10 · Mixing

Mixing is balancing your tracks into a finished whole — levels, panning, tone, dynamics, effects, and space. This chapter covers the mixing workflow and the features that tie it together. For the individual processors see The Audio Processors; for the full rundown of each strip type see Channel Strip Types.

The Mix view

Switch to MIX to see your session as a mixing console — a row of vertical channel strips:

[ Track ] [ Track ] [ Track ] … | [ Mix Bus ] [ Aux Return ] [ Cue ] [ VCA ] | [ MASTER ]

Track strips come first, then your mix buses, aux returns, cue buses, and VCA groups, with the master anchored on the right. Each strip shows one section at a time — DYN, EQ, INS, or SND — tap the tabs to switch.

The core moves

Level (faders)

Each strip's fader sets its level, metered right beside it (range up to +6 dB). The meter shows a single bar for mono channels and side-by-side L/R bars for stereo channels; buses and aux returns are always stereo. Start by getting a rough balance with faders alone before reaching for processing.

The fader taper is finest around unity, so small moves near 0 dB stay precise. For an even finer touch — riding a level a few tenths of a dB — hold ⇧ (Shift) while dragging to slow the fader to quarter speed. Double-click (or double-tap) the cap to snap back to 0 dB, and double-click the dB readout on a channel strip to type an exact value. The same fader, taper, and gestures are used everywhere the track appears — the channel strip in the mixer and the horizontal fader in each timeline track header stay perfectly in step.

Pan

The pan control places a track across the stereo field, from hard left (−1) through center (0) to hard right (+1). Spread instruments out so they each have their own place.

Mute & Solo

• Mute (M) silences a strip.
• Solo (S) isolates the soloed strip(s) and silences the rest — the fastest way to focus on one element. Soloing understands routing, so soloing a track keeps the buses it feeds audible.

Tone & dynamics

Shape each track with its EQ, compressor, gate, filters, and de-esser (see The Audio Processors), and add plug-in inserts as needed.

Buses — grouping and routing

Rather than sending every track straight to the master, route related tracks to a mix bus so you can process and ride them together.

• Create a bus: main menu ☰ ▸ Add Bus, or from a track's output routing ("add a bus and send this track to it").
• Route a track to a bus: set the track's output to that bus.
• A mix bus has its own full channel strip — filters, gate, de-esser, EQ, compressor, inserts — so you can, e.g., glue a whole drum kit with one compressor, or brighten all the background vocals at once.

Buses can route to other buses or to the master, letting you build sub-mixes (Drums → All Music → Master).

Aux returns — shared effects

An aux return hosts an effect (like reverb or delay) that many tracks share via their aux sends:

1. Add an aux return and choose its effect (reverb type or a delay).
2. On each track, open the Sends (SND) section and raise that track's aux send level.

Now all those tracks feed one reverb, which keeps your mix cohesive and saves CPU. Each send can be pre- or post-fader — post-fader (the usual choice) keeps the effect proportional as you ride the fader; pre-fader is independent.

Aux returns also have their own EQ, dynamics, and inserts, plus built-in reverb (Small/Medium/Large Room, Medium/Large Hall, Plate, Cathedral) and delay (time, feedback, mix).

Cue buses — headphone mixes

A cue bus is a separate headphone mix for performers, sent to its own hardware output pair. Use cue sends on each track to build a mix where the singer hears more of themselves, the drummer hears more click — without touching the main mix the listeners (or the recording) get. A cue bus can also follow the main mix as a starting point.

VCA groups — one fader to rule many

A VCA group is a single control fader that offsets the level of all its members at once, without re-routing audio. Tracks, mix buses, and aux returns can all belong to a VCA group. Assign members and ride the group fader to bring up "all drums" or "all vocals" together while keeping each member's internal balance intact. VCA moves can be automated too.

Every strip carries a VCA button in its routing row, next to Output — click it to join a VCA group, switch groups, leave one, or create a new group. Once the strip is in a group the button shows the group's name and that group's current fader position (for example Drums VCA −4.0), so you can see from the strip itself that a VCA is riding it and by how much. A strip belongs to at most one VCA group at a time.

On the timeline, a track's right-click / long-press menu also has a VCA Group item, right beside Track Group — that is the quickest way to put several selected tracks into one VCA at once.

Bus vs. VCA: a bus actually sums audio through one strip (so you can process the combined signal); a VCA just links faders (no extra processing, no summing). Use a bus to process a group, a VCA to ride a group.

The master bus

The master is the final strip every sound passes through on the way out. It has a mastering-grade chain: tape saturation → filter → EQ → compressor → inserts → Maximizer → output. Use it for final polish and to control your overall level and loudness. See Channel Strip Types for full detail.

Ganged editing — selected strips move together

Select two or more strips and they edit as one. Move the fader on any of them and they all move. Switch the compressor in, and it goes in on all of them. There is nothing to set up and nothing to undo afterwards: the link lasts exactly as long as the selection does.

This is the fastest way to make a change across several channels — pull the whole drum kit down 2 dB, roll the same low cut into every room mic, arm eight tracks at once — without committing to a saved track group.

