Book Review - Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio

New to mixing and like to read stuff? Then instead of reading useless blogs, go get this book. It has it all.
 

The One book to rule them all

My first "mixing" attempts were made some years ago with some of my own songs, with the help of a good friend of mine, from the time we studied physics at the university. I recorded guitar (usually one take for the whole song) and my feeble attempts at vocals. I didn't have a clue on what drums and bass should do, so my friend tracked them. I didn't use any digital effects or processing, although I had one nifty vocal effect on one of my songs. Effect was constructed by wrapping a toilet paper cartridge around the microphone. That caused some distortion and bass "enhancement" to the vocals - a true analog sound. Back in those days, I used Audacity as my DAW, and after the tracks were set in a project, I just normalized them all and adjusted the volume faders for balancing. That was it. My mix was done.

Years later, now that I have taken a real interest in the art of mixing instead of just layering the tracks on top of each other, I faced a conundrum; where to begin? Internet was full of short clips and blogs that went into so much detail about so many little snippets of information that the main thing that I got from them was confusion. My squishy brain needed something where the things would be presented in an organized and logical order with a larger more comprehensive approach. That's when I bumbed into Mixing secrets for the small studio by Mike Senior.

Chronologically optimized contents

First of all, the contents of this book are in a seriously excellent logical and chronological order. Completely different than the vast fragments of information available in tiny bits all over the internet. I will go shortly through the innards of the book, which in my mind (and Mike Senior, i think) will actually give you a good picture on how you should proceed, when starting to learn mixing.
  

PART 1 - Hearing and listening

If you happen to stumble into this book before acquiring any equipment for your studio, you will be pleasantly surprised to see that the book starts with the section detailing the different aspects of efficient monitoring. As an added bonus, If you have already set your studio up with monitors, you can start weeping for your mistakes (remember them ports grrr...). With this book you see what things to consider when acquiring your monitors. Fortunately it also shows ways to remedy the faults of a not so perfect monitoring system.

The room considerations goes into nice lengths to show how to treat your room. I wish I wasn't so lazy, so that I too could treat my room like a lady. At least now I know the shortcomings of a non-treated room, and can try to compensate for it. And i don't mean in the way like a new car compensates for other shortcomings, but as in e.g. I can understand that some frequencies are actually amplified by my room, which I must take account for in my mixing. In principle, a very interesting chapter in the book, but you might skip some parts because we all want to get right to the business. right?

PART 2 - Mix preparation

Not quite yet the meat, but still a very important subject that is not usually discussed on the info-snippets around the interwebs (or not a topic that you usually search for). Short chapter on the book, and the reader is busy to get into action, so moving on.

PART 3 - Balance

And here we are. This is it, the meat. Basically all there is to mixing, demonstrated on this chapter. Raw balance - Compression - Equalization. It blew my fragile little mind, the fact that it is actually this simple. First achieve a raw balance with the tracks using volume faders (and maybe pan the tracks where they fit). This is where I was a few years ago, except without the panning. But some tracks are too dynamic that there is really no fitting position for fader and when you find an optimum volume level for some part, it might be too loud or too weak at another part. And in comes the compression. Flatten them nasty spikes, and let the little nuances come to life. Finish up with a touch of EQ to carve some room for all the instruments. The book shows more ideas and tools for balancing, but keeps in mind that the strength is in simplicity.

PART 4 - Sweetening to taste

Ah, the sweet sweet sweeting. After the balance is set, the sweeting phase arrives with infinite possibilities to express your own thoughts and vision on the song. Two main sweetening effects - Reverb and Delay, are handled in detail. Other effects and sweetening techniques are discussed and explained using examples. Really great stuff. And also keeps in mind, that sweetening is not just effects. It's also artistic decisions on the mix and tracks themselves - e.g. directing the listeners attention.

You can check out my over the top example on "sweetening" on my practice mix of a song called six feet of dirt by clicking here. I used way too much reverb on the vocal than I should have. I decided not to fix this though, as I felt as this is still a learning journey (with too little time), and I hope that the next mix and the mix after that will be better. Maybe some day I will compare my new and old mixes and smile under my beard. For now, I will call it an artistic decision.

The final FLS-rating

I really really liked the book. It helped me immensely as I took my starting steps. A little disclaimer should be said though; it has been a while since I read the book, so my memories on the details might be a bit skewed. But the overall value of the book, has burned its way to my synapses - in a good way.

FLS gives Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio by Mike Senior a hefty thumbs up.

The Final Verdict

Please leave a comment, are books useless? It's all in the internet anyway?