How my dog helps me finish my mixes

I think my dog Buckley knows my mix workflow better than myself.

Especially when I’m finishing up a mix.

He’ll be lying on the rug in the back of the studio as I’m doing my rough mix on the mix cube. I’ll be mixing the tracks like I show you inside Mixing With 5 Plug-ins, but doing the rough mix on the mix cube to make it a little more challenging (but easier in the long run).

Then, as soon as I flip my mix over to the main speakers, he props up one of his ears, thinking “Oh….he flipped the mix over to one of the main speakers.”

I’ll look back at him, and he’ll quickly close his eyes and pretend like he’s snoozing away – ignoring the loud music coming out of the speakers of course.

Then I flip my mix from mono to stereo, and he knows something’s up. He’ll jump to his feet and twist around chasing his tail in excitement.

He knows what’s coming.

Then I change over to my Focal monitors with the subwoofer, and he gets even more excited. I don’t know if he’s particularly into the bass response, but this is usually the time he stands up on his hind legs and puts his paws on the armrest of my chair.

I swear, I feel like he’s nodding in approval. He wants me to move onto the next step.

I usually push my chair back to the sweet spot for the far-field monitors so that I can hear the full frequency response. I want to make sure there aren’t any hidden surprises in the low-end.

It’s at this point Buckley darts out of the room as I bounce my mix down. I wait for the mix to finalize and I upload it to Dropbox so I can listen to it on my phone with my earbuds.

Then I call him, “Buckley, it’s time for a…”

Before I can finish the sentence, he dashes back into the room, leash in mouth, head cocked to one side and his eyes clearly saying “Walk?”

That’s how I finish a mix, and even if you don’t have a dog to keep you company, you can still follow the steps to make your mixes translate.

However, if you’re still struggling with the beginning and middle of the mix, then you’ll like my 1-on-1 Mix Workflow Workshop. If you’d like to sit down with me for an hour where we go over all the doubts you have with your mix process, I still have a few more spots left for new members of Mixing With 5 Plug-ins. 

Here’s what we’ll go over:

• The A-Z of mixing that’s custom designed for your sessions
• Feedback on how to get your mixes louder and more commercial sounding
• How to start AND finish songs so you can finally release those songs to your fans (or put them in your portfolio)
• How to get over decision anxiety and start making the right choices when it comes to using plug-ins

If you’re done jumping from one arbitrary tip to another and just want a concrete mix workflow to help you create better mixes in less time, then my Mix Workflow Workshop is for you.

All you do is join the Mixing With 5 Plug-ins course here, and I’ll send you the details on how you can book your Mix Workflow session. I only have a few more spots left, and after tomorrow I won’t be offering this private workshop for a while.

If you liked this post, share the love: