How to prepare a multitrack session before mixing?

After the recording process is done, you should prepare your session before mixing. Usually, multitrack has a lot of background noise, hiss on pauses, clicks, or pops.

So first of all, you should clean the whole session from these things.

Just cut everything and make nice fade-ins and fade-outs.

Then you should organize your session, and name all files correctly.

Create midi notes for kick and snare so then you can put some triggers on it. Also, you should recreate bass in midi. Sometimes it’s better to add some sub synth rather than boosting EQ. Here we are also replacing some broken stems, or just adding the right triggers to help the overall sound. Sometimes it’s needed where mixing can’t fix some recording issues. Also in most cases, it helps to make better results with your song.

The next thing is vocals.

Vocals should be prepared for mixing perfectly, cause usually, it’s the most complex element of the song (huge dynamic and note range). You should place every breath on a separate track, so the mix engineer can control the level of it after compressing. Then it needs to be time corrected (each background vocal with lead, etc). Then in some cases, vocals should be tune corrected.
Usually, Auto-Tune works well, but there are some cases where Manual Vocal Editing is needed. It can be music with complex vocal parts and it needs gentle correction, or just mistakes that autotune can’t fix, or because it sounds bad with autotune. We can do these things for you and it is called Upgrade Mixing and Mastering.

Our creative analysis and arrangement will help to reach the highest level of music production.

Source — Major Mixing Blog