced properly with so little work as listening back on a Neve. We could spend hours just listening and relistening to track after track of raw recordings, appreciating the ambience and dynamics that naturally flowed from tape, back through the board, through excellent reference speakers. (NS-10s with Crown Amplification was one of my reference tools, as well.)

My point: I am glad to see / watch how you "think" and relate to music. It helps me keep perspective as well as put more into perspective "modern" recording techniques, as opposed from where I come from. In my mind still, there are many pros and cons to the evolution of modern mixing, recording, engineering and sound processing. Sadly, so many "techniques" have been lost, only to be replaced with new techniques which quickly become an "industry standard". Those techniques often replace the natural and organic "human" feel that caused us to more "primaly" relate to music. (IMHO) Therefore, we can (as engineers, post-producers, mixers, etc...) create or replace "talent" that does not even exist within the band in the first place.

The evolution for me was difficult, much in how driving a car in the USA and then driving in Great Britain challenges your mind and thinking, when you alternate from place to place. "Driving" a car is the same. But, you have to constantly rethink how it is done in one location, as compared to another because of the side of the road you are forced to drive. Such has been my challenge in learning / relearning mixing, engineering and production in music.

Keep doing what you do. I can appreciate the simplicity of your setup and approach combined with excellent quality final results. As you prove that "the end, justifies the means".

[simonaustin]

OMG I USE DEEP SOUTH BY CARTEL AS A REF TRACK AS WELL!!!! Love all their stuff

[podespault]

Very interesting to focus on the mixing side of songs that I would never actually listen to. That Kelly Clarkson drum is really alive. Thanks

[oween]

That's super smart to reference tracks that aren't necessarily the same genre to focus on the general balance of the mix rather than specific sounds.
And it's a good excuse to listen to some Jonas Brothers, not that I need the excuse lol

[ThomDumdust]

Fair play, that last reference was banging!

[JeserNoob]

Relient K! That record is the most beautiful thing ever

[NelsonGast]

Really cool to see what references you use! Gave me a couple albums to check out.
Also, I like how you cut out the intro of the Paramore in iTunes so you could get straight to the full band, haha.

[MrLotnique]

This Architects song is also in my reference tracks! :)

[peterbruck]

Hi Jordan, what I struggle with using reference tracks is that they're already mastered while I myself while in the mixing phase deal with audio that is something between raw and processed on a track basis, thus being at lower levels, and without that final mastering magic which can have a huge impact on a song. How do you deal with that? (well, it might take you a whole video to answer that question which might not be a bad idea :) - thanks in advance!

[tyruswatson]

This is great, I just spent this past week dialing in my go-to reference mixes. Big Casino is a great all around reference. Also, isn't all Thrice essential?

[ruffin]

Great tutorial, thank you! isn't it a problem if the Files aren't WAV? I always read everywhere, only to use high-End Wav Files as references...?? Can i also use Spotify as ref.? THX

[shayne]

Do you put these in your daw when referencing? Or just listen through iTunes to reference??