Introduction

This is a course about mixing. That means you should already have your arrangement ( = a song written down fully) and your recordings of that arrangement. It doesn’t matter if you did that yourself or if it’s been given to you.

Now it’s your job to mix that into a beautiful final product.

How? How do I keep the vocal clear, but also hear the other instruments? How do I prevent these two recordings, pretty on their own, from clashing when together? Why won’t it just sound great the first time!?

Mixing is hard. Really hard. It requires good knowledge of music and audio (theory), skill with software and computers, and a trained ear. That last part is most important—and also the hardest to get. We’re just not in the habit of training our ears and using them consciously. Not like we train muscles, or maybe our brain.

Unfortunately, I can’t give that to you through a tutorial. A trained, skilled ear for music production comes from experience. Creating many mixes, making mistakes, learning from that, listening to other mixes that you like.

Additionally, many books or video series already exist on the subject.

So why read this guide? Why did I make it? Three reasons.

Firstly, those other series are usually way too long or unfocused. Nobody reads 500 pages with technical details about audio, nobody learns much from it. Otherwise, great YouTube channels exist … which do random videos on random topics every month. Yes, they are helpful. The videos are high quality. But there’s no clear order, no path for beginners to take, no start and end. (And even then, they’re filled with fluff. Ten minutes of talking just to say “maybe use this plugin sometimes I don’t know”)

Secondly, the best people in their field aren’t necessarily great teachers. I hope my years of teaching and writing guides makes me a more efficient teacher.

Thirdly, precisely because I find this skill so hard. While experimenting, I wrote down all I tried and learned. This guide is filled with examples and practical tips from someone with no budget, no talent, and many obstacles in my way.

I’ll keep it short. As compact as possible. The guide is finished and helps you through the essentials from start to finish. Hopefully, the many real-life stories or examples give you practical knowledge that immediately helps you.

Along the way, I give actual interactive examples. Real-life audio and situations which you can play with right from the browser. Like the one below.

Press some buttons, pull at the volume and panning sliders, drag the audio around. You’ll even learn how to add effects, or how to draw to animate volumes (use the lowest track in the example).

So let’s start where no other guide starts! Something I call “the disconnect”: the reason why mixing is so hard. Followed by a summary of the entire course (and mixing profession) through one simple principle: the “3D space” of mixing.

Let’s go!