The Mixing Engineer S Handbook

I've been working as a full time professional music producer and recording/mixing engineer for over 12 years now, and non-professionally for much longer than that. I got this book as a Christmas present this last Christmas (2004), and was pleasantly surprised by how much I learned from it! Much of this I had already learned from experience, but this book verbalized and put a method behind what I had already instinctively figured out, plus expanded upon it and taught me many new ideas that I'll be trying out on future projects for myself and my studio clients. Just the section on song "elements" will be something that I'll be referring to many of my young and inexperienced clients who insist on filling up every little bit of breathing space in their songs with useless noodling and fills that detract from the song and make it harder to get a good mix. While there is no such thing as a formula for mixing, as every song and every track is different, this books comes as close as possible to giving you an outline of a formula and enough great ideas to give you a good starting point. On top of that, you get comments along the way from many top professional mixing engineers emphasizing the key points and adding their own techniques and experience. Then, in the second half of the book, you get complete interviews with the pros who reveal many of their tricks and techniques that help them achieve a certain sound. This book definitely makes my relatively short list of "Required Reading" books for Music-And-Technology. It's helpful for anyone from the beginning engineer to pros like myself who have already been doing this for a while. Even non-engineer musicians can benefit from the knowledge in this book as it will help them not only understand the mixing process better, but help them to write better song arrangements that will allow their mixes to be even better in the end.

Are you looking for a "magic book" that tells you exactly how to set your EQ, compressor, or reverb for every situation? The bad news is, that book does not exist, and even if it did, it would surely render hideous results. There are far too many variables involved in recording, mixing and mastering even one single genre of music for any one formula to always work. The good news is that The Mixing Engineer's Handbook offers something even smarter: fundamental information that can be used in a wide variety of applications (just generally making the reader a smarter mixer) wrapped in copious straight-from-the-horse's-mouth tips and tricks from a bevy of the top names in mixing from virtually every genre. The book has enough "hard fact" charts, like the "magic frequencies" of numerous instruments and the forumlae for determining BPM and translating that into ms for delays and reverbs, to name only a few, that I found myself making photocopies of numerous pages to keep next to my mixing board for quick reference. But beyond that, the book offers so much general and ultimately FLEXIBLE advice that I find myself getting smarter about mixing just reading it. Rather than telling a reader how to always start a mix, for example, Owsinski offers five suggestions for logical places to start a mix (drums, bass, etc.) then offers a handful of single-paragraph suggestions by top mixers in various genres to support one idea or another, leaving it to the reader to decide which makes most sense for his/her work. It is the very fact that these suggestions by the pros are often contradictory that really gives a reader a broad perspective, leaving it to the reader to decide with which pro they align their own work most closely. In addition, there is an entire section devoted to detailed interviews with these same mixmasters, which amounts to getting a chance to pick the brains of the tops in the industry. I've tried numerous books on this topic, and this is the ONLY one that I find myself revisiting again and again, both as a reference at the mixer and also as casual reading away from the gear to expand my knowledge. The more advanced engineer will find this book lacking in details; one would need to look elsewhere for extremely micro-level discussions of the function of EQs, compressors, etc. That level of detail is usually only addressed in books devoted exclusively to that one piece of gear. This book, instead, provides the beginning/intermediate mixer -- the home and project studio guy -- an outstanding knowledge base from which to take his/her mixes to the next level.

Upon deeper inspection of the contents of this book, I had to change my review. I am finding this book absolutely phenomenal.I thought at first that there were too many interviews (nearly half the book) and not enough real tips and guidelines. I was wrong. The first half of the book gives some good starting points and tips (EQ settings, Compression ratios/settings, mixing in effects etc...) What I have found to be almost more valuable are the interviews. They are full of tips and "here's how I achieve this sound" type of comments.This is only my second day I've really been digging in to this book and applying it to my work. I've already seen drastic improvements. I wish I had found this book when it first came out! This is cetainly not the end all solution to every recording question you may have, but I have found this book to be worth every cent I spent on it.

This book is really about the things that top mix engineers say they pay attention to most in mixing. It gives the reader insight into the ideas that have moulded their thinking, and listening skills. Equipment lists are supplied, but there is not a lot of discussion about how to set up the gear in detail. This is a good thing, because a book can not deliver the kind of understanding that listening to recordings can give. You can easily get the CDs that are discussed to hear what each mix engineer is talking about. There is more than enough information to duplicate some of the best mixes ever made if you want to. If you are constantly searching the net, or magazines for mix trix, and you want the best collection of these tricks available, stuff people hang out in studios for months, or years to acquire, then this book is for you.

"Mixing Engineer's Handbook" teaches what the engineer greats of various genres do to get great mixes. It has really helped me understand different approaches to mixing, as well as taught quite a few nice tips and tricks. I learned a lot from it, even though I have been recording and mixing professionally for over 10 years. In my bookshelf there are a LOT of books abour recording and mixing, and this one clearly stands out as the best. Another good book I'd like to recommend is "Professional Microphone Techniques", which also features a a nice chapter on EQing. The interviews have also been a great help when making purchase decisions for new studio gear.