meaning you have a synth and added some effects to it.o.k. You are doing this from the source of the synth. Their is a difference between turning a sound down and putting it in the background.in this case we are giving it more or less meter juice in the mixer.

For anybody is a good idea to trim (or turn up or down your sounds from the source and not the mixer) til everything (even the drums) peaks at around -12 to -20db (just to start for example). But I would rather 'see' the soundstage as I stare into it with the speakers and other speakers as well.

I can make a ruff mix sound decent without serious mixing because I understand my soundstage.and can do it with headphones alone. Understanding your own personal soundstage is the one loophole around mixing with headphones.(as people stress not to mix with headphones because they heard someone stress not to mix with headphone who heard from a guy who is about 70 years old who was a mixing engineer since the first EQ was invented). You are not cutting frequencies to make room.you are cutting them to bring them infront of or behind a sound that it is near. You are not adding reverb to make it sound all peerty.but to give a sense of illusion that it is behind another sound or further back in your soundstage. You are not turning it up.you are bringing it forward in the mix.

So now you know not to turn something down.instead you are putting it in the background. Your soundstage is you mentally seeing where your sounds are in the stereo field. But if you don't understand your 'soundstage' you will still not be satisfied with your mix no matter how you set your levels.And it takes a while to understand it.even longer if you went so long without understanding it. A good mix is not determined by hearing all of your sounds in it's own space.that is the one thing that gets stuck in people's head because everyone seems to teach in that way. The one thing that must be understood and is where people fail is 'actually understanding the soundstage' of their production.

Johnny juliano all drum kits