Mix audio tracks

I need the dialogue, music and effects mixed into a single master that plays cleanly on YouTube and in conference rooms. Put dialogue on top, compress the music so it never drowns speech, pan room tones subtly, and deliver a stereo master at -1 dB true peak by Thursday morning. Check for clipping and audible level jumps before exporting.

Before I hand this to the client, make approving the mix obvious: put a two‑line summary at the top showing average LUFS for dialogue, music and the master, mark any manual rides you did, and flag places where music ducking or extra EQ might worry a reviewer. Make it easy to audition dialogue solo and with the full bed from one click.

We finished picture lock and I bounced a rough mix. On the final pass I noticed the dialogue drops under the music between 1:12 and 1:20 and I can’t tell whether to automate a quick ride, lower the music by 3 dB, or re-export with sidechain compression — the client expects a broadcast‑ready master tomorrow. What’s the most defensible fix that preserves performance and meets the deadline?

Across the last five projects I keep losing time to last‑minute level fights between dialogue and music. I finish picture lock thinking levels are fine, then the client flags intelligibility and I go back into manual rides. Which habit change or checklist step would stop these emergency reworks so mixes ship clean and on time?