What’s the biggest insight I’ve learned from working as a mix engineer and a music production lecturer? You can’t really teach people mixing.
You can show them techniques and tricks. You can explain the science of acoustics or sound. You can demonstrate how you solved problems and crafted mixes over the years by revealing your song projects to your students. And lest we not forget, this is exactly what Sound On Sound has been doing for you for more than 39 years. But you can’t really. Really. Teach people to mix.
The unfortunate news is that they have to learn to mix themselves. The hard way. By doing it over and over. For at least the requisite 10,000 hours. And yes, that magic number really does apply to the craft of mixing too. Perhaps it’s maybe even a lowball? You never stop learning to mix. There are always new insights to gain. And music and technology are always changing and requiring adaptation from you, the engineer.
So what can you do? Well you can show people the tricks, the techniques, the mixes you’ve worked on. You can explain the concepts. You can lecture until you’ve exhausted every morsel of information you have to give. But the real benefit that you can give to people learning to mix is to listen and give feedback. To lean over a shoulder, pop a set of headphones on and analyse their work. To lend an alternative viewpoint. To suggest a dB reduction here or a lower threshold there. These are the milestones that make all the difference, because people learn best by doing the thing. They need to understand when something has been pushed too far or not far enough. They need to make mistakes. And then discuss those mistakes with a trusted pair of ears.
And this is something that cannot be gained from YouTube, as great as YouTube is for learning mixing or any other technical process. I did not study production at University (I studied a degree in Journalism), but I earned my music production masters over my almost 20 years of tunnelling through a professional career as a producer and mixer. And while YouTube really helped and continues to help progress my learning along the way, the real progress came from making mistakes. Running into problems. Countless hours of dissatisfaction and starting again. Taking feedback on the chin. Going back to the drawing board. Feeling elated when things did go to plan. And this process is thankfully now a lot more streamlined, but the learning continues. And my learning about how people learn, continues in parallel.
This column began as a social media prank. I thought it might be funny to post some written content that proposed to reveal my number one fastest method for learning to mix like a pro. As a mix engineer I personally cringe every time I see this idea. The audience would then swipe to find that the next post exclaimed: “Spend 10,000 hours mixing records!” And, sorry to say, it’s true! But I thought it a little cruel to post. So I hit delete and decided to long‑form the idea with this piece instead.
So what have we learned? To do the thing, you have to do the thing.
So what have we learned? To do the thing, you have to do the thing. But a trusted teacher peering over your shoulders, to build your confidence in your work, to point you in the direction you need to go, is the fastest way to accelerate the process.
The prize is being able to mix with confidence. To know it will sound great wherever it is listened to. To level the odds, so that the mix won’t hold back a great song again. And to allow you, the producer, the peace of mind to spend the bulk of your creative time on the job that is of far greater importance: Making art that matters.