This is what separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls...
How easily and quickly you can make these changes without breaking a sweat while still being precise and not ruining what's good about your mix is a crucial step to being a good mix engineer.
And the answer is...Mix Groups or VCA's!!!
As far as I know, Logic Pro X and Pro Tools 12 all have VCA's as a standard option now, but if you don't have VCA's or Mix Groups in your DAW of choice you can do the same thing with auxes, but it will be a bit more cumbersome.
For my auxes I send all my vocal tracks to a single stereo aux channel and that dumps out to my mix bus. All my drums and percussion go to a stereo aux track which also dumps out to my mix bus. And then all my music (guitars, keys, synths, bass) go to their own stereo aux channel which also dumps out to the mix bus.
I struggled with doing quick revisions for a long while and after a lot of failed revisions, disappointed clients and lost time...I came up with a strategy.
Let's say the revision note is, "bring the kick down". If you only bring the kick down you're going to ruin the flow of your mix balance. So, I have my bass and kick routed to the same VCA, so if I need to pull the kick down I don't lose the blend of my bass and kick.
"Turn up the vocal a half dB"
I have my hi-hat, snare and lead vocal channels routed to the same VCA. After you setup a solid blend for your hi-hat, snares and lead vocals, you don't want to lose them because of a simple revision. Route them the same so your hard work isn't gone because of one note.
Effects are another blend you don't want to easily ruin. Any instrument channel or vocal that has an effect channel it's being sent to I'll always route those with the VCA or Mix Group. Any delays or reverbs being used on the vocal are routed to that vocal, snare, hi-hat VCA I was telling you about. If the snare has a plate reverb those channels get routed as well.
You get the idea.
You can take this idea and adopt it and mold it for your your workflow and to fit your purposes.
Good luck and as always...
be kind+make good music.
