How to build a static mix

By Dan Murtagh · Updated 18 October 2026

Short answer: a static mix is your first balance of the faders: every part at a level that serves the song, before you start shaping the parts. Build it in an order. Start with the drums (kick and snare first, at about the same power), then the bass, then guitars, then keys, and the vocal last. Leave headroom, mix at one steady monitor level, and check the balance by muting parts, against a reference track, on other speakers and at a few different volumes.

What a static mix is

It’s the balance you set before you start shaping the parts, and before anything moves with automation. Engineers draw the line in slightly different places, but the idea is the same: get the levels right first. Every move after it, EQ, compression, effects, is easier to judge because the parts are already sitting where they should.

Everything in a mix is related. Turn one part up and the others sound quieter next to it, and parts that share a range mask each other. So balance isn’t a level for each track on its own: it’s how the parts sit together, complementing each other, without the mix tipping too far one way.

An order to build it in

1. Drums first. Kick and snare, balanced to about the same power. Then the toms, so the shells of the kit are there. Then the overheads, then the room mics last.
2. Then the bass, against the kick. How loud and how punchy the kick should be depends on the genre: a metal or rock kick is a very different thing from a kick on a jazz record.
3. Then guitars, then keys.
4. The vocal last. Bring it up into the track you’ve built, rather than building the track around it.

Levels, meters and your monitors

• Leave headroom. Nothing should clip, anywhere in the signal chain. As a starting point, the kick and snare often peak somewhere around −10 to −6 dBFS. With a good recording it becomes a feel more than a number, but when you’re starting out the meters are worth watching.
• Mix at one steady level. Pick a comfortable volume for your monitors and keep it. With practice you learn what a balanced mix sounds like at that level, and you’re listening to the parts against each other rather than chasing loudness.

What to listen for

• The vocal: can you hear the lyric clearly, and some of the nuance and definition in the voice? How much of the mix should it fill, and what is it there to do for the song and its story? Does it sit glued into the track, or on top of it? This depends on the genre: some music is ultra wet, epic and lush, like prog, dance music, EDM and hyperpop; some has a very dry vocal, saturated and right up front.
• The kick and the bass: the bass can easily mask the kick, especially with too much sub on the bass, and the kick loses its punch. If the kick disappears when the bass comes in, that’s where to look.
• The kit against its rooms: a common mistake is a poor balance of the kick and snare against the room mics.

Mute more, solo less

Soloing a part tells you how it sounds on its own, which isn’t how anyone will hear it. Several mics on one drum, EQ’d or compressed in solo, can sound great alone and quite different in the blend, because of how the mics combine and the phase shifts the processing adds. Listen in context.

Muting is the better test. Take a part out and put it back, and you hear how much room it takes up in the mix and how much it needs. Sometimes muting a part is how you find out it was too loud.

The mistakes students make

• The vocal way too loud, and the drum kit way too quiet.
• The kick and snare against the rooms: the close mics and the room mics out of proportion.

Check it

• Against a reference: a professional mix in the same style, played at the same loudness as yours.
• On other systems: headphones, a car, a phone, whatever you have, to hear how the balance translates.
• At different volumes: how we hear the low and high end changes with level, so a balance that works loud can fall apart quiet, and the other way round.

Questions