Building punchy mixes from the ground up
The easiest way to ensure a punchy, powerful mixdown is to build those qualities into it right from the start. An awful lot can be achieved by working with only basic aspects like timing, level, panning, pitch, arrangement and, of course, sound selection. Getting your punch in early like this is almost always more sonically effective than trying to improve things later on using fancy mixing tools. So, you can put the multiband ultramaximalizer plugins back in their box for now, and when you do eventually use them, you’ll really feel their benefit.
Designing impact and energy into your mix from the very beginning has further benefits. First, on a creative level, if the track still isn’t exciting you after taking initial measures to ensure a decent degree of ‘oomph’, it could mean that the basic musical ideas just aren’t all that great and need more work. And once the track is properly pumping back through the speakers, the enhanced energy and vibe will help keep you inspired throughout the production process. You’ll work more quickly and fluidly, and you won’t have so many of the usual final mixdown and mastering worries looming up ahead. Hey, it might even be easy for once!
This is all far preferable to slogging away with a so-so song idea that you think/hope/pray is going to magically sound amazing once you ‘fix the mix’. Pro tip: this approach hardly ever gives great results, and it’s no fun either!
In a technical sense, you’ll find that a mix that’s designed for maximum impact from the outset will ‘go loud’ relatively easy. This is largely because your mastering limiter will have less work to do, since there won’t be so many overlapping and competing elements happening at any one time. That’s the theory – now let’s put it into practice and show you how.