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Mix Notes Template: Session Notes and a Self-Review Checklist

October 25, 2026
Mix Notes Template: Session Notes and a Self-Review Checklist

A good mix notes template does one job: it turns "something feels off" into a line you can act on. Below you'll find three copy-and-paste templates, one for your own session notes, one for a revision round with a client or bandmate, and one for a self-review of your own mix. Each comes with worked examples, so you can fill it in on the next song.

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TL;DR

  • Every useful note has four parts: a timestamp, the element, the change you want and the reason.
  • Keep three documents per song: a session log (what you did), a revision sheet (what needs to change) and a self-review checklist (what to check before you send).
  • Write notes after a fresh listen on a different playback system, then sort them by priority so the big problems get fixed first.
  • Name your versions and keep notes next to the files they refer to, so round three never gets confused with round two.
  • Measurement and ears work best together: use the template for the subjective calls and an objective check for the numbers.

Table of Contents

What mix notes actually are (and why a template helps)

Mix notes are the written trail around a mix. Depending on who you are, that can mean three different things:

  1. Session notes: your own log of what you did, what you tried and what you meant to come back to.
  2. Revision notes: feedback from an artist, a producer or you, written for the person who will change the mix.
  3. Self-critique notes: what you hear when you listen like a stranger.

The same structure serves all three, and that's the whole point of a template. When you're deep in a session, your ears get used to everything. A template makes you describe the problem in the same terms every time, which is half of fixing it.

There's a second reason. Vague feedback is expensive. One mixing studio's collaboration guide describes a workable feedback template with four parts: timestamp, element, desired change and reason. We agree, and we've built the templates below on exactly that skeleton, with a few extra fields we find useful in practice.

The core note: timestamp, element, change, reason

Before the full templates, learn the single line they're all made of.

Timestamp | Element | Change | Reason

Here's the difference it makes:

Vague noteNote that works
Make it punchier1:42
The vocal is too harsh0:58
Needs more spaceChorus 2
It sounds smallWhole track

Notice what the good notes share. They point to a moment, name one instrument, and say what you'd like to hear. The reason matters most: it lets whoever is mixing solve the problem their own way. If you say "cut 300 Hz on the bass" and the real issue is the kick's decay, you've sent them down the wrong road. If you say "the kick is lost under the bass", they can choose between EQ, sidechain, compression or a level move.

When you can't name the instrument, say so honestly: "something in the low-mids around 2:10 sounds boxy, not sure what." That's a perfectly good note. It's a lot better than a wrong guess presented as a fact.

Template 1: your own session notes

This is the document you keep for yourself. It saves you from the "what did I do to that vocal three days ago?" moment, and it's the first thing you'll be grateful for when a client asks for a change two weeks after delivery.

Copy this into a text file, a notes app or the first page of your DAW's session notes:

SONG:
ARTIST / CLIENT:
DATE STARTED:
DAW + VERSION:
SAMPLE RATE / BIT DEPTH:
TEMPO / KEY:
GENRE + REFERENCE TRACKS (2-3):
GOAL IN ONE SENTENCE:

SESSION LOG
Date | Version | What I did | What I'd try next

PROCESSING NOTES (per bus)
Drums:
Bass:
Vocals:
Music / instruments:
FX returns:
Master bus:

KNOWN ISSUES (to revisit with fresh ears)

DELIVERY
File names:
Loudness / peak targets:
Stems printed? Y / N

A few notes on the fields people skip:

  • Goal in one sentence. "Warm, intimate verse that opens up into a wide chorus" beats a page of intentions. When you're three hours in, it's the thing you check every decision against.
  • What I'd try next. This is the most underrated line. Finishing a session by writing down the next experiment means you open the project tomorrow with a plan rather than a blank stare.
  • Per-bus processing. You don't need plugin settings for every channel. A line like "drum bus: parallel compression at about 20 percent, glue comp, 2 dB max" is enough to rebuild your thinking.
  • Known issues. Parking a problem in writing stops you from fiddling with it at midnight when your ears are tired.

Keep the notes next to the files

Session notes only help if you can find them. A simple folder structure does most of the work. One remote production guide suggests a numbered project folder with sections for references, raw recordings, stems, mixes, masters and feedback, with the feedback folder split into audio notes and written notes. Whatever layout you choose, the principle is the same: the notes for version three live beside version three.

A tiny naming habit helps too. Use SongName_Mix_v03_2026-10-23.wav so the date and version are in the file itself. When a note says "in v3, the chorus vocal was too loud", nobody has to guess which bounce you mean.

Should you use a mix template at all?

People searching for "mix template" often mean the DAW kind: a saved session with buses, sends and processing ready to go. It's a fair question whether to use one. Some engineers love them, others avoid them because every song has its own character. In a magazine feature on how engineers start a mix, the replies about templates were more nuanced than expected: one engineer skips a broad mixing template but keeps an effects template.

Our take: a DAW template and a notes template do different jobs, and you can mix and match.