Selecting strips

Click a strip's name plate (the colored bar at the top) to select it. Then:

Selected strips are drawn with a highlighted outline, and right-clicking one shows a header telling you how many are in the selection — "4 Tracks Selected" or "4 Mixer Strips Selected" — so you always know a move is about to travel.

The selection is shared between EDIT and MIX. Strips you select in the mixer are still selected on the timeline track headers when you switch back, and ganging works in both places — the timeline header controls and the edit-mode inspector strip gang exactly like the mixer strips do.

Relative or absolute

Not every control travels the same way, and the difference is what makes ganging musical rather than destructive:

• Knobs and faders move relatively. Each strip moves by the same amount you moved, so the balance you already built is preserved. Pull one fader down 3 dB and every selected fader goes down 3 dB — not to the same value.
• Switches copy absolutely. Turning the gate on turns it on everywhere; choosing a compressor model puts every selected strip on that model.

Relative moves stop at each strip's own limit. If one selected fader is already near the top, it stops at +6 dB while the others keep rising — and coming back down does not restore the offset it lost. When you need every strip to land on the same value, type it in (double-click the dB readout) rather than dragging the gang.

Plug-in inserts

Adding, replacing, or removing a plug-in in an insert slot applies to every selected track, at the same slot number. Each track gets its own fresh instance of that plug-in — they are separate processors with separate settings, not one plug-in shared across channels — so you can dial each one in afterwards. Only the strip you actually clicked opens its plug-in editor; the rest are loaded silently. Bypass is a switch, so it copies absolutely.

Insert ganging is tracks only. Buses, aux returns, and the master keep their own inserts even when they are part of the selection.

Mixed selections

You can select strips of different kinds together — tracks, mix buses, aux returns, VCA groups, and the master. Only the controls those strips genuinely share will travel:

A VCA in the selection. A VCA fader moves its member tracks by design. If some of those members are also selected, AnalogDAW applies the VCA move first and then writes explicit final values to every selected strip, so a selected member never gets moved twice.

What never gangs

Some things are per-strip by nature and stay that way no matter what is selected: output routing, mono/stereo, console flavor, processor order, and automation mode. Change those on the strip you mean.

Ganging or a track group?

They solve different problems, and you can use both:

• Ganging is momentary. It follows your selection, needs no setup, and covers mix moves and inserts. Reach for it when you want to change several strips right now.
• A track group is saved with the session. It has a name and a color, can be disabled and re-enabled, and — unlike ganging — also links clip edits and take/comp choices. Reach for it when a set of tracks belongs together for the life of the project, like a multi-mic drum kit.

Undo treats a ganged move as one edit. A single ⌘Z puts every strip back.

Track groups

A track group links tracks so that actions on one member propagate to all members. This is essential for multi-mic sources — group all the drum-kit mics so editing and balancing happen to the whole kit together.

When you edit one member of an enabled group, these propagate to the others:

• Clip edits and take/comp choices — trimming, comping, splitting, etc.
• Mute, Arm, and Input Monitor — toggled together (matched on/off).
• Solo — soloing one member solos the group.
• Fader and Pan — applied as a relative change, so the members move together while keeping their offsets from one another.

Other notes:

• A group can be enabled or disabled without un-grouping: disable it temporarily to edit one member alone, then re-enable to resume linked editing. A disabled group still shows its name and color everywhere, but dimmed and marked with a pause symbol — on the badge in the track header and on the Group button in the channel strip — so you can see at a glance that its linking is suspended rather than gone.
• Use the Group button on a channel strip, or the Track Group item in a track's right-click / long-press menu, to create, assign, move, rename, enable/disable, recolor, or delete track groups. (The menu item sits next to VCA Group — a track group links editing and mix moves; a VCA group links only level.)
• Groups have a name and a color. Pick one from Manage Groups → (group) → Group Color; leave it on Automatic and the group derives its own stable hue. The color is used by the group's badge on the track lane header and by the Group button on the channel strip — and it comes from the group, not from the track. Every member of a group therefore shows the same color, and two different groups stay tellable apart even when their member tracks are all colored differently.
• Deleting a group removes the group assignment from its members without deleting tracks or audio.

(A track group links editing and mix-move behavior; a VCA group links a single level offset; ganging links whatever you have selected, for as long as it is selected. You can use all three.)

Automation modes

Automation records and plays back control moves over time. Each automatable strip has an automation mode:

Draw and edit automation breakpoints on the track's automation lane in the timeline (see Editing Clips). The automatable parameters are volume (fader), mute, pan, and each aux send level, plus native processor parameters and supported plug-in insert parameters. The channel-strip Automation menu groups long processor lists by processor family and includes an All section for changing or clearing every available automation item on that strip.

A simple mixing workflow

1. Balance with faders only; get the song to feel right with level alone.
2. Pan for width and separation.
3. Subtractive EQ and filters to clear mud and make room.
4. Compress what needs steadying; gate/de-ess problem tracks.
5. Group with buses and VCAs; glue sub-mixes.
6. Add effects via aux returns (reverb/delay).
7. Automate rides and details.
8. Polish on the master bus, or run the Mastering Assistant, then check loudness.

Next: Channel Strip Types →