Name: MIXERMAN’S Ultimate Guide to PRODUCING Records, Music & Songs
Author: Eric Sarafin

A quote on a torn scrap of paper: “This book is dead on the best practical, hardcore advice about real-life record-making that I’ve ever read.”

Larry CraneTape Op EditorElliott Smith · Death Cab for Cutie

Everyone’s a Producer

Mixerman’s Ultimate Guide to PRODUCING Records, Music & Songs is built on the reality that 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 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.

“It’s the first 600-page book that I’ve read from cover to cover in less than a week in decades! I could not put it down.”

George Nicholas KoumantzelisVerified Amazon Reader

The Antidote to Misinformation

Each of the disciplines—recording, mixing, mastering, and producing—requires 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.

“When it comes to music engineering, production, etc, the internet allows every knucklehead with a keyboard, mic and camera to have an ‘expert’ opinion on something. … This book and its mode of delivery is in fact the antidote to that problem.”

StudioRmusicVerified Amazon Reader

The Structural Dynamics of Flow

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.

“Comprehensive yet accessible and entertaining, Mixerman delivers a text that gives much needed, real-world context to an art form that can be somewhat arcane and often misunderstood.”

David RoweArtist, Musician

A 41st NAMM TEC Awards finalist. Get your paperback copy of MIXERMAN’S Ultimate Guide to PRODUCING Records, Music & Songs today—and produce your records exactly as you hear them.

Enjoy,
Mixerman

“My only fear is that the people who need to read this most will be the ones who skip past it, thinking they already know it all or that someone else’s experience won’t relate to their own recording paths. These people are completely wrong...”

Larry CraneTape Op Editor

More from readers

“Mixerman cuts through all the BS and gives it to you straight. This is pretty much the only book you’ll ever want, if you had to choose only one.”

andrew wrightVerified Amazon Reader

“I’ve been buying and reading books like these for 20 years, and there are now a TON of them … including on my bookshelf, but Mixerman’s tome stays on my console (and accompanies me when I travel).”

Christopher HuntVerified Amazon Reader

“Over the last five years, I have literally read just about every book in existence on the subject of music production, mixing, and mastering. … I am quite certain this book is without a doubt the best thing out there on the subject.”

Wil K.Amazon Reader

“Mixerman has a way of explaining things on a very basic level, without ever dumbing down the technical aspects. This is what makes his latest work an essential purchase from beginner to advanced.”

Josh PurgasonVerified Amazon Reader