Mixing Your Own Music vs. Hiring A Mixing Engineer
You’re super excited! You put the hours, sweat, and tears into your music, you just finished recording and can’t wait to share your music with the world. But, a sudden thought comes to your head: “what should I do next?”. Well, if you’ve done things correctly, the next natural step should be Mixing, but the big question that comes to every DIY musician at this point is: “Should I Mix it myself or should I go look for a professional Mixing Engineer?”.
Well, the answer is: it totally depends! It could be that you’re extremely experienced and knowledgeable in all areas of music production so you can do everything yourself with great results, but it could also happen that you’re just starting in this world and you may need some extra help! Other factors could be time, it could money, it could be your studio, gear, etc...
Let’s deep dive into the pros and cons of Mixing your own songs by yourself vs. Hiring a Mixing Engineer and hopefully, this will help you decide what’s best for you at this stage of your career.
First, a short story of failure
Back in 2011, I just finished recording my first 3-track EP with my rock/punk band, we were so happy and we felt that we had the world in our hands, but then, the question came, how do we mix it? And I was a bit cocky back then and I said to the guys “Well, I think I can do it myself”. Spoiler alert, huge mistake!
Why? At that time I wasn’t the professional Mixing Engineer I am today, I didn’t have any set of skills and education or the right acoustic treated room or the minimum gear you need to have (I “mixed” that EP with a pair of Beat headsets…probably fake).
But, I was super excited about the idea so I did anyway. So, I imported the tracks into Cubase and went crazy with it.
In the end, it sounded amazing! I was so proud, so happy, I couldn’t believe that I could manage to do it by myself… Until I shared the results with the drummer of my band which was more experienced than I, and he very politely said that it was the worst crap he ever heard…
My heart dropped, my dreams crushed and I felt sad for quite a while, but, he was 100% right, it was a hot flaming pile of garbage: the Kick and Bass were nowhere to be found, the Guitars were weirdly panned and unbalanced, the Vocals (oh man, the vocals…) were unintelligible, no clarity whatsoever and buried under a massive amount of reverb. The worst part is that I didn’t only waste my time but the time of the other members of my band that were really looking forward to the results.
This is something I don’t want for you, I don’t want you to feel bad or discourage about your own music, so, when you’re on that pre-mixing stage, think about your skills, think about your room, think about all the gear and equipment you need, think about your time and the time of people that would be relying on you. If you don’t have all these bases covered, I think the natural answer would be to get a Mixing Engineer.
Why hiring a Mixing Engineer?
You will give your music to a professionally trained and objective pair of ears: This is one of the key factors! having the perspective of a pro will elevate and bring up the right elements of your music. Also, it will help you with the “demo-itis" syndrome that happens when we become too attached to the rough mix/demo and we start to make mixing decisions based on subjectivity.
A seasoned Mixing Engineer will give your music a blend of experience, knowledge, and skills that were collected by many years of working with other artists and bands. This is a HUGE factor you have to consider; a pro will cover all the technical stuff, all the numbers, the frequencies, as well as the creative part that will help develop your sound.
The right tools, gear, and room: Let’s be honest, anyone has access to DAWs, plugins and nowadays, more and more people are Mixing using headphones in their bedrooms. But, do you really know how to use these tools to your advantage? That’s where having a pro working on your song that knows exactly what EQ moves needs to apply to clean that bad frequency on your vocals, or the right Compressor to tame that big-ass bass, comes in handy.
“But, I love Mixing! When I will know I’m ready to do it?”
I’m not against artists mixing their own stuff, in fact, I do it myself with my own music! Of course, this time is different than 10 years ago because I got the knowledge, skills, and experience, so, my recommendation for you is slowly getting to it…
First of all focus on what matters the most, your music, your craft, and the ways you record it, the better the performance and recording, the easier it will be to have a killer-sounding Mix.
Secondly, always ask for help and feedback. You can even reach out to a Mixing Engineer for this, even if you’re not going to hire one. For example, I’m always open to consultation and help you get the sound you’re looking for.
That way you will be slowly incorporating these skills into your workflow and gaining confidence song after song.
In the meantime, I’m here to help you
My promise for you today is that I will do everything to unleash your music’s potential, making your songs pop out of the speakers so your music doesn’t get buried in the sea of releases.
