J. Anthony Allen teaches mixing as a skill that demands repeated listening, constant practice, and experimentation across different songs. Start with fundamentals like listening environments and session setup, then move to tools like EQ and compression. Mix your own tracks and friends' music in various styles to build versatility.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the class. So for the first thing I want to talk about is, let's just go over really quick how to learn mixing and what I'm going to guide you through in this class. The best way to learn mixing, and one of the things to really keep in mind throughout this whole class is that mixing is like an instrument. So it's just like, you know, learning to play the trumpet or learning to play the guitar. You're not just going to pick it up and sound great. It takes a lot of practice. It takes a lot of experimenting. There are things like this class that are going to help speed you along on that, but a lot of it does have to do with developing an ear. You need to be able to hear what you like, hear what you don't like, and then figure out how to fix it. And that comes with doing it over and over and over. So what I'm going to ask you to do in this class is take the lessons that I'm showing you and put those into your arsenal of tricks. And then so when you approach a piece of music that you're trying to mix, you've got all these tools that you can use, but it's going to be something that takes a lot of practice. You're going to see me work on a couple tracks in this class. I want you to be working on a couple. I want you to be working on your own tracks as well. And there's something to be said for working on other tracks. Call up your friends and say, yo, send me a track, because I'm practicing mixing. Working on other people's tracks will be really valuable too, sometimes if you. If you only work on your tracks, you're going to learn how to mix your music really well, but not necessarily be a person who mixes all music really well. So try to work on your own music, but also some music of your friends. Music in different styles is always good. Anything you can get your hands on. And don't expect to sound amazing right away. The more you do it, the better you'll get at it. So keep that in mind throughout this whole class, that this is something that takes practice. It takes experimenting. And if you keep working at it and you use the techniques that I'm going to show you, you will get better at it. Cool. Okay. Now the last thing I want to say about that is in this class, we're going to start off with a bunch of background stuff. So the first good chunk of this class is going to be about mixing styles, environment, how to set up your sessions, things that you're going to think, come on, let's just get to the good stuff. Show me, like, how to mix with an EQ and a compressor and all that stuff. So bear with me, because this other stuff is really important, that we get you into a good listening environment, that we get your tracks set up correctly. This is all extremely valuable stuff. So if it feels like in the first part of this class, you're like, come on, let's get to it. Please pay attention to what we're doing because everything is important. Okay? That being said, let's move on.
