How to Properly Export + Send Tracks For Mixing
When sending tracks to be mixed remotely, it’s important that certain formatting considerations are handled properly. A little bit of diligence on the front end will ensure the fastest turnaround times, the best sounding final mix and will help keep the process efficient and on-budget.
I thank you in advance for reading and implementing the following guidelines before sending your raw tracks to be mixed.
Sending project SESSIONS vs. RAW TRACKS
In general, it’s best to send a folder containing all of the raw exported audio tracks, in their proper form (more on this below), rather than Session Files from the DAW that was used for the recording process. In rare cases, we may work straight from a ProTools sessions, but individual raw tracks are almost always the best way to go.
I’m happy to accept file transfers using any of the popular file transfer platforms like DropBox, WeTransfer, Google Drive, etc.
When preparing raw tracks to be sent for mixing, please ensure the following:
All tracks are named descriptively (ie - “bass guitar,” “snare top,” “gtr1 DI,” etc) Make it simple for your mixer to quickly understand the content of each track at a glance.
Tracks have been consolidated into single audio files and all tracks within the session have been consolidated from the same starting point (ie - Bar|1 or 0:00:00). Done right, this ensures that when tracks are imported into a mix session, they all play back with proper timing in the right order. The process varies depending on which program you’re using, but a quick YouTube search will yield tutorials for all major DAWs.
Tracks are consolidated and exported without plug-ins or effects ’baked in’. We want to work with clean, raw tracks; please omit any EQs, compressors, etc that may be present in the production session. If the track needs to include any processing that is crucial to the sound that’s been created, please send two ‘versions’ of that track; one with the processing and one with without.
Before consolidating, make sure fades have been applied to any tracks that have been edited/comped.. clicks and pops are bad (and tough to fix downstream).
When choosing the file format for exporting raw tracks:
Ideally, raw tracks should be sent as 24bit / 48kHz .WAV files.
That said, please export using the same file format as the raw tracks were originally recorded; 24bit / 48kHz .WAV files are common. If tracks were recorded at, say, 24bit / 96kHz, then export them at those settings. Same thing for a project recorded at 16bit / 44.1kHz.
Although I recommend recording at 24bit / 48k (or potentially higher), raw tracks do NOT gain quality if recorded at 16bit and then later exported at 24bit. Just export at the same bit depth and sample rate as originally recorded to avoid unnecessary file conversions. For what it’s worth, 32bit float recording is almost always counterproductive. Again, I recommend recording at 24bit / 48kHz+ unless there’s a good reason to use different parameters.
Avoid adding dither to raw tracks when exporting. Since we aren’t converting bit depth or sample rates, we don’t need to dither the raw tracks on export