Train Your Ear

Train your ear is advice I preach to myself regularly. Sometimes I listen too.

If you like mixing audio, which I do (who doesn't?) then you just gotta keep persisting. I am reminded of some advice that really stuck with me - half a decade ago I was in Nunz's recording studio and my nephew was there because he liked the idea of being an audio engineer. When asked about what he should do, Nunz was emphatic, I will paraphrase: "Mix. Record. Sit at your console and keep doing stuff. Every waking moment of your life you should spend listening, mixing, learning. You life has to revolve around audio engineering. You need to be completely dedicated or you won't make it."

It seemed extreme at the time - but the longer I mix the more it doesn't seem extreme at all if you want to make a livelihood of it.

I have pretty much an endless supply of recordings to mix - at my local church I can hit a button and get a multi track high quality recording of as much CCM as I like! You might not be a fan of Contemporary Christian Music but it has everything you need - the staples of acoustic guitar, bass guitar, drums, keys, vocalists - but also electric guitar, violin, sax and other can make an appearance. The teams change from week to week, the music will vary from rock to ballads to classic gospel hymns. Not only do you get to mix the recordings, but actually being part of the team is another wonderful experience - the production - what everybody is playing when - the participation, the comraderie...one gig every week if you wanted it! Don't sit in your room playing by yourself - be part of your local church and get on the music team! But I digress.

According to my archive I have mixed 70 songs in the last two and a half years. I am now at a stage where I can hear a mix and mostly recognise what it needs. EQ, compression, reverb, limiters, saturation. Listen to the feel and tweak faders. Carve out spaces in frequency, in time, in panning. So many options, so many choices you can make. Still learning, still experimenting. My early mixes are pretty awful. My recent ones are okay. Because I have persisted, I keep listening, slowly, I am training my ear.