Got an email from a subscriber yesterday that made my day: “My new album Parts and Labor just went up on Spotify, etc. and the Step-by-Step mixing and parallel processing courses are what pulled it over the finish line.” This is the sort of stuff that I live for. Being able to help musicians release...
One of the biggest problems you probably face is how to get the bass guitar to cut through without overwhelming the low-end. Too much low-mids and your mix sounds like it’s under a blanket and muffling the rest of the tracks. Too little an the mix sounds super thin. Just right and it sounds good...
Sometimes you get lost fighting frequency fires. A mix I’m working on has driving drums, powerful bass, hard-hitting guitars and edgy vocals. In a word, this song is awesome. And to make all that power cut through you sometimes keep adding and subtracting random frequencies depending on what you’re feeling. So you waste time. One...
Everyone has their own style of mixing. Some people prefer mono, some stereo. Some engineers like using either analog or digital, some like using both. And I’d like to present two mixing tips that I’ve recently found helpful. This post is not saying, “You have to mix this specific way!” I’m simply sharing a method...
You know that moment after you’ve spent hours mixing and it’s sounding great in the studio? Then you listen to it in your car, on your earbuds or on your Bluetooth speaker, and suddenly half of the mix is gone because there’s no bass? It’s a constant problem to get your mixes to translate to...
Hey there, Happy Sunday! Hope you’ve had a good weekend. I wanted to give you a quick reminder that my weekend flash-sale ends today, so if you’d like to get my Quick Mixing With Stock Plug-ins training for free, you have to grab it before the day is over. The three-part video series usually sells...
One little improvement at a time. That’s all you need to get better. Small incremental improvements over time will grow your potential like a snowball. It’s the beauty of having a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. In Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. shows us that the most important thing...
Chances are, you’ve either learned my entire mix process through Step By Step Mixing, or you’ve seen me write about it ad nauseam. That’s Latin for “I can’t believe he’s going to bring this $#!t up again.” Don’t worry, I won’t. You’ve already heard enough about it for now. However, just because I have a...
On the cruise around Cuba, my mother-in-law looks at me with a puzzled expression. “I’ve never seen anyone eat a kiwi like that,” she says. I scoop another spoonful of kiwi into my mouth and realize that this is the only way I eat a kiwi. You cut it in half and then eat it...
A common problem with a lot of DIY musician recordings is thinness. I’ve run into this with my own arrangements and mixes. You know, when a song just needs a little something, a little meat on its bones. That’s what we’ll talk about in this post — how to make your songs sound fuller. These...