Fellow audio engineer,
Imagine that you’re living in a different time… 10 or 20 years ago before all the big studios started closing.
You’re an assistant at one of these studios, working under an experienced & notable engineer.
Every day you get to wake up and head to the studio to do what you love most... and more importantly, you get to watch and learn as your mentor mixes new songs day-in and day-out.
You would be one of the few people who get to see & hear the “guts” of well-known songs…
To hear what the vocal sounded like completely alone and know exactly what the mixer had to do to make it radio-ready…
You'd listen as they build the mix from scratch into the polished final product that everyone else hears.
After a few of these experiences, how much do you want to bet that your mixes would completely transform?
With a steady stream of insights from real-world, professional mix sessions across a variety of genres and arrangements, you would quickly become a confident and well-rounded mixer.
This is how the legends came up in the big studios decades ago, and you need to have these kinds of experiences if you want to improve as an engineer - at least, if you don’t want to do it at a snail’s pace.
There’s something about just getting your hands on some real tracks and dissecting a pro mix that opens your eyes more than anything else.
The problem is these days we’re all in a bit of a bubble… recording at home or in our small project studios and mixing without any experience outside of the stuff we create inside that bubble.
So when you get to step inside something different and deconstruct the work of an expert, you can’t help but get inspired to expand your own capabilities and make a new breakthrough in your mixing.
I’ve been engineering professionally for almost 10 years, and I still love finding new multtracks to load up and explore. I scour the internet for interviews or video clips with my favorite mixers, sometimes finding a golden nugget but usually coming up empty.
But every now and then an artist will release their stems, or I’ll get a chance to download some multitracks, and presto…. my mixes evolve.
Like when I downloaded Fall Out Boy tracks and realized how important compression was on the lead vocals (and how dry they were compared to my mixes).
Or when I got some Oh, Sleeper tracks and learned how to automate my FX sends instead of keeping things static…. or hearing Underoath drums in solo and analyzing how each piece of the kit was treated to create that punch and intensity…
The point is, every time I got to dig into multitracks like this, I made breakthroughs.
Just by listening to the tracks.
It’s one thing to listen and appreciate a finished mix, but lightbulbs start going off like crazy when you get to break it down to its individual parts.
Sadly, even with 10 years of engineering and interacting with pro engineers, I’ve only come across these chances a handful of times.
No wonder the average up-and-coming engineer or home studio owner is spinning their wheels and struggling to mix better. The chances for insights and breakthroughs are just too few and far between.
Over my 10 years of engineering, I’ve been able to work on some notable releases including Silverstein, Neck Deep, Intervals and other label projects… and I often get questions from other engineers about how I mixed these projects.
So I got thinking… what if I could open up my catalog and let other engineers dig in to my mixes, the same way I love to dig into other mixes?
And not just one song… but songs from multiple albums that span a variety of styles and unique arrangements….
So that people who are stuck in their ‘bubble’ can expand their skill set and become more well-rounded engineers capable of handling a wide range of instruments and genres.
I came up with something new...
50% Complete
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