Advice on learning mixing and mastering music

[Martyna]

Hi everyone,
I've been producing music for some time and recently, I've decided to learn how to mix and master my songs.
So can you give me some advice on where to begin my journey? If you have any personal experience in this field, I'd love to hear how you got started.
Maybe there are specific online courses, video tutorials, YouTube channels or books that you find helpful?
Thanks!

[RichardT]

Hi Martyna,

Welcome to the forum.

A great place to start is Mike Senior’s Book ‘Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio’. I found it very helpful, and I still do.

[Philbo King]

Hi everyone,
I've been producing music for some time and recently, I've decided to learn how to mix and master my songs.
So can you give me some advice on where to begin my journey? If you have any personal experience in this field, I'd love to hear how you got started.
Maybe there are specific online courses, video tutorials, YouTube channels or books that you find helpful?
Thanks!

Main point - Do a lot of mixes & masters. It's something that improves with experience.
2nd point - don't pay excessive attention to Youtube how-to videos.
3rd point - Add acoustic treatment to your room if using speakers.

[amanise]

Absolutely (and welcome too!)

I think I'd add to that, start small. Get a handle on things bit at a time. It's not what I did. I was convinced I could dive in and create a 5 piece virtual band with a horns section and do a whole album of it. The result is still out there somewhere showing what a fool I was and sounding like a wall of mud. Not what I was aiming for. That was getting on for 15 years ago now and I shudder to think what other people think if they run into that before they hear any of the things I'm doing now. I blame my ego.

But most importantly, have fun. If you get stuck - ask. We're all struggling with the same things. Except me - I've cured all my ego problems now and am completely flawless.

[tea for two]

my songs.

This is for me easier than mixing mastering others.
I only mix master my own music.

Which types of songs do you make, in which styles. Are there specific singers songwriters songs albums you like the sound of you would like to get as close to with your mixing mastering.

SoS magazine online has thousands of articles on mixing mastering, alongside thousands of articles on how producers audio engineers mixing engineers mastering engineers did a specific song, album.
It is worth putting in the name of the song or album or musician or band you like the sound of into SoS magazine search to see whether they have an article by SoS.
https://www.soundonsound.com/search/articles

Also worth finding out online who did the recording, mixing, mastering for those songs albums you like the sound of, thereafter searching for articles on SoS magazine, online tutorials videos from those names.

[ajay_m]

Also what path(s) do you want to go down?. For example (non-exhaustive list I'm sure)

1. Create original music that reflects your own distinct voice but keep the arrangements simple so that mixing is not too onerous. Think Nick Drake and Pink Moon, for instance. Often 'less is more' if the actual MUSIC is what counts. Another example, Michelle Shocked "The Texas Campfire Tapes". No complex production or tracking, but the music is everything here.

2. Create slick mixes of musical styles that aren't breaking any new ground but where technically you're proud of the tracking, mixing and mastering and you're comparing your work to established commercial releases - genre stuff. In this scenario music is kind of a basic unrefined bulk product that gets processed - you enjoy the technical challenge of getting the mix to sound good, but nobody's gonna listen to it and think wow this is challenging stuff!
[e.g the thousands of R&B albums, or easy listening, or what have you, that are slickly produced but unchallenging]

3. Forge paths that most other people don't tread. Prince and "Where Doves Cry". Laurie Anderson and "O Superman". Here the artistic decisions are yours to make, they may be quite eccentric but they make sense in terms of the overall vision. You won't learn that from any books though. Brian Eno's "Oblique Strategies" card deck might be a good investment in that scenario though.

4. Remix classical or live music, where the performance is not in your hands, but the final result needs to capture the live performance well.

And finally. As someone said once about writing. There is a world of difference between "I want to be a writer" and "I want to write". I personally am a complete dilettante in the world of music. I have a nice little studio I like to potter around in and improvise but I'm utterly undisciplined when it comes to actually recording and producing material because I'm doing it for the spontaneous joy of making music for an audience of one - myself. Sometimes I do record sketches but mostly I enjoy that what I do is completely ephemeral. So it really depends on what you actually ENJOY. It's like learning an instrument. It can be a joy or it can be a chore and it all comes down to being in harmony, as it were, with your inner wishes.

[Matt Houghton]

Welcome to the forums!

Some good advice here in terms of where to look for learning resources, and I'd second the advice about picking up Mike Senior's books — as well as suggesting that you search the SOS site (there are several decades worth of articles here, free to view).

With that in mind, here are a few quick tips...

1. Never lose sight of the fact that this is first and foremost about music. The sonic side of things must always play second fiddle to that. It's so easy to get so focused on the technical and analytical side of things and the problems you want to fix that you lose sight of what's most important — things like hearing lyrics clearly, wanting to nod your head and tap your feet to a groove and so on. It's also important that you can think about tackling problems with musical solutions (change instrument/sound, change arrangement, re-record a better performance...) and not think you *have to* apply whatever clever side-chaining trick you just learned about on YouTube. (Technical solutions can work too, but musical ones often work best!)

2. When it comes to gear, by far and away the most important thing is having a monitoring system that you now and trust. Whether it's headphones or speakers and a treated room (plenty of advice on that on this site and not everyone agrees) you need to be able to make and commit to decisions with confidence — doubt about whether something's really a problem or a case of 'oh that's probably my room/speakers' can lead to you chasing your tail.

3. Building on 1 & 2, listen to LOTS of music on your chosen monitoring system. And I mean lots. Get a playlist together of commercial tracks that you like the sound of, and be conscious about what it is you like about the sound. And I mean sound, not music — I have plenty of tracks on my reference track playlist that I don't really care for musically so much, simply because they sound superb, or one aspect of them tells me something. (I mean it does help if you also like the music, obviously — it makes it easier to go back to this list and listen again and again.) The idea for me isn't to directly compare my own mixes with these. It's to get to know what my speakers are telling me so well that I can make judgements on my own mixes intuitively...

4. Finally, learn the bread and butter tools inside out and back to front. Practice first and foremost the basic mixing moves, which I'd say are setting the best static balance using only your faders, EQ and compressors, and maybe a few effects. Then start looking into automation...

God luck, and don't be scared to come back and as questions or for advice & support here!

[Drew Stephenson]

I would second the recommendation for Mike Senior's book (and the companion 'Recording secrets') as these will give you a structured process as well as being a good reference manual to keep on your shelf.
There is a lot of nonsense on YouTube but there is good content as well. Personally I've learned a lot from Warren Huart's Produce Like A Pro channel, and Rick Beato's What Makes This Song Great? series is good for analysing the arrangements of top tracks.
The other thing that's really useful is a trustworthy pair of critical ears to get a second opinion from.
The great thing about mixing nowadays is that all the tools you need are cheap, available and sound great. So just started and see how it goes.

[The Elf]

Get hold of some of the free multi-tracks around.

Find a commercial song that is similar-ish (this is not an exact science) to the style of the multi-track. This will be your reference. Set the level of the reference such that it peaks at around -10dBFS in your DAW.

Listen to the multi-track and listen to the reference and decide what steps you need to take to get from the raw multi-track to something approaching the reference. Concentrate on level, tone, panning and overall 'feel' at first. The fancy effects can come later.

Listen to your results on anything you can muster, from laptop speakers and ear buds to reference monitors and hi-fi systems - or anything else you can find. Compare the reference and your mix.

Repeat, repeat, repeat...

Gradually you will begin to develop your ears and your ability to hear what needs to be done. But be realistic and patient with yourself - for most people this will take months, if not years to perfect.