How to mix a song, in one breath: set clean levels, balance the faders, pan the parts, EQ out mud and clashes, compress what jumps around, add reverb and delay for depth, lift the chorus over the verse, then check on small speakers against a reference. In Veena, CoProducer, your personal music producer, mixes with you and measures every move, free in your browser.
Veena is an AI DAW with a personal music producer built in. Describe the song you want and CoProducer builds it with you — beats, chords, melody, arrangement and mix — as real tracks you can edit, mix and export. Free, in your browser.
Finish the arrangement first; mixing a song that's still changing wastes every pass. Delete the parts you muted weeks ago. Then drag across the ruler to loop the busiest section, usually the chorus, and mix at a low, comfortable volume: loud listening flatters everything and tires your ears in minutes. Pick a finished song in your genre to compare against, as in how to use a reference track.
Each pass below has the move by hand, the same move in Veena, and one sentence for CoProducer. Open the Mixer from the dock; effects go on a clip from its FX tab.
Bring every part to a sensible level before any processing, with the loudest section of the song peaking around -6 dBFS on the master. That headroom is what mastering works with.
In Veena, set a clip's level from Open Control Panel (right-click the clip), or trim it up to 24 dB either way with the Utility effect's Gain. The master feeds a built-in limiter, so keep its meter out of the red rather than leaning on the limiter.
Ask CoProducer: "Set sensible starting levels for every track, with headroom on the master."
Faders only, no effects. Start with the part the song is about, usually the lead vocal or the kick, then bring in bass, snare, chords and the rest around it. Veena's faders run from +6 dB down to silence.
What good sounds like: at low volume you still hear every word and every kick.
Ask CoProducer: "Balance the levels: vocal on top, kick and bass leading the low end, pads behind."
Keep kick, snare, bass and lead vocal in the centre. Put hats 20 to 30 percent to one side, doubled guitars hard left and right, keys and pads between 30 and 60 percent, backing vocals wide. Pan per track in the Mixer.
Ask CoProducer: "Pan the hats and guitars wider, keep kick, snare, bass and vocal centred."
Take away before you add. Thin the lows under about 120 Hz on everything except kick and bass, pull 2 to 4 dB out of the 250 to 400 Hz mud on guitars, keys and pads, and if the vocal is buried, cut 2 to 3 dB around 3 kHz in the guitars rather than boosting the vocal. Then boost gently: 2 dB of presence at 3 to 5 kHz on the vocal, a small shelf around 10 kHz for air.
In Veena, add the 8-Band EQ: pull Band 1, the Low Shelf, down to thin the lows, use Bands 2 and 3 for mud, Band 5 for presence and Band 8, the High Shelf, for air. Every band moves up to 18 dB either way.
Ask CoProducer: "Clean the mud out of the guitars and keys around 300 Hz and make room for the vocal."
Even out what jumps around. Vocals: 3:1 to 4:1, 10 to 30 ms attack, 100 to 200 ms release, 3 to 6 dB of gain reduction. Drums: about 4:1 with a fast attack for control, or a slower one for punch. Bass: a steady 4:1 so every note sits at the same height.
In Veena, the Compressor's presets are good starting points: Vocals (3:1, 20 ms attack, 200 ms release), Drums (4:1, 5 ms, 150 ms) and Gentle (2:1, 100 ms, 300 ms). Then lower THRESH until the loud words come down and the quiet ones stay put.
Ask CoProducer: "Compress the vocal so every word is audible, and glue the drums."
Give the song one short space and one or two longer ones. A room under a second for drums, a plate of about 2 seconds for the vocal with 20 to 40 ms of pre-delay so the words stay in front, a hall for pads. Keep kick and bass dry. Delays should be tempo-synced: a quarter note or a dotted quarter for vocal throws.
In Veena, the Reverb presets are Room (0.9 s), Plate (1.9 s) and Hall (2.8 s), with Pre-Delay up to 120 ms. The Delay has Quarter, Dotted and Ping Pong presets locked to your tempo. Effects live on each clip, so give parts that share a space the same preset.
Ask CoProducer: "Put the vocal in a plate reverb, not too wet, and add a quarter-note delay in the choruses only."
A static mix sounds flat across three minutes. Engineers ride levels through the song: the chorus a dB or two up, the second verse a little sparser, the vocal lifted on the quiet lines.
In a song CoProducer builds, each section is its own clip, so each keeps its own level.
Ask CoProducer: "Make the chorus hit a little harder than the verse, and pull the pads down in verse 2." It sets each section's clip levels for you.
Listen at low volume, on earbuds and on a phone, and after a break. Compare with your reference at matched loudness. Put the Utility effect's Mono Check preset on wide stereo parts like pads: if one vanishes in mono, narrow it.
Export an MP3 (320 kbps) and play it on your phone. Then ask CoProducer to measure the mix: integrated loudness, true peak, crest factor (how much punch survives) and the balance across six bands from sub (20 to 100 Hz) up to the highs (6.5 to 16 kHz).
Ask CoProducer: "Measure the mix: loudness, true peak, and where the low end builds up."
| Part | EQ | Compression | Space | Veena preset to start from |
|---|
| Lead vocal | Low Shelf down near 100 Hz; +2 dB at 3–5 kHz | 3:1, 20 ms / 200 ms | Plate, 20–40 ms pre-delay | Compressor Vocals, Reverb Plate |
| Kick | −2 dB near 300 Hz; +2 dB near 3 kHz for click | 4:1, 5 ms / 150 ms | Dry | Compressor Drums |
| Snare | +2 dB near 200 Hz for body, near 5 kHz for crack | 4:1 | Short room | Compressor Drums, Reverb Room |
| Bass or 808 | Keep the lows; −2 dB near 250 Hz if muddy | Steady 4:1 | Dry | Compressor Gentle |
| Guitars, keys | Low Shelf down near 120 Hz; −3 dB at 300 Hz | 2:1 if needed | Room or plate | Compressor Gentle |
| Pads | Low Shelf down near 200 Hz | Rarely | Hall | Reverb Hall |
Describe the mix you hear, and CoProducer listens before it touches anything: it measures the song's loudness and the balance of lows, mids and highs, then sets level, pan and effects part by part. Then it measures again against the targets it set and makes one narrower fix if a target was missed. Because it treats a part rather than a single clip, the verse bass and the chorus bass get the same treatment.
Press Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z (Cmd on a Mac) to flip between before and after on the same loop, then keep what you like. More requests are on the AI mixing page, and the button-by-button guide is mixing in Veena.
- Quiet: every vocal word and every kick is still clear.
- On a phone: the bassline is still there.
- Loud: nothing stings in the 2 to 5 kHz range.
- Across the song: the chorus feels bigger than the verse without you touching the volume.
When it does, ask CoProducer to "master this for streaming" (the AI mastering page has more mastering requests), then export a 24-bit, 48 kHz WAV of the full mix or every track. Free, with no watermark and no cap on exports.
Related reading: how to use a reference track · how to fix a muddy mix · EQ and compression basics