By Matty Harris | Updated 2025

After over 15 years of mixing records for artists across genres—from major label pop to gritty independent hip-hop—I can tell you this: the flashiest plugins won’t save a mix that doesn’t feel right.

When people ask me how to make their mix sound professional, they usually expect a plugin recommendation or some secret trick. But more often than not, I point them back to the basics: volume and panning. These two things have shaped every mix I’ve done—whether it was for Kelly Clarkson, Travis Barker, or an independent artist recording in their bedroom.

Get these two things right, and the whole track opens up. You start hearing space, emotion, and clarity—before you’ve even touched an EQ or compressor.

The Problem With How Most People Mix

Most home studio producers make the same mistake: they reach for plugins too early.

There’s a plugin for everything now. Saturation, harmonic excitement, AI-powered EQ—the gear is genuinely impressive. But here’s the hard truth: processing on top of a broken balance just gives you louder problems.

I’ve had clients send me sessions with ten plugins stacked on the vocal chain. The track still sounded muddy and cluttered. Once I muted half the effects and adjusted the levels, the vocal suddenly cut through. That’s not a plug-in story—that’s a volume story.

So before we talk about signal chains, let’s talk about the two things that actually separate a professional-sounding mix from an amateur one.

#1: Volume Balance — The Foundation of Everything

Make Your Mix Sound Professional with volume and panning

When I open a session, I don’t reach for an EQ or a compressor first. I reach for the faders.

Volume balance is the foundation of every great mix. If something’s too loud or buried, it doesn’t matter how well it’s processed—it’s not going to sit right.

I’d argue that around 70% of a great mix happens during the static mix—just leveling the tracks with no processing at all. I’ve worked on sessions where, once the faders were in the right place, the track already felt tight, energetic, and emotionally connected. That’s the power of balance.

Volume Is About Prioritization

Volume isn’t just about loud and soft. It’s about deciding what the listener should feel first.

Is it the lead vocal? The kick drum? A hook guitar riff? These choices shape the energy and intention of the song. When you nail this, everything else becomes easier. Your EQs will work better. Your compressors will behave more musically. The mix starts to breathe.

How to Approach Your Static Mix

Here’s how I build my static mix before I touch a single plugin:

Start with the most important element. In most modern music, that’s the lead vocal. Set it at a level that feels right—not buried, not overwhelming. This becomes your reference point for everything else.

Build around the foundation. Bring in the kick and bass next. These form the low-end foundation. The relationship between the kick and bass is one of the most important decisions in a mix. Too much overlap and the bottom gets muddy. Too much separation and the track loses its drive.

Add the midrange elements. Guitars, synths, keys—bring these in and find the space around your vocal and rhythm section. Ask yourself: is this element competing with the vocal, or supporting it?

Use your ears, not your eyes. It’s tempting to look at your meters and set everything at the same level. Don’t. Trust what you hear. A guitar riff might need to be louder than your meter suggests if the arrangement calls for it to lead a section.

Check your mix on multiple speakers. Car speakers, earbuds, laptop speakers—the balance that sounds perfect on studio monitors sometimes falls apart everywhere else. If the vocal disappears on your phone speaker, it needs to come up.

Common Volume Mistakes

Kick too loud in headphones. Headphone mixing tends to exaggerate bass. Always check your low end on speakers too.
Burying the snare. The snare drives the energy of a track. If it’s getting lost behind pads and guitars, the whole song loses punch.
Competing lead elements. Two things can’t both be the loudest element at the same time. If the vocal and the guitar riff are fighting, one of them needs to yield.

#2: Panning — Creating Space and Dimension

Once your levels are balanced, panning is how you give your mix width, depth, and dimension. A great pan job makes a mix feel immersive and professional. A bad one—or worse, everything hard center—makes it feel flat and amateur.

Understanding the Stereo Field

Think of the stereo field as a stage. You have:

Center: Kick, bass, lead vocal, snare. These anchor the mix.
Left and right: Guitars, synths, backing vocals, percussion. These create width.
Wide edges: Effects, ambience, reverb tails. These add depth and space.

The goal is to fill the stereo field in a way that feels balanced—not just left/right symmetry, but tonal balance across the spectrum.

Genre-Specific Panning Approaches

Hip-hop and R&B: The lead vocal, 808, kick, and snare are almost always dead center. Hi-hats and percussion are often panned slightly off center for movement. Wide pads and synth textures fill the left and right edges.

Pop: Backing vocals are typically spread wide—hard left and right doubles create a wall of sound effect that’s a signature of commercial pop. Lead vocals stay center, and the production elements fill in around them.

Rock: Guitars are often panned hard left and right when you have two rhythm guitar tracks. This creates a massive stereo image that makes the lead vocal feel like it’s cutting through a wall of sound.

Country and Americana: Instruments tend to be panned more conservatively, mimicking the natural placement of a live band on a stage.

Panning Tips That Actually Work

Pan in mono first. Set all your pans, then check your mix in mono. If elements disappear or sound thin in mono, you may have phase issues between similar elements that are panned apart.

Use automation to move elements. A pad that sits center in the verse might open up to wide stereo in the chorus. Subtle movement in the stereo field adds energy and keeps listeners engaged.

Don’t pan just to pan. Every panning decision should serve the song. Panning a hi-hat slightly right works if it creates space for a synth on the left. Panning it just because it’s there usually creates an unbalanced mix.

Match panned doubles. If you have a guitar double—same part played twice—pan one hard left and one hard right. They should be recorded at roughly equal levels to keep the mix balanced.

The Plugin Trap: Why Gear Won’t Fix a Broken Mix

I get it—plugins are fun. I’ve tested just about every one out there, and some of them genuinely bring something special to the table. FabFilter Pro-Q 4, iZotope Ozone, Soothe 2—these are excellent tools.

But here’s the truth: if your levels and panning aren’t right, no plugin is going to fix your mix.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking the next tool will solve everything. It won’t. The fundamental decisions happen before you load a single plugin:

Is the vocal sitting where it needs to be in the arrangement?
Is the low end balanced between the kick and bass?
Does the stereo field feel wide and open, or narrow and cluttered?

Answer those questions with your faders and your pan knobs. Then open your plugins.

When to Call in a Professional

There’s a point in every self-produced artist’s journey where the mixing becomes the ceiling. The song is great. The performances are there. But something about the sound still doesn’t feel commercial-ready.

That’s usually when it’s time to bring in a professional mixing engineer.

A professional mixer isn’t just someone with better plugins—they have trained ears, calibrated rooms, and the objectivity to hear your song the way a listener does. They’re not emotionally attached to any particular take or production decision. They just make the song sound as good as it can.

If you’ve got your levels balanced and your stereo field dialed in but the mix still isn’t hitting the way you want, that’s a good sign you’re ready for professional mixing. Check out my online mixing and mastering services here.

Putting It All Together

When someone asks me what makes a mix sound professional, they usually expect a plugin recommendation. But 15 years of mixing at every level of the industry has taught me the same lesson over and over:

Volume balance and panning are the foundation. Everything else builds on top.

If your mix feels muddy, crowded, or flat, don’t reach for another plugin. Take a moment. Pull everything back. Rebalance your levels. Reimagine your stereo space. The clarity and energy you’re chasing is probably already in the session—it’s hiding behind overprocessing and unbalanced faders.

Strip it down. Trust your ears. And ask yourself the only question that really matters: Does this feel right?

How to Make Your Mix Sound Professional (2 Things That Actually Matter)