Balance your tracks, effects and EQ

Start with levels

1. Listen to the busiest section. It reveals overload and competing parts more clearly than a quiet introduction.
2. Lower secondary tracks so the main musical idea is easy to follow.
3. Use pan to position sounds left and right. Check that the overall balance has not become one-sided.
4. Compare with the previous version at a similar loudness. Louder is not automatically better.

If you added separated stems, mute the original stereo track first. Otherwise you are judging a doubled arrangement.

Give each effect a job

EQ changes frequency balance. Reduce what gets in the way, such as unnecessary low frequencies in a secondary part. Boosting several regions heavily can make a mix louder and harsher without making it clearer.

A compressor reduces differences between louder and quieter moments. If a drum loses its attack, revisit the settings or reduce the processing. Reverb adds a sense of space; delay adds repeats. Too much of either can blur a rhythm.

Track controls and master controls act at different levels. Fix an individual problematic instrument on its track rather than changing the whole mix to accommodate it.

Enable live mixing

Stop playback and enable Live mixing in the Master bus sidebar. This mode is saved with the project. Start playback, then adjust gain, pan, width, mute/solo, sends, EQ and effect parameters to hear changes while the music plays.

Changing the instrument, plugin chain or routing requires preparation of a new signal path. Allow preparation to finish on larger projects. Stop the transport before switching the mode itself or changing tempo.

Live mixing may be disabled in older projects. In that case, processing is prepared for the next playback start. Live mode uses its own streaming processing, so listen to the result after enabling it, especially when automatic LUFS leveling is active.

Find track processing tools

Open Studio → track → Track mixer sliders button. The right panel contains levels, EQ, compression, sidechain, built-in effects, WAM and group output. Scroll inside the panel to find the lower sections.

The Track mixer guide maps every control and gives practical examples. Start with balance, add processing for a purpose, and compare against bypass at similar loudness.

Route tracks into a group

1. Under Master bus → Group buses, press Add group and give it a useful name such as “Drums”.
2. Open each relevant track's mixer and choose the group under Track output.
3. Adjust the group's gain, pan, width, mute and effects in the master sidebar.
4. To restore direct output, choose Master in the track mixer.

Each group feeds Master. Track reverb and delay sends are taken before group processing, so muting or adjusting a group does not replace control of those sends. Removing a group routes its tracks back to Master; the removal can be undone.

Mix bus, with choices such as Drums, Bass and Harmony, assigns a role in the mix. A group you create is selected separately under Track output.

Master bus → Group buses → Add group. Expand the new group; route tracks into it using their own mixer.

Change the sound throughout the song

The curve button Show automation beside a track name opens its level and pan graph. Make the intro quieter, raise the level towards a chorus or move sound across stereo. Points persist with the project, support Undo/Redo and are included in WAV.

See Level and pan automation for step-by-step examples, precise values, range copying and keyboard commands.

Freeze expensive processing

In live mode, open an audio or MIDI track's mixer and press Freeze processing. On the next preparation, Studio renders the instrument and effects before the fader. This can reduce the processing load on subsequent playback.

Notes and source audio remain editable. Gain, pan, width, gain automation and sends continue to work. Changing the source or an effect requires refreshing the frozen audio. Unfreeze processing restores normal track processing.

The freeze choice is saved in the project, but rendered audio is held in tab memory. It is calculated again after reopening the project. Freezing does not replace saving or exporting.

Open EQ and mastering

The EQ workspace handles frequency shaping and final processing. The master bus combines the arrangement before playback and mix export. Changes here affect the complete result.

Mastering settings include LUFS and true peak. LUFS helps compare perceived loudness over time; true peak describes peak headroom, including inter-sample peaks. They measure different things.

There is no single ideal setting for every piece of music. A quiet acoustic composition and a dense electronic track call for different choices. Gentle processing that preserves dynamics can be more useful than maximum loudness.

Check the finished sound

Listen to the beginning, the busiest section and the reverb tail. If possible, compare headphones with another playback device. Then export a WAV and listen to the downloaded file itself.

If you hear clicks or playback stops on a slower computer, check performance first. A technical playback fault is not something to fix with more compression or gain.

Open Mix analysis to check spectrum, spectrogram, LUFS and mono compatibility.