Is there a guide on How To Become A Mixing Engineer? Can becoming a professional mixing engineer be fun? Where do the best mixing engineers come from? These are a few of the questions I’ve received this month on the subject.
First, is there a “how to become a mix engineer” guide ? No, I don’t think so. What I mean is that any book or audio education would be a beginning to the beginning and simply a very first step. Truth is, there are tons of materials to understand and it really never ends. Progress will keep you busy with that forever. Let me put it this way, your not gonna pop out of an audio school or a book with the competitive working knowledge you’ll need. It takes a long time.
Can becoming a mix engineer be fun ? If you like your fun with many tough lessons, a dog-eat-dog business model and a super long never-ending learning-curve, then yes :)
Where do the best mix engineers come from ? They come from a place of serious persistence and luck :) But they mostly come from working studios, “and” from being “ready” to be in the right place at the right time. They may even be so lucky as to have had a great mentor who leads them straight to the good habits and away from the career sucking mistakes.
I have a simple guide on how to become a mixing engineer: Get a Pro Tools Le system if you don’t have one, mix a lot, mix everything, local bands. Mix foh for bands at live clubs to get fast and mentally strong, in studios (rare), in homes (common), mix under any challenging circumstance. Read everything, understand basic electronics, befriend professionals so they can show you, sit in on as many sessions as you can, set-up for A/B listening and hear the difference between thousands of different records…. All that and lots of tenacity will get you there.
As you may have already figured out, 99.9% of a good mix education is from the experience of doing it and meeting the right people. If you have a chill and confident social style, it’s only a matter of time.
What about an audio education ala recording schools?
Recording schools can give a great all around education, but don’t show up to them without any experience. You’ll get twice the education when you show up to sound engineering schools with some initial experience. An audio education won’t make you good at mixing, but they’ll show you just about everything involved at least once, so get your recording/mix system first and hit it long before you show up to class. Simply start mixing now. You’ll only get good from doing it.
