When mixing a demo, treat it like you’re trying to beat Sgt. Peppers or Pet Sounds or any of your favorite recordings.  Any mix engineer worth their weight in patch cables should never put anything less than 100% into their demo mixes or rough mixes.  There are numerous instances in my career as a mix [...]

There is a lot of discussion in the mix engineer world regarding the “loudness war”.  There has been a trend for the past few years to limit and compress mixes to within inches of their lives to make them louder, not better.  There has been complaining from every section of the audio engineer world.  Mastering [...]

The role of a mix engineer and how it’s evolved: When I was starting out in recording studios, the role of the mix engineer was fairly well defined. A few weeks of lock-outs (24hr. sessions) were booked at a studio of choice, the tapes arrived a day before starting, the multitrack machines were aligned, and [...]

First and foremost, vocals are the most important element in modern music, with the obvious exception being instrumental music. The drums are the motor that drives a mix and the vocals are the navigator. One of the biggest challenges as a recording engineer is the get a great vocal sound. To start, the most appropriate [...]

Eq. A favorite topic amongst audio engineers, veterans and aspiring alike. I’m often be asked what my favorite eq is. And the answer without fail is always the same: the one that gets the job done. It could be real Pultec EQP 1A or a free plugin. After some time, mix engineers build up a [...]