[Bob Womack]

I start with the drums. The drums are the heartbeat of the song. I group them together and "get them talking," mostly monitoring them as a group but soloing to find problem children. I get EQ, panning, and ambience going for them.

Next, I pull in the bass. The bass is the foundation of the song. I get the basic sound working with proper EQ and compression and then add it in with the drums. Those two have got to talk and interact well.

Next, I get the foundational rhythm instruments, piano, organ, keys, rhythm guitars going with EQ and panning to make them all fit their places in the mix.

On a good session where I've got time, the rhythm instruments go in a group. From there, the drum group, bass track(s), and rhythm instrument group go into a group for the whole section. Then I close the Section group master.

Next, I deal with the lead vocal tracks and close harmonies. I comp the takes down as needed. The lead vocals and double or triple tracks go to a group where they are EQ'd together. I go through all the vocal tracks and level them up, sometimes by cutting them into regions and using offline compressing in order to get levels under control while maintaining equal density between loud sections and soft sections. This is also where I'll deal with tune and timing.

Next I deal with the background vocals. I group them together, level as needed, pan and EQ. It is amazing how often BGVs aren't produced to bring together the entrances, exits, and consonant sounds. I'll be timing the heck out of some, comparing them to the lead vocals.

Now I bring up the Section Group and bring in the Lead vocal group get the lead to "sit" in the mix nicely. Once it is in place, I chose and develop the ambience, either reverb or delay or both, to make it fit. I add the BGVs and figure out how they should sit relative to the lead vocals and add ambience to them.

Finally, as a treat to myself, I add it the fill and solo instruments and adjust any "call-and-response" relationship that may need to be developed. Why a treat? Because I sometimes get called in to add the "glue" of fills, solos, and call-and-response on guitar, so I'll be dealing with my own parts that I recorded during the production phase! I'll drop in the SSL Bus Compressor plugin and start pushing into it a few DB to smooth things out.

All this time I've been building the mix using Izotope Insight and its LUFS monitoring to mix to the main export loudness and density that the primary delivery medium (CD, various streaming services, YouTube, broadcast) requires. Once I get an aesthetic mix that I like, it comes down to adjusting everything to meet the LUFS goals for the primary delivery medium via the master fader or the SSL Bus Compressor Gain Makeup or a variety of other means.

All this can happen over multiple days or as little as an afternoon, depending on the song's complexity, deadline, or the medium it is going into.

Bob