backing up and looking at the big picture of where I want to be in 1 year, 2 years etc.
My singing and songwriting are at ok levels right now for me to start thinking about putting together an EP/album etc etc. Ill keep working on both aspects and start stockpiling decent sings
Now…mixing.
I am seriously thinking of joining a mix academy. I see Produce like a Pro is like $170 for a year. I have no problem paying around that much if its worth it.
What about others such as recording revolution or any others??
Keep in mind of course im mainly interested in getting better at mixing my own stuff which is hard rock.
OR…should I just spend that time mixing and remixing my own stuff??
I do have x number of full songs and many many partial songs that I could mix/remix etc
Where do you want to be in 1-2 years? Are you wanting to get paid to do this stuff? If so, I think the recording revolution stuff focuses a lot on the mechanics of making money, even if just a little bit.
Just keep doing it,You know how to mix so what are they really going to teach you that is not already out there. Practice makes perfect as they say .That is my opinion anyway.
Most of these online mixing sites focus on mixing other people’s songs.
My take is that if you really want to get better at mixing your own stuff, you could do a lot worse than taking some time out from it and mix some other people’s tracks.
Our biggest problem with mixing our own stuff is lack of objectivity. Being so closely and heavily invested in all the other aspects of the song tends to result in a “can’t see the forest for the trees” syndrome.
Once I started mixing other people’s music, I was able to come back to my own stuff with a fresh perspective, and a far more objective outlook. It was like taking a step back and seeing things as they really were, rather than what I wanted or imagined them to be.
I’m not saying that it’s impossible to become a good mix engineer only mixing your own music, because I know of cases where people have successfully done it. For me though, mixing other people’s music was the best move…
It’s probably a longer journey, but worth trying IMO.
You have to be pretty self motivated and thick skinned to keep up there. Don’t expect a lot of individual attention. You have to no when not to belly ache and complain. People aren’t interested, and no one in that group is going to care about you or how you feel about anything. Seriously, this group is pretty competitive.
Also, the material is very expensive. Its $180 to get access to their forum. But expect to pay hundreds of dollars more for access to the training materials, and thousands more on top of that to attend their events.
AudioSkills.com is more suited toward beginners. I think this company really excels at creating clear basic content.
Any of them will help you with that.
You need access to the training.
I’ve been working for a month and a half on a comprehensive review of all of them. I’m going to publish it soon.
yeah, I dont mind investing but I dont want to throw money away if it isnt really going to move me forward
I did notice on the Produce Like a Pro page that there were posts along the lines of “ive been trying to cancel my subscription for months and I get no reply”…and then THAT goes with no reply lol.
Another sort of downside is that I KNOW that half the material will be hip-hop/country/sugary pop…while im looking to get sounds like Chevelle/Soundgarden/AIC etc
As far as “tips” and how to’s…all of that stuff is free online a million times over so the actual courses wouldnt be the main thing. Im supposing the main thing would be getting pro files to work on and then compare what I do to what others do and hopefully discuss what we all did differently etc.
Dunno that id say im a BEGINNER exactly. I dont really need to pay to see someone telling me to use a high pass filter to get rid of rumble
hahaha, I take that to mean u think I suck at mixing lol. Its all good. We all are where we are irrelevant of how good or bad we THINK we actually are lol. I am one who has the unique ability to vastly OVERrate and UNDERrate myself at the same time
Did you review this guys stuff? https://www.homerecordingmadeeasy.com/training-products/ I see for instance he has a quick mix series for $14.95 where he shows how he mixed a particular song and he has a few rock and one metal song where u get the stems etc
What about any hard rock/grunge/metal specific sites out there? any ideas?
$14.95 cant go wrong and I am already a member at gumroad.com where it downloads. A plus is that he uses lots of Slate stuff which i am also using/learning
Warren just overhauled the website and had to change the company that handle the registration. He gave everyone a free month for migrating their account. If anyone didn’t get the memo that’s their problem for not paying attention to emails.
