Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio (Sound On Sound Presents...) 2nd Edition

I have been using reason 6.5 recently, and have recorded several orginal works mainly for purposes of providing demos to musicians that I intend to perform the music with live. I never thought that I would produce music to hand to a listener for simple enjoyment of a good recording.Recently I decided that I wanted to go to a pofessional studio to record something to distribute. I wanted to be able to talk with the engineer in his own language, so i decided to educate myself by reading up on the matter. After reading three different books, I stumbled across this one. I noticed that it had very high ratings from significantly more readers than the previous books. This book was an automated Amazon suggestion. I rented it. Started reading, and it sucked me in.The only downfall to reading this book is that I'm a law student, and i really needed to be reading my law books. I let this book take me away!Any way... Cut to the chase right?!Each chapter gives an assignment, and I decided to actually do these assignments reading the book in order. This is very imoortant if you want to really gain from this book! I chose one of my songs, erased ever plugin and modificatn that I had previously made and went to work using mainly headphones. Will be buying avantone mixcubes soon... After following every suggestion and experimenting where appropriate. I came up with a very good mix!! I WAS AMAZED....I re-recorded all of my audio in a better acoustic environment using mainly household products for treatment. Miced guitar amps and Vox, DI'ed the Bass, used MIDI keyboard parts, and the ReDrum pulggin for drums and purcussion. Any MIDI part was mixed down to audio to save CPU before mixing. After that, I hit the book for instructions.... This is not a recording book.... It is a mixing book. Just remember, get good signal first!So first BALANCE BALANCE BALANCE!!!! He takes a lot of time on this aspect, but for very good reason. Balance first, then worry about the rest. I will save the rest of the details for when you read this book. But I will say that I have learned that I can achieve very professional sounding products now with very little to work with.I use Balance with Reason 6.5, a fender acoustasonic amp (mainly used for its pre-amp out as a DI), a fender power chorus amp, an M-Audio Large diaphram lollypop consenser, a Shure beta 58a, a Shure SM 58, a MIDI controller, and my stringed instruments.... Oh, and lots of time! You must be patient!I am now very comfortable, proud even, to hand my mix over for mastering. I actually mastered one version myself using the MClass mastering suite in Reason 6.5. I let differnt people hear it and compare it to some profession recordings. Most say they assumed I hired out a pro studio. Some have even said that they thought my mix was better made than some of the pro tracks... But that comes down to taste.By the way, it is very important to let other people hear the mix... Don't be bashful, just do it, and get some informed opinions if you can.Much of this does come down to taste, but if you have never read material like this, or had help from someone in the know, and you are trying to record, you probably do not have any idea what you are doing. I recommend this book very highly. It is the fourth book that I've read, and only one that I will likely go back to consistently.THANK YOU SOOO MUCH MIKE SENIOR. I LOVE YOU MAN!!! You saved me tons of money now and for the rest of my life. My music is sounding great now! I now need to learn about mastering in detail.

The first clue this book is valuable is the star ratings versus the used book price. Why do you think used copies sell for nearly as much as new? And what's the percentage of 5 stars? Those two indicators led to my purchase. Admittedly, I thought the price was steep but after reading I think it's a steal.Senior's book has a very logical flow and seems to consider absolutely every challenge mixers face. You will get the most from this book starting at the beginning and working your way through it, cover to cover. It's a very concise book and will require time to read because it never let's up giving you valuable information.I am a little at a loss for words in trying to explain how great the book is. All I can say is I've been writing music for over 15 years and have gotten better mixes through a lot of painful, time-consuming trial and error. I know what doesn't work because of MANY failures. But then I start reading this book and see Senior knows those same failures and offers the same logical solutions that worked for me. Even simple things like color coding tracks to quickly get around your mix can shoot the inexperienced in the foot, but here it is called out for you. The tips are endless and, again, the value of this book is somewhat immeasurable. Senior could make a fortune giving endless seminars just touching single chapters.My take from the book, and this will not sit well with some newbies, is that mixing is still a very hands-on, labor intensive art in its' own right. We live in a world where programmers offer us a bewildering array of affordable equipment past engineers would have sold their house for and could only dream of. Many new to mixing assume the software is the solution in and of itself and blame the programmers when things don't go as dreamed. Some keep buying plugins and add-ons looking for the golden sound solution and when those don't work they believe that if they only could afford what the pros work on their mixes could compete with commercial studios, but the fact is, again, human skill still has the edge. It's painful to know you can't just turn on auto tune and let it run unminded to correct a pitch. It's painful to know your expensive monitors leave you with nothing exciting if you don't know what you're listening for. It might also be painful to realize some songs, no matter who the mixer, can't be fixed because the arrangement is boring, confusing, not musical or too busy. But that's where this book is a Godsend. Rather than tinker at a problem until you lose your hair you can read this book which clearly spells out what you can do, what you probably can't and what you'd be a fool to undertake. Even better, the advice can be applied to a wide variety of set-ups and budgets.I've read the handful of low ratings and I see the same pattern- readers with unrealistic expectations and not enough patience to mix. That said, I'm not sure how anyone could rate the book so low and expect commercial (or even slightly good) mixing results. The book won't move the faders for you. To them I'd say they might be better off hiring a professional mixer.A million 'thank you's' to Mike Senior for this comprehensive and immensely helpful book. Seriously, if you're reading this I want you to know you've set the (very high) standard for this topic and I owe you a drink.Another million thanks to the editor (very succinct, great flow) and to the publisher for bringing this work to us.