ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Board mix

Imagine that you are making a cake with a bunch of different ingredients, like flour, sugar, eggs, and milk. A board mix is like mixing all of those ingredients together in a certain ratio to make the cake taste just right.

When you are recording a band playing music, you don't want to just record all of the instruments at once and then have them all come out at the same volume. Instead, you use a mixing board to adjust the levels of each instrument individually, so that the final mix sounds balanced and clear.

So, a board mix is the process of using a mixing board to adjust the levels of each instrument, and combining them together to create a final recording that sounds good. Just like how adding too much flour to a cake can make it taste bad, having one instrument too loud or too soft in a board mix can make the whole recording sound off.