Learn How to Mix Music (And Why More Plugins Won’t Help)

You’ve been there. Staring at your DAW, listening to your mix on a loop. The guitars are muddy, the drums lack punch, and the vocals are either buried or sound like they’re sitting on top of the track. You’ve followed tutorials, you’ve tried EQing, but it just doesn’t sound like the records you love.

So, what’s the first thought that pops into your head?

“Maybe I need that new compressor everyone’s talking about.” Or, “If I just had that specific channel strip plugin, my mixes would finally sound pro.”

We get it. The allure of the next shiny object—Plugin Acquisition Syndrome—is real. But we’re here to tell you that the path to learning how to mix music isn’t paved with a bloated plugin folder. It’s about skill. It’s about fundamentals. And it's about understanding why you're reaching for a tool in the first place.

Let's break down what actually matters when you're trying to level up your mixes.

The Great Plugin Debate: What Actually Matters?

The honest answer to "Does it matter which plugins you use?" is… it depends entirely on what you're trying to do. Thinking about tools in terms of "general purpose" vs. "specialized" is the key.

Specific Tools for Specific Jobs

• Taming Harshness: You have a killer high-gain guitar tone, but there’s a nasty, fizzy high-end you can’t get rid of without making the tone dull. Slapping a standard EQ on it might work, but a dynamic resonance suppressor like oeksound Soothe2 is built for exactly this problem. It intelligently ducks harsh frequencies only when they appear, preserving the bite and aggression of the original tone.
• Crafting Guitar Tones: If you’re chasing a specific modern metal guitar sound, it sure as hell matters which amp sim you use. The feel and voicing of a Neural DSP Archetype is worlds away from IK Multimedia's AmpliTube or a STL Tones Will Putney suite. They are instruments in their own right.
• Building Drum Sounds: The same goes for drums. The raw power and room sound of a GetGood Drums kit is a completely different starting point than a Superior Drummer 3 kit. The choice fundamentally shapes the foundation of your mix.

In these cases, the tool matters because it is the sound. But for most of the other work you do in a mix, things get a lot simpler.

The "Boring" Stuff: Your Go-To EQ and Compressor

What about general-purpose tasks? You need to carve out some mud from a bass guitar at 250Hz or add some snap to a snare. Does it really matter if you use the stock EQ in Logic or Reaper versus a FabFilter Pro-Q 3?

Honestly, no.

Sure, Pro-Q 3 has an amazing interface and incredible features. But the stock EQ in your DAW can make the exact same cut. The real difference is your workflow and which interface you’re most comfortable with. People get hung up on which SSL channel strip emulation is "better," but they all do the same thing: broad, musical EQ moves and straightforward compression.

If a plugin's GUI intimidates you or just doesn't click with how your brain works (looking at you, iZotope Ozone, with your million parameters), don't use it just because a pro does. You’ll work faster and make better decisions with a tool you understand intuitively, even if it’s the "boring" stock plugin.

Stop Collecting, Start Mastering: Curing Plugin GAS

The truth that every seasoned engineer knows is that they have dozens, maybe hundreds, of plugins but rely on the same handful for 90% of their work. Your mixes improve when you master your tools, not when you acquire more of them.

The Minimalist Mixing Mindset

When you watch a master at work, like Jens Bogren or Will Putney, and see them using seven different EQs on a single track, it’s easy to think that’s the secret. It’s not.

Their mixes are incredible because they know what they’re doing. You could strip away all their fancy third-party plugins, give them a stock EQ and compressor, a good amp sim, and a drum sampler, and they would still deliver a world-class mix. Why? Because they have mastered the fundamentals. They can hear a problem and know instinctively which metal compression secrets to apply or which frequencies need surgical attention with core EQ strategies.

Jens might use one EQ for broad strokes, another for a surgical cut, and a third for a high-shelf boost. He’s chasing the last 0.5% of sonic perfection that only he can hear. But he could absolutely achieve 99.5% of that result with a single, versatile EQ.

The takeaway? Spend less time demoing 20 different compressors and more time deeply learning one.

The Technical Traps: Latency, Phase, and Routing

Another reason to be mindful of your plugin chains is the technical baggage they carry. Every plugin you add introduces a small amount of processing time, or latency.

Your DAW tries to correct for this with an Automatic Delay Compensation (ADC) engine, but these systems aren’t always perfect. This is especially true when you start using complex routing with aux tracks and parallel processing.

For instance, old-school Pro Tools users from the mid-2000s are notoriously careful with parallel buses because the ADC was practically broken. It would fail to align the parallel-compressed drum bus with the main drum bus, resulting in nasty phasing and comb filtering that thinned out the sound.

Even in modern DAWs, you can run into trouble. If you have a latency-heavy plugin on a parallel track, it can cause phasing issues if not compensated for correctly. This is why it’s critical to understand your signal flow. Remember, EQ itself works by manipulating the phase of a signal. Chaining multiple EQs and other processors without a clear purpose can create a phase-shifted mess.

This is why some plugins are designed for the master bus—their high latency is fine there because they aren't running in parallel with a "dry" version of the signal. Slapping that same plugin on an individual kick drum track, however, could be a recipe for disaster.

You're Already Unique, Just Get Good

There’s a common anxiety among producers about “finding their sound” or being unique. Many think that using the same tools as everyone else—the same amp sims, the same drum samples—will lead to homogenized, boring mixes.

This is a myth.

Give 100 chefs the exact same ingredients, and you’ll get 100 completely different dishes. Mixing is no different. The tools are just the raw materials. Your choices, your taste, and your skills are what make the final product unique. What you do with the tool is infinitely more important than the tool itself.

Don't try to be unique. You already are. Your musical taste is a product of every song you’ve ever loved, filtered through your own brain and physiology. That’s something no one else has. When you’re starting out, it’s natural to imitate. That's how we learn. But as your skills grow, your unique perspective will inevitably shine through in your mixing decisions.

Worrying about being unique is a distraction. Focus on being skilled.

The Real Path to Pro Mixes

Learning how to mix music isn't about buying the right plugins. It's about deeply understanding the fundamentals:

• Gain Staging: Ensuring your levels are healthy throughout the entire signal chain.
• EQ: Knowing not just where to cut or boost, but why.
• Compression: Using it to control dynamics, add punch, and shape transients, not just to make things louder.
• Routing & Effects: Mastering the use of sends, buses, reverb, and delay to create space and depth.

These are the pillars of a great mix. Once you master them, the tools become secondary.

Building these skills takes practice and guidance. Imagine looking over the shoulder of the producers who mixed albums for Meshuggah, Gojira, and Periphery. Imagine getting their raw multitracks and watching them build a mix from scratch, explaining every plugin choice, every fader move, and every creative decision.

That’s what we do at Nail The Mix. We provide the tools, the tracks, and the world-class mentors to help you move past the guesswork and start making real, tangible progress. You’ll see firsthand that it's not about the magic plugin—it’s about the knowledge and skill to wield it.

Ready to stop chasing plugins and start building real mixing skills? Unlock your sound and learn to mix modern metal beyond presets with Nail The Mix.