If you follow me on Twitter, then you’ve seen me post about my album progress. I’ve spent the last two days recording background vocals and percussion. I’m getting ready to lay down the lead vocals, and I’ll be ready to start mixing.
I want you to be involved in the mix process. More on that in a second.
Preparing to Mix
How do I go about getting ready to mix an album? Well, a huge factor for me in how good my mixes turn out is pre-production. If I don’t spend enough time planning the album, I can’t expect the mix to be amazing.
Mixing is certainly a skill. Becoming a good mix engineer is much like becoming a good guitarist. It requires a huge investment of time and practice. That said, even the best mix engineers aren’t magicians. They can do some amazing things, but mixing is only a part of the equation.
Pre-production, arrangement, instrumentation, musical performance — these things all need to be done well before you move on to mixing. This doesn’t have to take a really long time. Not at all. But you do need to make sure you’ve spent some time focusing on the big picture, planning out the album in its entirety.
Another big part of getting your mixes to sound good is to check your mixes everywhere. I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating. Your mix needs to sound good on any speaker system.
Finally, in preparing to mix my album, I’m forcing myself to imagine what I want the final mix to sound like. Rather than jumping blindly into the mix, I’ll have a good idea as to what the finished product will sound like, and this will guide my decision-making.
It’s like the old joke — How to make a statue of a dinosaur? Take a block of marble, and chip away everything that doesn’t look like a dinosaur.
Mixing is that simple. Just remove the stuff until it sounds like you want it to sound.
Want to Join Me?
Here’s what I’m thinking. I’m going to be mixing these 10 songs over the next few weeks. It seems like a great chance to provide a fun learning experience for you, my super-awesome readers.
This is still in the idea phase, and I want to know if you’re interested. If enough people express interest, I’ll go for it.
It would be a similar format to the HSC Production Club. Here are my initial ideas:
- 10 Weeks – 1 song per week
- Each week members would download a video of me walking through how I mixed each song. This would probably be 1-2 hours per week.
- Members would also be able to download the multi-track audio files for each of my songs. (So you can watch me mix, then practice on your own.)
- Members get a copy of the finished album (once I have it mastered).
I’ve proposed this to a handful of people, and they all seemed really interested. What do you think? Would this be something you’d want to be a part of? Is there anything you would like to see added? Leave a comment and let me know.
To help me gauge things, if you’re interested, please fill out the form below. You’re not committing to anything. I just want to see who’s interested. (If you can’t see the form, disable pop-ups for a sec.)
