Mix, mix, mix. This is what I’m continuously repeating myself these days, even if I can’t actually concentrate on mixing. These are very busy days and I’m struggling in search of time to mix: preliminar activities to recording sessions of next Deimos album are almost done, I’m also involved in other music project which I’ll show you in the future, so I barely have the time to write something on the blog.
What’s the point? I’d like to continue mixing, having fun with Harrison Mixbus, finalize new mixes to add to my library on SoundCloud, that you can also find on the “Online Mixing” page of this blog. They’re all finalized using Mixbus, starting from Reaper sessions.
The reason why I’d like to have more time to mix is that you never stop improving, I want to improve my skills. During last years I learned lots of things not only studying books and the great resources that you can find on internet, but also with “in field” practice, just mixing. The only way to improve your skills in something is to continue practicing it. If you want to become a great footbal player you must keep on training hard and regularly, right? You have to apply the same principle to mixing, it’s just a universal rule of thumb. Train to improve, always.
In the past, I had the chance to find very useful resources on mixing practice directly on the web, lots of community-based website full of people sharing their sessions, ready to be mixed by everyone, for free. That’s right: you can improve your mixing skills, using your favorite DAW without spending a cent. Of course, it’s not easy: you must be dedicated and keep on mixing, mixing, mixing. There’s no “easy way” here, even if someone is trying to tell you that there are plugins out there that can magically mix for you, the truth is that to really make the difference with a mix you have to be good in mixing. To be good and acquire your “personal touch” you must train yourself. No way out.
To help you with this, here you are some useful links I still use to find “training material”.
- Ultimate Metal Forum: one of the best forum ever about heavy metal mixing. A community full of great guys ready to help you. Here you will find lots of songs to mix, moreover you can find useful mixing advices directly from one of the best mixing engineering in heavy metal: Andy Sneap!
- The ‘Mixing Secrets’ Free Multitrack Download Library: a library full of multitrack sessions ready to be mixed, always growing and up to date, directly form Mike Senior, author of “Mixing secrets for the small studio”, great book.
- MixOff.org: metal and rock sessions for you, you couldn’t ask for more!
This is just a starting point, there are tons of resource on the web to improve your mixing skills, what are you waiting for? Start mixing!