What makes you think that? The mixdowns, contests, and bashes have been all been rock stuff.
If you’re just in PLAP for the free stuff you’ll be disappointed. The real value in the site is having Warren and his personally look over your mixes, if you can manage to get him to pay any attention to you…and that’s not a given on this site. The $15 pr month buys you access to his forum and the multitrack stems. Not his mixing critiques or his advanced content.
The ‘bashes’ come in weekly (on Fridays) and they’re done by Warren only, but you can get others to discuss. However, its not an interactive community bash like it is here. Everyone is pretty much there to hear what Warren says. They do appreciate others giving the time to listen and critique. I’ve made a few friends there by going out of my way to try and help. When you find people you click with, most are willing to engage you in conversation, but its kind of like having to earn some respect over there. Here everyone is willing to give you a fair shake regardless of your level.
I never said that. What I mean is that the value of any site like this is knowledge transfer as a liquid asset commodity. The question of how good we think we are or actually are, is indeed relevant when asking for advice on training curriculums. I’ve spent the last month pouring over multiple websites while working with Scott Hawksworth on helping write promo material for AudioSkills. Bryan, Scott, and I all agreed to help each other promote each others resources…but as Killer Home Recording is not longer being actively developed, I sort of went on the search for a place to steer people who were seeking help with this stuff toward.
You may want to P.M. Alan @takka360 about this. He’s been managing to find quite few of these. And I’m still in the process of sending him some other mixes to practice on.
I have sat and watched CLA and other top mixers full mix vids of mixing tracks but I cant then get my mix sounding like there’s. You just have to keep doing it . There are some good sites out there fot multitrack and you learn more try to polish turds .Perfectly tracked stuff mixes itself .
yeah I agree in a sense. Ill have plenty of practice mixing my own stuff lol. I guess one benefit of mixing pro stuff is learning how to make ours sound less turdy from the recording process onwards
I did join Nail the Mix! have a decently good feeling about it
This is true but there’s a limit to what you will know about mixing if all you ever do is low end clients. The idea of course is that you grow into the better and higher paying jobs. I’ve seen trainees take a decent rough and wreck it to shit because they immediately went for some of the same moves you’d make on an indie artist job, and didn’t have the experience to know when they’d overmixed something that didn’t need anywhere close to that amount of tweaks.
im listening to a few of the pro tracks people mixed. Man, im supposing one has to be some sort of genius to even hear any difference in them lol. They all sound pretty great at first
I did Dueling Mixes (Recording Revolution) for a couple of months when it was offered as a freebie. It’s not bad. And now you can actually download the whole backlog of tracks if you want. (I downloaded most of them to be mixed at a later date, if I ever want to do that sort of thing.) You can compare your mixes to theirs.
I don’t know of other sites that offer you raw tracks to mix. I can see the benefit in that–especially if they are professionally recorded. I’d love to get my hands on some exceptionally recorded tracks, just to compare them to my own and get a sense of what’s possible/desirable there.
I’ve been in much of the same boat for the past year or so. I’ve found Lynda.com to be helpful for their courses. I joined BeatAcademy for a free month. (I love taking advantage of freebies!) I use TrainYourEars software. Tried the free SoundGym stuff. Watched lots of YouTube videos. There are so many great free videos out there, like Pensado’s Place. There are mixing contests. All sorts of stuff. My basic strategy for long-time learning is to circle back around to things over and over and over again to gain deeper levels of understanding. I like to hear things from all kinds of perspectives, as I continue to practice on my own music. I come back to the basics all the time. I think there needs to be a good balance of learning and practicing.
I considered spending some time mixing other people’s songs, to improve my mixing. It was hard to motivate myself to do it though, because I’m not trying to become an audio professional. My goal is to be able to make killer music from start to finish, so I want to work on that whole process over and over again. Whatever you practice–that’s what you’ll get better at.
Anyway that was a little rambley. I hope any of it was helpful.
