We’re not just talking about creating a final mix from your multitrack recordings here. There are thousands of engineers who can turn tracks into a song. However, we’re delving into the role a mixing engineer plays in the world of professional music and chart-topping hits.
It’s a role seldom discussed, and you won’t easily find it described on the internet when searching for a professional mix engineer to work on your music. Top mix engineers do more than just create a mix; they elevate the quality of the song to the next level. They transform your mix into a superior song, one that sounds better, sells better, and helps you gain more fans.
Your budget for mixing
The first thing people usually think of when planning a project is the budget. It is the right way to think, but with mixing, it’s not so simple.
The more expensive option is not always the best regarding song production. And from two mixing engineers who charge an equal amount of money for their work, one may be a good choice for you and another not. One engineer may be the right person to work with your music, and the other may not be able to mix your song into its best version.
And for the same reason, a less expensive mixing work may turn out to be better for your song than a more expensive one. The goal is to find an engineer who understands you, your genre, and your style the best. This is how to choose mixing engineer who may be from another country, maybe from the opposite side of the globe.
When thinking about mixing, you should not focus so much on money as on finding the right person to mix your song, on finding the right sound. This is a complicated but crucial task, and your success as an artist, and your entire career, greatly depend on this choice. Of course, your budget for mixing should be based on a reasonable price per song, not too low, because you can’t have cheap mixing and good mixing at the same time. However, “the more expensive, the better” is definitely not the rule here.
If you need an example of what professional mixing can cost, check out our price list. Of course, in the industry, you may find higher prices for similar professional services, but we keep our prices in the medium budget range to be able to help beginner artists as well as artists who have already built a successful career. All our engineers have good experience working on big industry projects, love for music, and a cutting-edge skill set.
Where to look for a mix engineer
The best way to look for a right mixing engineer in the 21st century is through online searches. While walking into your local studio and participating in the mixing process together with your audio engineer can seem like a great idea, this approach has a lot of shortcomings, and it is much more preferable not to choose it.
What are the chances that in the whole world of available mix engineers, the best engineer for your own style of music also lives in your town? When looking locally, your options are limited, while online, there are thousands of great engineers for you to choose from.
The second reason is that you are going to be a famous artist and have lots of tours and business trips, if you don’t already travel all the time. Even if your potential mix engineer is from your local studio, you’ll still have to communicate with them online.
Choose from the potential mixing engineers you can find online, look at online studios, use Reddit, Fiverr, and other platforms.
If you personally know an artist whose sound you like, you may ask if they can recommend their mixing engineer to you.
Look for a smart mix engineer with experience in the industry
The right mixing engineer should have clear understanding of your songs, the market niche you are targeting, and what your audience requires. At the same time, he will look at your work from a fresh perspective. It’s common for artists to express their feelings and thoughts in their songs, but the task for a mixing engineer is different and more complicated. A mixing engineer should be able to understand another person, the artist, their feelings and thoughts, and for this, they need life experience and intelligence. It should be someone who can give you the best advice regarding your music production.
If your mixing engineer has a deep understanding of your song’s idea, the feeling and thought you have put into the song, and at the same time has good insight into what your audience needs, he or she will be able to not only mix your song to the highest quality standards but also to bring it to the next level. This mix will have a greater chance to climb up the charts. Such a mix engineer will help you grow your career in the music industry.
Listen to mixing engineers’ portfolio
Choose a mixing engineer whose portfolio you like. See if the engineer specializes in your genre and understands it well. A person may be highly professional and talented, but he may prefer other genres and, for example, will create a great rock mix or jazz record, but not as perfect a rap or hip hop mix. A mix engineer can be highly proficient in one or several genres, while not enjoying or understanding some other genres.
Listen to their portfolio of previous work. To choose an engineer who creates top-quality mixes is not enough; they must be the perfect match for your songs. Many artists have their unique sound. They all may produce the highest-quality music, but their music is different.
Listen to what the engineer has mixed recently, check if it meets your expectations, if you like the overall sound, the amount of reverb you hear, how the vocals sound, the drums, stereo field, etc. If it’s your desired sound, then you may consider choosing this engineer.
Have they worked on big industry projects?
When choosing a mixing engineer, pay attention to their experience. The experience in this case is not so much years of mixing as it is participation in big commercial projects. The mix engineer you want is the one who has heard their mixes played on the radio, TV, in stadiums, in clubs, and everywhere. The more his or her mixes have been popular, the more this engineer has learned from them. Audio engineers can’t just study theory and produce a perfect mix; they also learn by hearing their mixes played and noticing what they have done right and what could have been done better.
