Mixerman here.
I’m a gold and platinum award winning mixer and producer, and I write books about recording, mixing, and producing to help Creatives like you succeed. Not because I can give you some magical list of secrets. Not because I can sell you on plugins that you probably don’t need. Rather, because I can offer you the critical tools to help you dramatically improve your records.
The best part? I deliver this information to you in an entertaining manner.
Let’s face it, these days everyone is a producer. Artists have to be producers, songwriters and musicians have to be producers, even engineers have to be producers—and all of those producers now have to operate as recordists, mixers, and mastering engineers.
Rather than to reject that premise in an attempt to hold on to some archaic elitist notion of the past, I decided to write a book on Producing that addressed everything for everyone.
Well! That was a monumental task! Nearly 600 pages later, and we have the most comprehensive book I’ve ever produced.
Each of the disciplines—recording, mixing, mastering, and producing—require many thousands of hours of practice in order to do them well. The engineering is technical and tedious, and takes time to understand. And it can be difficult to get accurate engineering information and strategies online. Misinformation and bad advice run rampant, and strategy is all but ignored.
An important part of the Producer’s job was (and still is) to keep the technology out of the way, and that was often achieved by hiring engineers and mixers. This way, the Producer could concentrate on the arrangement and performances, the Artist could focus on being an Artist, and the engineer could mind all the technical details of the capture and the mix.
Today? You need to learn it all. Which is a little bit of a problem, because it took me nearly my whole life (thus far) to learn everything that I share with you in this Guide.
For most of my career, songwriting, sound design, mixing, and mastering were separate jobs and processes. But they’re actually wholly interdependent. All of the decisions that you make along the way directly affect what comes next in the process. The mix is the culmination of your recording and arranging decisions. The quality of your master depends on your mix. And all of your decisions need to relate directly to the song itself. I take a more holistic approach, so that you can better arrange your productions from the ground up. This way, by the time you get to the end of the process, you’ve produced a track that does everything it should.
I set out to arm you with strategies to help you achieve your vision, and to create music and songs with intent, exactly as you hear them. Ultimately, music is meant to evoke feelings from great songs, and sound is just a means to that end. This is art. There is no right or wrong in art. There is only your intent, and how that intent ultimately connects with an audience.
Audiobook
Mixing is a game of confidence. But how can you mix with confidence, when you’re unsure of your mixing skills? The answer is, you can’t. Which is why I address how you think about mixing in Zen & the Art of Mixing (last updated in 2021). So you can learn to work quickly towards a mix that does everything it should for the song. This will result in more confidence, which manifests as success and enjoyment.
There’s a reason why this is my most popular work.
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Audiobook
The stated goal of Musician’s Survival Guide to a Killer Record, is to convert recording decisions into musical ones and technical decisions into practical ones. Not only do I explain the musical strategies to make a Killer Record, I break the technical information to its core, so you can succeed regardless of your recording reality. So long as you have what you need to make a record, I can help you make it a Killer Record.
People love this book.
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Audio Extravaganza
Mixerman is a Los Angeles recording engineer who in the summer of 2002, on nothing more than a hunch, began to chronicle the daily events of his Major Label recording session with a bidding-war band, an infamous producer, and a limitless budget. And he did it in real-time—each night posting his entries on the Internet, withholding only the true identities of those he writes about. Mixerman is supposed to be writing about recording techniques, but somehow, through that prism, he has hit upon a gripping tale.
Mixerman’s provocative postings immediately struck a nerve in the music world. By its fourth week, it had become a rubbernecking obsession for tens of thousands of readers By its conclusion the story was garnering over 150,000 visits a day. Recording boards lit up with discussions over the who and the where of it all.
In 2008 the story was published as a book. In 2012 it was released as an audiobook. And now today, to celebrate its 20-year anniversary, I present to you, the complete audio dramatization of my story The Daily Adventures of Mixerman. Featuring performances by some of the most famous record makers on earth, including: Ken Scott (The Beatles, Supertramp), Ron Saint Germain (U2, 311), Dave Pensado (Beyonce, Christina Aguilera), Joe McGrath (Blink 182, AFI), William Wittman (The Fyxx, Cyndi Lauper), Tim Gilles (Taking Back Tuesday), Dylan Dresdow (Will I Am, Blackeyed Peas), Jeff Lorber (Jeff Lorber), JP Plunier (Ben Harper, Jack Johnson), Ed Cherny (Bette Midler, Spinal Tap), Julian Bunetta (One Direction), Kenny Gioia (Marcy’s Playground, Hall & Oates), and many more!