Audio Editing vs Mixing: What’s the Real Difference?
- drumaudioediting
- Jun 1
- 6 min read
If you’re new to working with audio — whether you’re starting to record your band, launching a small studio, or building an online music business — you’ve probably felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of steps in the production process.
From pre-production to recording, editing, mixing, and mastering… it’s hard to know where one stage ends and another begins. And more importantly: which part does your music actually need right now?
You might be searching for online audio services to help improve your tracks, but you’re not even sure what to type into Google.
In this article, we break down one of the most common points of confusion: audio editing vs mixing — what's the difference and how do you know which one you need?
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Pre-Production & Recording: The Foundation
Before audio editing or mixing even begins, the process starts with pre-production — planning song structures, finalising arrangements, and rehearsing performances. This stage ensures the recording session runs smoothly and that each part serves the song.
Once everything’s mapped out, it’s time for recording — capturing the raw performances. Whether it’s a full band live in a studio or layered home recordings, this step is about getting clean, well-played takes. The better the recording quality, the less fixing is needed later — and the more authentic the final result.
What Is Audio Editing?
Audio editing is the process of preparing the raw recorded tracks so they’re clean, tight, and ready to be mixed. Think of it as sanding the wood before painting it. If the surface of the wood isn't well prepped, no amount of paint is going to make the final finish reach it's full potential.
Audio Editing Tasks From Start To Finish:
Comping takes - Selecting the best performed parts from multiple takes you recorded and comitting to them. The takes you commit to should be free from mishits, bum-notes and other performance related mistakes. The better performed the takes that you commit to are, the easier the next stage of editing will be.
Timing correction (quantising or manual editing) - Tightening drums, guitars, bass, vocals and other instruments to improve the consistency of the rhythm and groove. This ensures that the instruments lock together to maximise the impact of the the mix.
Cleaning up - Adding crossfades to remove clicks and pops. Removing other noise, unwanted breath sounds, background hum, etc.
Phase alignment - Ensuring multi-mic recordings (like drums) are in phase with each other. Sometimes audio engineers prefer to phase align audio tracks before the time correction process.
Consolidating + naming files - Organising the edited tracks and naming them appropriately so they’re easy to organise and import into a session for the mixing stage.
The Main Goal: Make each track sound solid, polished and cohesive on its own — without changing its tone or creative character. It’s not glamorous, it's time consuming — but it’s also absolutely essential.
Clean edits are the difference between a tight, pro-sounding mix… and a messy, unfixable one.
What Is Mixing?
Mixing is the process of taking those clean, edited audio tracks and blending them together into a final stereo version that sounds balanced, full, and emotionally impactful. This is going to be potentially the most time-consuming and/or costly part of the music creation process.
Mixing Tasks Include:
Volume balancing — In it's most basic from, mixing is making sure each instrument sits at the right level in relation to one another.
Panning — Audio panning consists of spreading sounds left and right to create width and allows you to fill up the whole stereo field. This process helps you to create the impression of a full and professional sounding mix and also aids the listener to disnguish one instrument from the next.
EQ (equalisation) — The process of reducing, removing or enhancing certain bands of frequencies to improve the tonality, impact and further seperation of the individual aspects of the mix. This can including moving 'muddiness' from the low end so the bass guitar and kick drum tracks don't merge, or boosting the 'clarity' on your overheads to brighten the overall mix.
Compression — Controlling the dynamics of each instrument for a punchier, more stable sound. Compression adds consistency to the mix by essentially making the quieter parts lounder and the louder parts quieter. Mixing audio without compression is like pouring concrete to build a road, without levelling it off before it dries.
Reverb/Delay — These time-based effects add space and depth to certain aspects of the mix. For example, adding delay (echo) to a guitar solo so it appears infront of the other guitars, and adding reverb (the sound of space) to vocals when mixing so they sound larger than what they are and become the main focus point of the mix.
Automation — Programming the volume levels, panning or individual plug-ins/effects to automatically change or toggle on/off to enhance key moments of the song. E.g. enabling more gain on the guitars during a breakdown, or reducing the levels of the rhythm guitars to create room for a lead guitar part.
Goal: To turn the edited individual tracks into a finished, polished song that sounds cohesive across all kinds of speakers and listening devices. Once the song has undergone mixing, it needs to be mastered to ensure it's of adequate loudeness to be released onto streaming platforms and submitted for radio play.
Which One Do You Need?
Here’s how to know where to start:
You Need Audio Editing If:
Your audio tracks have timing issues or don’t groove properly
There are pops, clicks, or other noise to clean up
You’re preparing tracks for a mixing engineer
You want a tighter, more polished performance
You Need Mixing If:
Your tracks are edited, clean and in time with each other
You want the final blend of all instruments as a signle stereo track
You want to release the track or send it for mastering
Why You Might Need Both Audio Editing and Mixing
Let’s say you record a great song — but your drums are slightly rushed, or your guitars drift out of time in the chorus. If you skip editing and jump straight into mixing, you’re trying to polish a track that’s not structurally sound.
Even the best mixing engineer can’t fix poor editing. Likewise, even the cleanest edit won’t sound good without a well-balanced mix.
If you want pro-level, radio-ready music, both stages matter. That’s why most professional productions — even at home studio level — require dedicated audio editing before mixing begins.
Need Help With Audio Editing?
At Drum Audio Editing, we specialise in helping musicians, producers, and engineers take their recordings to the next level — starting with pro-level audio editing that’s phase-aligned, tight, and mix-ready.
Whether you need drums tightening, full instrumentation editing, vocal tuning, or full session prep, we can help you save time and maximise your result.
Get a quote for audio editing or mix prep here👉 https://www.drumaudioediting.com/getaquote
Audio Editing vs Mixing: A Final Summary
Audio Editing | Mixing | |
When It Happens | After recording, before mixing | After editing is complete |
Main Focus | Fixing errors, timing and cleaning tracks | Balancing tones and blending instruments |
Main Tools Used | Clip gain, quantising tools, crossfades | EQ, compression, reverb, panning, volume control and automation |
Creative Input | Low to medium | High |
Required For | A clean, tight foundation to your mix | A professional sounding final product |
Price ($-$$$$) | $$ | $$$$ |
Audio editing and mixing are two distinct — but equally essential — parts of the music production process. Knowing the difference helps you:
Prioritise what your track really needs
Save time, money, and endless back-and-forth
Get to a polished, powerful final product faster
If you’re unsure where to start, reach out to us. We’re here to make the process smoother — and more enjoyable — so you can focus on what matters: the music.
If you are wanting to tackle your own editing, you’ll love our PDF guide — 10 Essential Drum Editing Hacks. Packed with workflow fixes and professional editing tricks that save hours.
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