Blending the parts
A song is recorded as many separate tracks — vocals, guitars, drums and so on. Mixing is the craft of combining them into one cohesive, balanced stereo track where every part can be heard and serves the song.
The main tools
- Volume — the balance of loud and quiet parts.
- Panning — placing sounds left to right.
- EQ — shaping the tone so parts do not clash.
- Effects — reverb, compression and more for space and glue.
The spectrum you are actually shaping
Every EQ move reshapes energy inside one fixed span. Human hearing, per an OpenStax College Physics resource hosted by SUNY, runs “from 20 to 20,000 Hz,” with the ear’s peak sensitivity “in the range of 2000 to 5000 Hz” — sounds there register as louder than equally intense sounds elsewhere in the range. That is not a detail a mixer can ignore: crowding several tracks into 2–5 kHz creates more perceived clutter than the same crowding lower or higher up would.
It is also why a small, precise cut in that band can clean up a mix more than a much larger cut somewhere the ear is less sensitive — the sensitivity curve is not level across the spectrum, so equal-looking moves on an EQ display are not equal to the ear hearing them.
Measuring loudness: the decibel scale
Britannica’s account of the decibel scale gives four fixed reference points: 0 dB at the threshold of hearing, 60 dB for normal conversation, 120 dB for amplified rock music or a nearby jet engine, and 130 dB at the threshold of pain. The scale is logarithmic, referenced to sound intensity in watts per square metre — roughly 10−12 W/m² at 0 dB and about 10 W/m² at 130 dB, per the same entry.
Those two figures confirm the scale’s own logic: 10 W/m² is 1013 times larger than 10−12 W/m², and 130 dB divided into 10 dB steps is exactly 13 — so every 10 dB step is a tenfold jump in intensity, not a small fixed increment. That is why mix moves that look tiny on a fader’s dB readout can sound far bigger than the number implies.
Britannica’s own conversation (60 dB) and amplified-band (120 dB) reference points sit 60 dB apart — six steps of 10 dB — which on this logarithmic scale is a millionfold (106) difference in sound intensity, not merely “twice as loud.”
The goal
Good mixing is mostly about clarity and balance — making sure the important parts come through and nothing fights. It is a skill that takes time and good listening; referencing professional tracks helps you judge your own.
Convert a tempo into delay and echo times
Enter a tempo, and this works out the millisecond length of the note values engineers lock delays and reverbs to. Nothing is stored or sent anywhere.
Standard tempo arithmetic (60,000 ÷ BPM = one quarter note, in milliseconds), not a figure from either source above — useful for setting a delay or reverb pre-delay so it locks to the song’s tempo.
Where this comes from
Lumen Learning / OpenStax College Physics (SUNY Physics course collection), “Hearing”: the 20 Hz–20,000 Hz range of human hearing and the ear’s peak sensitivity between 2,000 and 5,000 Hz. courses.lumenlearning.com · accessed 4 August 2026.
Britannica — Sound (physics), decibel-scale section, updated 8 June 2026: the 0/60/120/130 dB reference points and their approximate intensities in watts per square metre. britannica.com · accessed 4 August 2026.
The 10-dB-equals-tenfold-intensity arithmetic, the millionfold worked example, and the tempo-to-delay-time calculator are this page’s own maths built on those reference figures, not stated directly by either source.
Common questions
Mixing vs mastering?
Mixing balances the individual tracks of a song; mastering is the final polish on the finished stereo mix, often for consistency across an album.
Do I need expensive plugins to mix?
No — the stock tools in most DAWs can produce great mixes. Skill and listening matter far more.
Why does my mix sound muddy?
Often too many parts competing in the same frequency range. EQ and arrangement choices help clear it up.