I was watching a cool tutorial video the other day, where the guy was walking through how he mixed a fairly difficult (but rocking) song.

He showed one technique that worked like gangbusters.

But it’s hard to do, and it can be a bit awkward.

What is it?

It’s something I’ve talked about a lot.

And it’s something you probably won’t try…because it’s difficult.

But if you make this a part of your mixing process, you can’t help but get better mixes.

The tip? Mixing in mono.

Specifically, the guy was mixing electric guitars in mono.

There was a section of the song he was mixing that had three very different electric guitar parts, all playing at the same time. With the parts panned away from each other, they sounded pretty good. But in the full mix, they were getting lost.

So the guy flipped the mix to mono and proceeded to EQ each of the three guitars a little differently, allowing each to cut through the mix without interfering with one of the other two parts.

It was simple, but it was powerful.

It’s not easy to do. It’s really hard to get a mix to sound great in mono, but the more you do it, the better your mixes will be, both in mono AND stereo.

So, you may be wondering…who was the guy in the video?

It was my buddy Graham Cochrane, in his monthly tutorial video over at www.DuelingMixes.com.

I learn something from that guy every time I watch one of his Dueling Mixes videos.

If you want to see the video for yourself, and see exactly how he pulls off this technique (plus a bunch of other cool tricks, like some pretty nifty volume automation, and how sometimes tracks can clip and it’s okay), sign up for Dueling Mixes here:


Better mixes await you.

Joe Gilder
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