fbpx

music mixing

Mix Fu: Learn, Practice, Forget (the art of mixing)

Leave a Comment / Audio Instruction, Music Thoughts, Rants, Randomness, Published Work, Recording Magazine /

In martial arts, there’s a concept that goes something like this: learn the technique, practice the technique, forget the technique.

Mixing is similar if you think about it. As we’ve mentioned in these pages before, there are two sides to mixing. One is artfulness and intuition – your ability to feel a track with your heart. One is technical knowledge, skill, and science – your ability to understand a track with your brain. It’s the combo that makes for the art of mixing.

Mix Fu: Learn, Practice, Forget (the art of mixing) Read More »

Underdubbing: The Power of Getting Rid of Stuff for making space in a mix

Leave a Comment / Audio Instruction, Flypaper by Soundfly, Instructional Stuff, Published Work /

Back in the day, mixdown sessions consisted of 24 tracks, max. Now, it’s not uncommon for a DAW session to consist of 100 or more. In addition, mixers continually face the problem of “let’s lay it ALL down!” – where every idea, lead line, extra part, and party background is included in the session.

Underdubbing: The Power of Getting Rid of Stuff for making space in a mix Read More »

The NYC Drum Trick

Leave a Comment / Audio Instruction, Flypaper by Soundfly, Instructional Stuff, Published Work /

Coined by Bobby Owsinski in his 1999 “Mixing Engineer’s Handbook”, the New York City Compression Trick (or NYC Drum Trick) is a trick used by many New York mixers around that time and before. Once you try the NYC trick it’s hard to imagine not using it on every song. This trick fattens up the rhythm section and makes it rock socks in almost every case.So, it seems like a good idea to go over a little bit about EQ’ing for these very different beasts, even if they may have been played by the same person!

The NYC Drum Trick Read More »

Hold Up: You can sidechain reverb???

Leave a Comment / Audio Instruction, Flypaper by Soundfly, Instructional Stuff, Published Work /

Reverb is awesome. Reverb is good. Reverb is necessary. But it’s also the number one thing that makes mixes muddy and noisy – if you don’t wrangle it right. But by now you certainly know about the Abbey Road trick and its cousins. That’s an amazing way to clean things up in the verb. But there’s another trick that’s not talked about as often (or at least it didn’t used to be): using sidechain compression on the verb.
So, it seems like a good idea to go over a little bit about EQ’ing for these very different beasts, even if they may have been played by the same person!

Hold Up: You can sidechain reverb??? Read More »

Top 5 Considerations When Mixing Orchestral Music

Leave a Comment / Audio Instruction, Flypaper by Soundfly, Instructional Stuff, Published Work /

Hey – not everybody is making electronica and indie-rock here. There’s a whole world of creativity (and money, if you’re good at it!) in orchestral music – especially since orchestral samples are so good these days. But mixing an orchestra can be a bit different than mixing a rock band or an electronic track, so here are five of our top considerations when mixing orchestral music.
So, it seems like a good idea to go over a little bit about EQ’ing for these very different beasts, even if they may have been played by the same person!

Top 5 Considerations When Mixing Orchestral Music Read More »

How To EQ Guitars – Acoustic vs. Electric

Leave a Comment / Audio Instruction, Flypaper by Soundfly, Instructional Stuff, Published Work /

Guitar players are in a unique situation – they can play an instrument that comes in two wildly different flavors. When it comes to audio, the treatment of acoustic guitars is at times a night and day difference.

So, it seems like a good idea to go over a little bit about EQ’ing for these very different beasts, even if they may have been played by the same person!

How To EQ Guitars – Acoustic vs. Electric Read More »

Art vs. Science in Mixing – and Life?

Leave a Comment / Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Music Thoughts, Rants, Randomness, Published Work, Recording Magazine /

This article first appeared in Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk! If you haven’t read a book called “Zen and the Art of Mixing”, stop now, order it, and then continue reading this. Now that you’ve done that,

Art vs. Science in Mixing – and Life? Read More »

The Evolution Of Evolutionary Mixing

Leave a Comment / Music Thoughts, Rants, Randomness, Published Work, Recording Magazine /

This article first appeared in Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk! The modern recording process has been set for quite a while.  It goes: Pre-Production (writing/rehearsing, etc.) Tracking Mixing Mastering Keeping  these processes separate and distinct has its

The Evolution Of Evolutionary Mixing Read More »

Scroll to Top