Your Blueprint to Improving Your Music, Your Mixes and Your Life

I’m going on a self-improvement kick and I want you to join me.

No, it’s not gonna be a bunch of hypothetical, happy-go-lucky bull.

Well, not for you at least. You should concentrate on making your mixes better.

And here’s how my self-improvement kick can help you.

Goals

Hey, don’t roll your eyes at me!

Here’s what you should do. Every day, go through these few things. It might seem hard at first, but it will get easier, especially as you reach some of your solutions.

I write mine on a whiteboard, but you can do whatever. I do recommend writing them down because then you’ll actually see them in front of you.

Ok, first thing you do is you reflect on the previous day:

1. What did you learn?
2. What could you have done better?

An example could be:

1. I learned to use parallel compression on drums.
2. I could’ve used less compression, or EQ’d the compressor better.

Then you set your goals:

• 5 year goal
• 1 year goal
• 6 month goal

Examples in your studio could be:

• 5 Year Goal – Produce an album that gets an award.
• 1 Year Goal – Mix an album/month.
• 6 Month Goal – Find two extra bands to record.

Make these goals as extravagant or as conservative as you want, but make them somewhat realistic. For instance, working on a Grammy award-winning record isn’t that audacious a goal.

Five years is a lot of time and if all you did was assist and get coffee then you technically reached that goal. Even if you didn’t produce, mix and write all the songs you’re definitely in a better place than you were five years before.

20 Solutions to Your Goal

Once you’ve done that, the last part is to pick the goal of the day. Make this the most important thing you want to accomplish that day.

Then you write 20 solutions for reaching that goal.

20 solutions might sound like a lot every day but it’s not that hard. And you don’t have to do all those solutions, you just have to train your brain to realize all the obstacles that you need to overcome to create your path to reaching that goal.

For example, say your goal for today is to get better at mixing. That’s a pretty broad goal so you can really have fun with it.

1. Read two articles on EQ.
2. Spend 30 minutes working with compressors on drums.
3. Listen to award-winning mixes.
4. Spend an hour mixing a song.
5. Spend another hour mixing the same song and then comparing your two versions.

The list goes on an on, and it’s fun to do. And then when you start it over again tomorrow you can actually reflect on what you learned by concentrating on the solutions you wrote down.

And wouldn’t you know on getting better at mixing right away.

Check it out here: www.audio-issues.com/mixing-mistakes

Image by: kevin dooley

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