WHY You Should Consider Setting Up Custom Cue Mixes When Tracking

I recently had a live off the floor session, where I was tracking Percussion / Drums and Guitar in order to get the best possible “Lock” in terms of Groove from the artists. Quite often I try to treat these types of sessions as if though the takes we capture, could potentially be the takes that end up on the record. Because In MANY cases - they are.

One interesting thing happened during that session - was both the Percussionist and Guitarist made mention of the fact that they were both really appreciative with the fact that I ‘even bothered’ to offer each of them a custom Cue Mix. In all honesty, I found it a little odd - because from my personal experience, giving a really decent Headphone Mix to an artist as he/she is tracking has got to be one of the easiest ways a tracking Engineer can improve the odds of them capturing some magic.

That being said, it’s an easy thing to say - but slightly harder to grasp without actually “hearing” exactly what I’m referring to. Also, this article / video isn’t really about HOW as much as it is about WHY! With this in mind, this will be the first of many new articles and video’s that will go further into exploring these types of concepts. 🙂 Watch this space…

But if you are interested in the HOW - A simple youtube search should kick back some video’s from multiple fellow content creators, and I myself have a video I did when I was with Studio One Expert, that covers everything you’d need to know about Setting Up a Cue Mix in PreSonus Studio One.

In this first video of a new series I'm launching, (Why vs How) we take a look at WHY, as a Tracking Engineer - You should consider creating custom Cue Mixes / Headphone Mixes for artists while tracking in PreSonus Studio One.