Completing specific tasks aimed at improving your mixing skills can be a valuable way to become a better mixer. Here are some tasks that can help:
Practise Mixing
Practice regularly: It's obvious...the more you practice, the better you will become. Set aside time each day or week to work on your mixing skills, and challenge yourself to improve with each mixing session. It may sound completely obvious, but whether you want to be an Olympic athlete or a great mixer - dedication and constant practice are needed. Coaching can help provide that accountability and motivation as someone is actively encouraging and pushing you.
Learn From The Pros
Study and learn from professionals: Study the work of professional mixers and learn from their techniques. Read books, watch tutorials, and attend workshops to gain new insights and knowledge. Along with everything else, you can watch several walkthroughs of an actual mixing session in the mix coach program from start to finish. Checking out the mixing process of others can be very useful in developing your own. Having a process allows you to develop consistency.
Change it up
Experiment with different techniques: If you already have the basics covered, try out new mixing techniques, such as using different equalization and compression settings, and see how they impact your mixes. It's easy to discover one way of doing something, stick to it and never expand your horizons into truly creative mixing.
Get Feedback On Your Mixes
Get feedback from others: Seek feedback from other musicians, engineers, or music production peers on your mixes. This can help you identify areas for improvement and give you new perspectives on your work. Feedback on your mixes is one of the fundamental parts of mix coaching here as part of this program. It's one of the other simple ways to get actionable tasks. Guidance and help from a veteran engineer can help you in ways very few other things can.
Listen to a variety of styles
Listen to a variety of music: Listening to different genres of music can help expand your musical vocabulary and improve your ear for mixing. An awesome mix in one genre might have very different elements from other commercial mixes in another. Even if you don't LIKE a particular style you may pick up a few sneaky mixing secrets from paying close attention to other styles. There are successful mixers in every corner of the musical world, and we are here to learn, borrow and steal from all of them!
Focus
Focus on one aspect at a time: Instead of trying to improve everything at once, focus on one aspect of mixing at a time, such as session organization, only equalisation or compression, or exploring vocal effects for a week. This will help you to make progress faster and not get overwhelmed.
Reference Mixes
Use reference tracks: Use reference tracks, such as commercially released songs, to compare your mixes against and see how they stack up. This can help you identify areas for improvement and provide a benchmark for your work. It's important to spend time listening to commercially released music in your mixing room as well as songs you've mixed so you work towards knowing instinctively knowing what things make your track sound professional.
It's important to learn the right way of referencing rather than comparing your mix A/B to another - and I can teach you!
All of these tasks can help you become a better mixer and improve the quality of your recordings and turn out amazing mixes. It just takes dedication, practice and someone to help you stay focused. That's where I can help by being your mix coach!
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