I’ve been engineering songs for over 15 years now.  It’s crazy to even think about how much time I’ve spent blasting so many songs, over and over again, for hours, for so many years.  It all started back in 1996 when I recorded my first song with my partner-in-rhyme, Mal Demolish of my group The Undefined.  The first song I had ever recorded in a studio was called “Mad Mystic”, which Mal and I had co-produced.  The studio owner and engineer, Rich, was pretty cool (I remember his posters on the walls of the legendary rock group Kiss).  Thinking back now, he resembled Rick Rubin a little…lol…But anyway, my first shot at mixing my first song was a bit of an indirect approach.

The studio had some pretty good equipment, which was all industry standard at that time:  48-track mixing console, Ampex 456 audio reels, fully insulated vocal booth, sound CDs, compressors, effects modules.  We were in full analog mode when we recorded there.  The issue with Rich, though, was that he wouldn’t let ANYBODY touch his studio equipment.  So we would have to verbally engineer the track by telling him what we wanted adjusted, and he would make the adjustments for us.  Looking back now, I understand why he chose to do this.  Who would want some newbie artists come in and misuse or even damage their precious studio equipment?  As long as the song was finished to our liking, I was ok working this way.

Eventually over the next few years I started working in a new studio, where I was able to be totally hands-on with the engineering.  I loved the fact that I could be in full control of the final mix of the song, and with a lot of practice (i.e. trial and error) I continued to learn how to have an engineer’s “ear”.  To be able to hear that small click in the song when nobody else can…or hear when the vocals aren’t sitting in the mix well…these are valuable traits that not everyone in front of a mixing board or computer may possess.

The issue I have is that nowadays technology gives you the “engineer in a box” syndrome, where you can simply push a preset to mix songs.  Engineers (if you want to call them that) have all of the technology, but none of the “know-how”.  I’m not knocking the technology itself, because it’s amazing what we can do today, and I have a digital setup in my own studio.  But for me, when you don’t have everything you would ever need at your fingertips in your studio, it forces you to learn organically and creatively.  Learning over the years how to mix in this setting made it 10 times easier for me when Adobe Audition or Pro-Tools came around.  It amazes me how the best songs ever created in music are over 40 years old, without even a tenth of the technology we have available today.

When it comes to mixing your songs, the first tip I would give is to don’t rush the mix!  Don’t be afraid to listen to the song 100 times after you head home from the studio, with some thoughts on changes that should be made at the next session.  Of course with being an artist, your first thoughts will be “THIS IS THE BEST SONG ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET THAT I JUST MADE!!!  I’M THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME!!!!”  But…once you snap back to reality, you should then jump into “engineer” mode.  Listen to the beat and make sure the beat itself sounds good.  If you have an instrumental version, that’s even better.  Does the bass hit just right, or is it hitting too hard?  Are the drums setting a good groove with the melody.  Mix the beat in your mind first.  Tell the producer of the track where you feel there should be adjustments.  Once the beat is reviewed and adjusted, THEN incorporate your vocals in your review of the entire song.  Now, are the vocals too loud over the beat?  Do the vocals have LIFE in them, or do they sound overly-compressed, squashed, and sterile?  Is there too much sibilance (too harsh of an “S’” sound) in the vocals?  Best believe that I will be posting about the art of compression and EQ very soon.  These are the two major components that I always hear overly used in songs.  The concept of “less is more ” is very important in an engineer’s mind (or…ear).

Use a consistent monitoring system that you’re used to as a guide for mixing your songs.  It doesn’t matter if they’re Yamaha NS10 speakers, your car speakers, or your beat up headphones you’ve used for years.  As long as you know your monitoring system well, it should be all you need for a great mix.  Listen to some of your favorite albums and compare your songs to them.  Of course, these albums are mastered by professionals, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from the mixes of those songs.  Don’t think mastering is going to fix a bad mix, because it won’t!  Mastering is a different kind of animal, which shouldn’t even be considered until the mix is right.  The more you understand and learn the art of mixing, the more you will appreciate what a mastering engineer does.

These are just some of the basics that I have learned over the years.  The more pleasing your songs are to the ear, the more people will want to enjoy your material.  It’s one piece to the 1000 piece puzzle of this great thing we call music.