  • A DAW template removes repetitive setup: bus routing, colour coding, your usual reverb and delay returns, a metering chain.
  • A notes template removes repetitive thinking: what are we trying to achieve, what did we change, what's left?

If you worry that a template boxes in your creativity, start with the notes template only. It doesn't touch your sound at all. It only makes sure you remember what you decided.

Template 2: revision notes for a client, artist or bandmate

This one is for whoever is giving feedback on a mix, or for engineers who want to hand their clients something structured. It forces feedback into a form that's easy to action.

SONG / VERSION REVIEWED:
REVIEWER:
DATE:
HEARD ON: (headphones / car / phone / monitors)

1. OVERALL IMPRESSION (2-3 sentences)
What's working:
What's the biggest single thing to fix:

2. SPECIFIC NOTES
Time | Element | Change | Reason | Priority (1-3)

3. REFERENCE
Track + the moment I'm pointing at, and what I like about it:

4. NON-NEGOTIABLES
(things I love and don't want changed)

5. OPEN QUESTIONS
(things I'm not sure about, would like your opinion)

Why this layout works

Start with what's working. It protects the good parts of the mix from being accidentally "fixed", and it helps the engineer understand your taste. It also keeps feedback friendly, which matters more than people admit.

One biggest problem. If you give 40 notes with equal weight, the mixer has to guess which five matter. Forcing a single "biggest thing" fixes that. The priority column does the same job inside the list.

Heard on. A vocal that's perfect on studio monitors can disappear in a car. Knowing the playback system tells the engineer whether to chase a real mix problem or a room problem. If you want a deeper walk-through of how feedback should travel between people, our guides on mix feedback delivery and client communication for mix engineers go further.

Non-negotiables. This is the field that stops round-three heartbreak. If the artist loves the gritty guitar and the producer wants it cleaner, it's better to say so before the mix is re-opened.

Emotional words, translated

Most of us hear music emotionally, and that's fine. You don't have to learn engineer-speak. You just have to describe what you hear next to the moment you hear it. Here's a rough translation guide you can paste under your template:

If you hear...Try describing it as...
Muddy"I can't hear the kick clearly" or "the bass and guitars blur together in the verse"
Harsh"Hurts on headphones around the chorus vocal" or "cymbals are sharp"
Flat"Chorus doesn't feel bigger than verse"
Lifeless"Drums sound quiet and stiff compared with the reference"
Boomy"Low end feels too long, the bass keeps ringing"
Distant"Vocal feels behind the band, I'd like it closer"

Another rule of thumb: describe the symptom and the place, and leave the cure to the mixer. "The snare is lost in chorus 2" is better than "turn the snare up 3 dB". Turning it up might not be the right fix. Sometimes carving space in the guitars gives you the same result without making the whole mix louder.

And if you're giving notes on the master, try to keep level out of the conversation. Compare with a reference at matched loudness, otherwise the louder track will always win. A piece on using reference tracks in mastering shows how a few well-chosen references give you something concrete to point at when you write that note.

Template 3: a self-review checklist for your own mix

This is the template for the "self mix critique" moment: you think you're done, and you're about to send it out. The aim is to catch what a stranger would catch in the first thirty seconds.

First, a few ground rules.

  1. Take a break. Even twenty minutes away from the track resets your ears. Overnight is better.
  2. Change the room. Listen on earbuds, a phone speaker and a car if you can. Notes written on one system are a guess.
  3. Match levels. Use a reference track loudness-matched with your mix, or you'll judge louder as better.
  4. Listen once without touching anything. Write notes only after the full pass, then go back and fix.

Now the checklist. Tick, don't tinker.

SELF-REVIEW: ________  VERSION: ____  DATE: ____

BALANCE
[ ] Lead vocal / lead element clear at every point in the song
[ ] Kick and bass each audible, neither fighting the other
[ ] Chorus feels bigger than verse
[ ] Nothing important disappears when summed to mono

TONE
[ ] Low end controlled, not boomy or thin
[ ] Low-mids not cloudy (around where instruments pile up)
[ ] Highs smooth, not piercing, vocals not sibilant
[ ] Compared to my reference, tonal balance is in the same neighbourhood

DYNAMICS + DEPTH
[ ] Compression helps the groove, not squashing it
[ ] Reverb and delay add space without washing out the vocal
[ ] Front-to-back depth: some things close, some further away

STEREO + TECHNICAL
[ ] Panning and width intentional
[ ] No clicks, pops, noise or clipping on the bounce
[ ] Headroom left for mastering (or loudness target met if self-mastering)

TRANSLATION
[ ] Checked on headphones, phone/earbuds, and one other system
[ ] Checked at low volume: still balanced?

TOP 3 FIXES BEFORE SENDING:
1.
2.
3.

The last box is where the checklist earns its keep. You will find 12 things. Only three of them matter to the listener. Writing the top three forces you to rank, and ranking is most of mixing.

For a longer explanation of how to stay honest during this process, see our guide on how to review your mix objectively. If you'd like a quick scan for common problems first, ten red flags that your mix needs work is a handy companion.

