Listen to an 80%-finished mix with a “soft gaze”

Don’t hyper-focus, listening critically, but just listen through the song as a typical listener would. As you go, simply take notes of anything that leaps out as a glaring issue. Gregory Scott takes note of three things, stops playback, fixes them, then continues listening.¹ Andy Bradfield listens three times in a row, and if there’s something that consistently bugs him, then he fixes it.²

Mike Senior recommends doing this listening in the morning on one’s day-to-day domestic system, like a car or earbuds.² Mike also suggests avoiding looking at the screen and other visualizations of the mix.³ Another way to do this is to Listen from the other room.

A mix is finished when it sounds like a song.