📔 A crash course in mixing (PDF) [download] 45 pages 📔

Five years ago, in 2016, a company called Cloudbounce got in touch with me and wanted me to write a mixing guide. I was given one week for it. Well, that's of course a bit mad, as how much can you say about mixing in one week? Not a lot. Once you start writing, you're already running out of time. So your first task is to narrow the scope, pick relevant topics, and get to work with them till the clock runs out of time.
(BTW, a fun fact is that after this job, in 2017, I implemented their online mastering engine in a few months. I haven't worked for them since and hence have no idea of how their engine performs these days, so I can't speak for it)

Still, I feel that the 40+ pages I happened to write in that one week came out quite alright.

Five years is a long time. I hadn't taken a single look at this PDF since 2016, and a lot of water has passed under the bridge since...I've worked on hundreds and hundreds of songs, and even the experience from those years would be worth documenting, and this PDF would be very worth revising: I gave it a look a now and felt, man, there are sooooo many things I'd like to add, edit, and change, but that'd be opening a huge can of worms. But the content here is still somewhat relevant.

Hence, I'm linking you to the file 100% in its 2016 condition.
This'd be a great basis for a more comprehensive guide, should I ever want to start making a longer one.

👉🏻 Get the PDF here 👈🏻

Foreword:

Writing “a quick mixing guide” had been in the back of my mind for the longest time. I never got to start with it, as it felt like a massive project, and I was always busy. When audio engineering, discussing it with your clients, and making music is your everyday job, writing about it on your free time may not be the most enticing thought. I had to fool myself to think it'd be quick and easy. How? I needed to give myself a tight timeframe and narrow down the topic.

First: a timeframe. A week. Write about a topic as big and broad as mixing in a week – isn't that insane? Yes. Very. But to come up with a quick guide, that was it. The content in this guide was written in seven days – Friday to Friday (plenty of coffee was needed).

Second: I was faced with a decision as to how to narrow the scope down so I wouldn't end up writing a massive book. Instead of writing a comprehensive mixing guide, I needed to slim the focus down. I decided to write based on a recent project. This guide was written right after mixing and mastering an album in reference to that. It helped me determine what to write about and what not instead of addressing every possible mixing topic.

Therefore, this guide is not trying to be comprehensive. It's a quick one that addresses the most common mixing techniques used while mixing one album of ten songs. That way it is tied to actual work instead of being a list of general tips.