A worked example

Say you've finished a pop-rock single. You take a break, listen once and write:

  • 0:00 to 0:30 | vocal | present, nice | no change
  • 0:45 | kick | gets buried when the bass enters | maybe sidechain or EQ carve | priority 1
  • 1:20 | guitars | wide but harsh on headphones, upper mids | priority 2
  • 2:30 | final chorus | doesn't lift vs. chorus 1 | add layers or automate level and width | priority 2
  • Whole track | low-mids feel cloudy next to the reference | priority 1

That took five minutes and gave you two priority-1 jobs. Compare that to the usual "I don't know, it feels a bit off", which can eat an entire evening.

How to prioritise a long list of notes

Whether the notes are yours or someone else's, the order you tackle them matters. We work in this sequence:

  1. Balance first. Level and panning problems make every later decision harder.
  2. Problems that affect the whole song. Tonal imbalance, muddy low end, a mix that collapses in mono.
  3. Section-level problems. The chorus that doesn't lift, the verse that's too dry.
  4. Moment-level fixes. The one harsh word, the vocal ad-lib that jumps out.
  5. Taste. The shiny extras, which only matter when everything above works.

If two notes conflict, say a band member wants the guitars louder while another wants the vocal louder, don't try to satisfy both with one fader move. Go back to the "goal in one sentence" at the top of your session notes and let that settle the argument. Our guide to mastering client feedback has more on handling conflicting opinions.

Our perspective: notes work best when they come from measurement and ears

We build AubioMix because we've seen the same pattern over and over. A producer finishes a mix, loves it, sends it out, and the notes that come back are either too gentle to help or too vague to act on. Meanwhile the real issue, say frequency masking between kick and bass, or a stereo image that collapses, was in the audio all along.

Our perspective: notes work best when they come from measurement and ears — overview diagram

Our view is that good notes combine two kinds of information. The subjective kind (does the chorus lift, does the vocal feel close) is where taste and experience live. The objective kind (loudness, phase, clipping, stereo width, frequency balance against genre norms) can simply be measured. Mixing those two in one document is why every report we produce gives both subjective guidance and objective measurement, built around the experience of our founder, a multi-award winning mix engineer with more than 20 years in the craft.

That's also why the templates above leave room for a reference and a "heard on" line. They push you to ground opinion in something you can point at. Use the template whether or not you ever use our app: the habit of writing timestamp, element, change and reason will improve your mixes on its own.

— AubioMix

Where an analysis report fits into your notes

A self-review is only as good as your ears on that day, and a client's notes are only as good as their vocabulary. An analysis report is a third opinion that doesn't get tired. You upload your song and get detailed feedback with specific steps across 15+ areas, from compression, EQ and frequency masking to effects, stereo width, phase, loudness, clipping and device translation, with visual and written reports and a downloadable PDF.

There's a practical way to use it with the templates: paste the report's findings into the "Specific notes" table of your revision sheet, rank them by priority, and tick them off version by version. Progress tracking then lets you see whether v4 really did improve on v3.

On our pricing page, one Mix Review is £4.99 one-off, a Reference Pass is £2.99 one-off, and monthly plans run at £19.99 (Professional) and £34.99 (Professional +). If you'd like to check how your genre usually measures first, our mix and mastering benchmarks by genre show measured data you can compare with your own numbers.

A short routine you can repeat on every song

Here's the whole thing as a workflow, so you don't need to remember anything:

  1. Before mixing: fill in the top of Template 1, with goal, references and key details.
  2. During mixing: log each session in two lines, what you did and what to try next.
  3. When the first pass is done: rest your ears, then run Template 3 and write your top three fixes.
  4. Before sending: bounce a named, dated version and put the notes beside it.
  5. When feedback arrives: have the reviewer use Template 2, or rewrite their comments into the four-part format yourself.
  6. After revisions: update the session log so the next version starts from facts, not memory.

It looks like a lot written out, but it's about ten minutes per version, and it cuts the number of rounds you'd otherwise lose to guessing. If you want to understand how revision rounds are usually structured, our guide to what a mix revision is covers the basics.

FAQ

What should mix notes include?

At minimum, a timestamp, the instrument or element, the change you'd like and the reason. Add a reference track and a line about what you want left alone. That's enough for an engineer to act on without a follow-up call.

How many notes should I give in one revision round?

There's no fixed number, but ranking matters more than count. Mark each note priority 1, 2 or 3 and name the single biggest issue. A short list with clear priorities will usually get a better result than a long list where everything looks equally urgent.

What's the difference between session notes and revision notes?

Session notes are your own log of what you did and what you plan to try. Revision notes are feedback on a specific version, written for whoever will change the mix. Keeping them separate means your history stays clean while the feedback stays focused.

How do I critique my own mix without bias?

Take a break, listen on a different system, and compare against a loudness-matched reference before you write anything. Then use a checklist and finish with your top three fixes. Our guide to reviewing your mix objectively goes through the process step by step.

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