Indie and alternative rock

Character of the mix

Indie and alternative rock favor character over perfection: guitars with distinctive tones (fuzz, chorus, reverbs), drums recorded in a room with plenty of room sound, saturated basses, sometimes treated vocals (saturation, filters, lo-fi doubles), vintage synths and keyboards. The range runs from garage rock (raw) to dream pop and psychedelia (reverbs and modulation). The mix has more mids and less “polish” than pop.

Typical balance

In indie the vocals often sit a bit more inside the band than in pop.

EQ

• Guitars: HP 80–120 Hz, character in the mids (500 Hz–2 kHz) to preserve; less artificial air.
• Bass: saturation for the mids; often more present in the mids than in the sub.
• Drums: room emphasized (heavy compression on the rooms), cymbals less bright than in pop.
• Vocals: moderate presence, limited air; filters and saturation as an aesthetic choice.

Dynamics

• Drum rooms heavily compressed (FET, 10–15 dB) and mixed underneath.
• Bass compressed and saturated.
• Vocals 4–8 dB, sometimes with obvious compression as an effect.
• Mix bus with tape saturation.

Space and stereo image

• Guitars panned L/R, keyboards and synths filling in.
• Spring and plate reverbs, tape delays; in dream pop, very obvious reverbs and chorus on guitars and vocals.
• Drums with a room perspective.

Reference loudness

Master −10/−8 LUFS, true peak −1 dBTP. More lo-fi productions sit at −12/−10.

Reference tracks

The Strokes “Last Nite”, Arctic Monkeys “Do I Wanna Know?”, Tame Impala “The Less I Know the Better”, Radiohead “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”, Phoebe Bridgers “Kyoto”.

Common mistakes

• Cleaning up too much: the mix loses character and becomes anonymous pop rock.
• Reverbs without filters in dream pop: mud.
• Bass without mids.
• Vocals buried to the point that the words can't be understood.