← Music Tech Studio1.13 BalanceBalance Desk
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Paper Kites · 100 bpmThe plan above; below it, every part's live spectrum on one axis. Where two curves ride together, the shaded region is the paper's masking.
Presets
As supplied: every fader at unity and the balance wrong, because the files were trimmed first. Bass and synth over the release, vocal and drums under: the bass is on top, not the vocal.AO3The one-mark line: one track barely audible or too dominant. Lift the vocal until it is clear, bring the drums up to meet it, pull the rest back: listen, not look (2019 report).AO4Write it in that order: the fault and its region are AO3; what it does, the line it sits on and the change are AO4, as is the practical mark.
Level
Play runs the four bars round. Hold: reference swaps every fader, pan and send to the reference while you hold it, so you hear how far your balance is from it without losing your place. The space bar plays and stops.
Vocal0 dB
Pan
C
Send
dry
The lead. The scheme's first line on every paper since 2017 is that the vocals sit on top; the 2023 report called it a noticeable improvement when candidates stopped burying them. Centre, and dry enough to stay at the front.
Drums0 dB
Pan
C
Send
dry
The drive. Too quiet is the most repeated deduction in nine years of reports; the 2020 scheme wants them equal to the vocal or louder. They share every band with everything, which is why they never count as masking here.
Bass0 dB
Pan
C
Send
dry
The foundation. Supplied loud in 2019 and 2025, left too quiet in 2022: the bass is the part candidates misjudge both ways. Centre, for a mono-compatible low end.
BVs0 dB
Pan
C
Send
dry
The support. Left loud "as on the original CD" in 2019, and living in the same region as the lead: the first candidate for a pan apart or a send back.
Synth0 dB
Pan
C
Send
dry
The pad. The 2023 chorus synth and the 2025 "synth over vocals at start of chorus" are the same fault: a sustained part in the lead's region, left loud. Ease it, pan it, or set it back.
What you should hear
Bassloudest, for the ear
novocal on top
noneshare a region
one part offthe scheme's line
all from the files and the faders, weighted for the ear
Privacy
Every word here comes from the song's measured levels and the five strips: which part is loudest for the ear, whether the vocal is on top the way the scheme means it, which two parts share a region beyond what the release shared, and which of the scheme's lines the balance sits on.