Hello sir. I am hoping you’ll answer this question for me no matter what. I am wanting to do summing with my mixes. I can’t afford to buy an analog summing mixer and was wondering how to do it digitally. Not that I don’t know how to do summing I have a good understanding of […]

The Mixing of Quiet Scream - Part 1 - Track Layout and Groups This is the not so glamorous, but very important part of mixing. Getting your tracks organized, and setting up your groups/busses, and folders. Part 1 in a series of mixing the song "Quiet Scream" from the Conversation CD by Greg Adams & […]

Stephen - I have a question which may be difficult to verbalize. When we mix a song over a set of speakers, we attempt to get the song sounding the best we can over those particular speakers. Then, if we hope to have that song translate over all speakers, one way of doing that is […]

Hi Stephen, I am a third year music tech uni student. I was wondering if you prefer to use analogue hardware compression or a digital plug-in? Do you think that digital is taking over in studios when it comes to mixing? Every recording & mixing engineer is going to have their own opinions on the […]

Stephen - over the years you've answered several of my questions and have taught me a lot. I have another question if you've got the time. I hear everyone talking about compression for dynamics, but I never hear anyone talking about using expanders. Why do people use them? Are they used frequently? Do you use […]

How to prepare your tracks for Professional Mixing Once you have decided that it may not be best to try to do it all yourself, and you think you have a song that is good enough to get professionally mixed, you need to prepare your tracks to send to the mixing engineer. Most professional mixing […]

For recording & mixing, I love my analog compressors! There is just something about high quality, real hardware analog compressors, that just seem to make my job so much easier!  I have nothing against software plugins, and I have a huge assortment of plugins that I use extensively, including software compressors.  I've been a computer […]

Elliot Scheiner is one of the top producers/engineers in the world, with 24 Grammy nominations, 7 Grammy awards, 4 Emmy nominations,  1 Emmy award, 3 TEC Awards nominations, etc.... The list goes on!  Even if you don't know his name, you have most certainly heard his work. Yesterday I had to chance to meet Elliot […]

Breakdown of the mix of Ben Smith's drums The drummer for Heart, Ben Smith, helped me out with some drum tracks for one of the songs I co-wrote with Coreena, "If You Wanna".  We tracked the drums at the famous London Bridge Studio, which has a HUGE room, and then I mixed them in my […]

Want bigger & fuller sounding songs?  Less is More! The biggest problem I encounter with inexperienced artists, producers, and engineers these days is that there is too much of everything.  Too many parts in the song arrangements.  Too many tracks in the recording.  Too many plugins in the mix.  Too many frequencies competing with each […]