A mix is a finite budget — spectrum, stereo width, and headroom shared between all voices

The mix is framed as a budget: finite spectrum, finite stereo width, finite headroom, all shared between the voices. This reframes mixing from a corrective activity (fixing problems afterward) into a compositional one (allocating scarce resources intentionally from the start). The consequence is that good arrangement pre-empts most mix problems — not playing two things in the same frequency range at once is a compositional decision, not a mixing one. The budget metaphor makes the mix tractable: if one element is using too much of a resource, another is being starved, and the fix is to reallocate.

Examples

If kick and bass both occupy 60–120 Hz they share the same budget line and mask each other. The compositional fix: choose complementary kick/bass ranges up front. The EQ fix (carving one where the other lives) is the fallback when arrangement did not solve it.

Assessment

Why is ‘mix is a budget’ described as a compositional framing rather than a corrective one? Name the three finite resources, and give an example of pre-empting a mix problem at the arrangement stage.