Another way the experience educates an engineer is through constant collaboration with many talented industry professionals in the field. Working with recording engineers, arrangers, and producers, the engineer learns a lot about every step of music production and all today’s trends.
Your experienced mix engineer will be able to tell you what flaws are there in the mix and how to correct them, and how to eliminate similar problems in your future mixes. He also may see flaws in your recording and advise you on how to improve your recording process.
We see it in our own studio; our engineers at Major Mixing studio work the same way. They will not just create a mix from the material a customer has sent. They will eliminate all the flaws that can be dealt with at the mixing level. And if they find something that you can improve in the mix, they will advise you on how you can do it, so you can use this knowledge in the current mix or apply it to your future projects to take your songs and vocals to a higher quality level.
Choose a person for an easy, long-term collaboration
Another thing that you need to pay attention to is the personality of the engineer. Will you be comfortable collaborating with this person, discussing the sound and different aspects of the mix? Your first work together may grow into a long-term collaboration of producing hits, and this is what you are looking for. So, check if this is the person you’ll be happy to work with and discuss what sound you are looking for.
It usually gives a better result if an artist works with the same mixing engineer for some time. The engineer learns your style over time, and every next track usually comes out even better than the previous one. If you want your music sound great it’s better to work with one engineer for some time.
Of course, you may at some point decide that you need to start collaborating with another engineer, and this is okay, but it’s preferable for your career not to switch from one engineer to another too often.
Check if they are good with modern technology for mixing process
Mix engineering is a technical job, and the tech world is rapidly changing, especially with the arrival of the latest AI technology. It’s important for a mix engineer to know modern technology well. It’s good if the engineer has Apple Digital Masters certification and can work with Dolby Atmos technology. At the same time, the professional mix engineer has to know modern plugins and other software for music production, keeping up with technology development in the music world.
Choose an engineer you can trust
Confidentiality is crucial in this process in the music industry. When choosing a mix engineer, you have to be certain that this person will not lose your track record and will keep all the work confidential because you’ll be sending them your intellectual property. Keep in mind that it should be a person you can trust; look at their reputation in the music world.
Check out the artists’ feedback
When choosing a mix engineer for your project, look at what feedback other musicians leave on trusted review sites, read reviews. Where to look? For example, our studio collects customer reviews on Google, REVIEWS.io, Trustpilot, and Facebook, and other social networks. You can also ask Reddit communities for advice.
There are other website options where you can see reviews from the previous clients on the works of the particular mix engineer you are planning to collaborate with; always check them out. Never ignore this step; you will trust your music, your time, and your money to this person, so it’s beneficial to spend time first doing some research.
Give your preference to a quick turnaround time
Music production can be unpredictable and hectic. In our experience working with big labels, we often witness situations where an artist needs to make changes to the mix at the last moment. You might think you have time to wait now, but trust me, in the future, you’ll benefit from your mixing engineer’s ability to work quickly.
You don’t have to choose just one
Pick several candidates! When choosing a mixing engineer for the first time, the best practice is not to settle on one choice but to pick several mixing engineers. Send your song to all of them and then pick the one whose final product turns out the best. This way, you’ll find the right mixing engineer, who understands your individual style and your music better.
Why choose Major Mixing
Now, I’m going to tell you that, having read all this, you can search no further. Why is that? Because here, at our Major Mixing studio, we believe we have all you need to succeed in the music business world.
Our mixing and mastering engineers meet all the criteria I listed in this article. Just a little bit about us:
- Knowledge and experience – all our engineers are highly experienced in working with big commercial projects.
- Industry-level mixes – we know all the requirements of modern music and mix songs according to all the standards in our high-tech studio.
- Working with your genre – within the last ten years, we have worked closely with artists of almost every genre. We are equally professional in mixing hip hop and rock, orchestral music, and pop songs. We work with many styles of music, know their specifics, and love to create mixes in each of them.
- Relatively low price – our prices depend on the types of services you need, but we try to keep them affordable and offer bundles and discounts.
- Good feedback – we have worked with thousands of artists and have excellent reviews.
- Easy to communicate – we have great customer support, and it’s easy to get in touch with us and explain what you want. If, after the work is done, you feel some changes should be made to the mix, we offer free revisions.
- Quick turnaround time – we’ll mix and master your song within 3 days.
Check out mixing and mastering samples on our website and contact us. We are sure we are the studio you are looking for because your success is our first priority.
