How to learn to mix well in the shortest time possible

It often takes a student around 3-5 years to get together the basics of creating a competent music mix. Professional mix engineers tend to have 10 years of experience and the very best and most in demand mix engineers are often in their mid forties by the time they are turning away bookings. The fact is it takes a long time to learn how to mix audio properly.

One of the best ways to learn to mix is sitting in with a professional mix engineer so at any opportunity that you get a chance to take an internship or apprenticeship, accept immediately. These situations are rare and highly desirable. Being taught by someone and being open to being taught by a competent is a skill in itself and not everyone is willing or has the personality that will easily fit into an environment of respect and listening. This can seriously impede your progress so consider this aspect as integral to learning.

As these situations appear so rarely and are likely to be given to students who are showing the right attitude and promise, in the first instance you will need to develop some skills. These are some of my recommendations for obtaining and improving mixing skills in the shortest period of time.

1) Your monitoring is everything, every fader move, eq tweak and compressor you set up is going to rely on your monitoring speakers and your rooms acoustic. Fail here and simply add a few years to the time it takes you to get better at mixing. It is simply not possible to circumnavigate accurate listening situations through any means of short cut. So get the most accurate speakers you possibly can from the outset and house them in a room that has a true and linear acoustic. You will need to consider speaker placement, speaker mounting, acoustic absorption, diffusion and bass trapping. You will also need to measure the rooms acoustic response and adjust the acoustics in order to make the best possible use of the budget for materials you have.

2) Select and use one familiar digital audio workstation, preferably one that can work with any and every file format. If not, request time aligned .wav files at 24 bit. Familiarity with tools will help you by remaining a constant until you get up to speed. Information overload is never a good place to be (for example learning multiple DAW’s) when you are learning new skills, prioritize the skill of balancing instrumentation not DAW’s. Learning to mix is a fine balancing act between reading good books on the topic, experimenting with new techniques and refining those techniques based around goal lead practice or actual jobs. 

3) Get a loudspeaker that has a single cone driver in it. Such a speaker is immensely useful when making judgements on the mid range frequencies of a mix. It can help get a clear perspective when it comes to vocals, drum attacks, guitars and just about every type of instrument. Often this area is easy to clutter and such a loudspeaker will allow you to focus on this all important frequency band.

4) Learn to make great sounding mixes in mono. Chances are if your stereo mix sounds good in mono and stereo you have been making good mixing decisions and prudent choices about stereo image width. The mono button is extremely helpful, never forget it and use it frequently.

5) Learn in great depth what the difference between mono and stereo is, vague knowledge here will not cut it. It is critical that you have a good theoretical understanding and also a good aural ability to identify mono, stereo and overly wide or narrow sound sources. Many new mix engineers struggle with stereo image and you really need to grasp the basics early on in order to gain competency. The only ambiguity here for learning to mix is no ambiguity. Understand the fundamental concepts of mono and stereo recording from the outset.

6) Build your own internal sonic reference bank across multiple musical genres. This is a progressive process and takes time. Learn what music translates well to all systems and analyze it by ear on your own mixing system. Take mental notes, some will be conscious and written and some will be subconscious and happen in a natural way. The more you listen to very well mixed music on your reference mixing system the more your will solidify these references. Such referencing will undoubtedly have a significant effect on your mixing.  Even if you are not certain how to attain a goal having that goal to aim for will push your boundaries and to improve this is what you need. Learning is not always comfortable or fun it’s hard work at times. 

7) Equalization and compression are important tools and as a beginner you should understand that there will be a leap frogging of theoretical understanding and practical application. Both are important and necessary faces of the same skill set. To a degree what you are aiming at is natural confident use of equalization and compression. Let it be known that you might be 3 years or more away from being able to naturally use any type of equalizer and compressor. To complicate this not all equalizers and compressors are created equally they can sound different even with the same parameters set up. Learning these important tools will be critical to effective music mixing. This will take time so do not become frustrated that you have not nailed these techniques in full within a year.

8) Do not mix with tired ears, mixing with tired ears will only compound frustrations and sub optimal decisions made during periods of aural fatigue. Wherever there is not an important deadline take time out, refresh your mind and body and listen again the following day with a pen and notepad. 

9) Start mixing in the computer, do not initially spend lots of money on expensive outboard equipment (with the exception of a good digital to analog converter “DAC/Soundcard”, power amplifier and loudspeakers). Try to build a reliable tool set that you can trust, of course you can develop this arsenal of tools as your skills develop but initially it will be better to focus on solid reliable plug ins that can do a specific job well rather than have 18 EQ plug ins and 14 compressors that all do the job slightly differently. Start with 3 equalizers and 3 compressors maximum, focus on understanding their capabilities and strengths and weaknesses.

10) Finally do not mix into a limiter. This is a bad mixing practice as it will influence all decisions your make and quite possibly hinder your progress and improvement as a mix engineer. A mix is a blend of sources, it is best to focus on balancing these sources together without dynamic processes on the master bus (at least initially). There will be enough challenges in getting these sources to work well in a mix without the need for another layer of programme (mix bus) dependent dynamic control. By all means insert a limiter on towards the end of the mix to get an impression of a limited mix with higher perceived volume but there is little merit in using one from the outset.

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