Mixing your song for the mastering process

Many aspiring mix engineers will ask me; how do I mix my songs to most effectively achieve maximum loudness? While loudness is far from being the most important part of mastering, today's industry seems to love it. Unfortunately, most people percieve louder as being better. When this is really not the case. Its simply an auditory trick.

Nonetheless, there are ways to make sure you mix will get nice and loud after mastering. The trick is to make sure the frequency content of your mix is well balanced. Every element of you mix (instrument) has a certain frequency content. Finding these frequencies and isolating them will allow you to peice you mix together like a tetris game. With each instrument occupying its own little section of the overall frequency spectrum. This is an artform in itself and can be extremely difficult to master. Possibly requiring years of practice and experience. Audio mastering will go much smoother when the ME recieves a properly balanced mix. Your engineer will LOVE you if you can nail this.