The mix bus provides the final stage to tweak your mix, and this month we look at how to EQ it effectively

Jon Musgrave

Jon is a London-based platinum award winning mixer, producer, composer and club remixer with a diverse CV that spans dance, pop, rock and music for media. He’s also a long term contributor to Computer Music. Jon usually handles final mixdowns, which is why we’ve got him to share some of his pearls of mixing wisdom here

Processing the mix bus can form an important part of your mix, and using EQ is probably the most common treatment.

That said, much like mix bus compression, it’s important to apply the EQ that’s needed, rather than use it out of habit.

When you’re mixing a track, you always have the option to adjust component tracks. This should always be your first approach, and is often more fruitful than applying excessive shaping to the overall stereo blend.

Nevertheless, there’s something quite satisfying about sweetening your overall mix with some EQ, and that’s what we’ll tackle here.

Much like mix bus compression, mix bus EQ can be quite subtle, and although plugin choice may be less critical than compression, it certainly helps to be aware of the EQ curve shapes you’re applying. Analogue emulations can also play a part as they often add their own mojo to the mix in the form of subtle harmonic distortions. To that end, knowing how your different EQs behave can be important, and we discuss this in the Pro Tip.