Okay, so there's no such thing as instant. Sure they have instant potatoes, instant oatmeal and instant tellers - but are they as good as the real thing? No. But here are a few quick tips to get a mix up and running on the quick. It may not be your final work, but it will help you on the way. I find this approach especially helpful as you want to get a sense of the song for laying some overdubs.
First select an 8 bar section to loop as you are doing this. Ideally a part where there are all the tracks represented. Hit play then follow these steps:
1. Drop all the levels to zero. Mute or hide the tracks you won't be using. (I drag and drop extra tracks in there to hide)
2. Drums Quick mix: Bring up the kick to a good level, add 4:1 compression, roll off the top end in the EQ. Bring the snare up, throw a little plate reverb on it. Add the overheads and other mics if they exist.
3. Next bring up the bass. Add some 4:1 compression and lower the threshold/increase the gain to get a good volume. Dip out the middle on the EQ to give you the "disco smile".
4. Add any piano/strings and leave them centered.
5. Pull up the electric guitars. If there are two guitars pan one left and one right. Do the same if there are multiple acoustics. With the acoustic guitar throw on a little room reverb and cut some frequencies around 200-400 and roll off the frequencies below 80 (or use a high-pass filter).
6. Bring the lead vocal. Throw on another compressor 4:1 ratio - adjust threshold and gain as needed. Roll off the frequencies under 80 Hz. Give it a little increase at 12 kHz for sparkle. Adjust the volume again so it just cuts through the mix.
7. Now add other vocals and backgrounds as needed
There you have it - instant audio mix. To be honest, it won't be great - but it will be a start. And it might just give you the reference point you need to do the rest of the overdubs as needed. This is not a list of rules but guidelines. Just remember to use your head, your ears and especially your gut when you need to mix it on the fly.
