The Art of Mixing and Mastering

World-class Mixing & Mastering Program | San Francisco

Learn to mix and master at the world’s boutique music production school, in small class sizes for the best personalized experience, now with the option to pay in interest free installments.
Bring clarity, depth, and punch to your mixes in any genre, in any DAW. Discover a range of classic and innovative mixing techniques shared by our active industry audio engineers.

This class is for anyone looking to take their music from production, all the way to the radio. You will learn how to navigate the industry as an audio engineer, mixing for clients or yourself, and will train your ears to be ready for any project that comes your way.

EQ, Environment, Acoustics & Separation

• Studio monitor speaker design
• Acoustics and physics
• How to use your ears for mixing
• The art of balancing and panning
• All about mono and stereo
• EQ

Dynamics

• All about compression
• In-depth with the parameters
• Types of compression circuitry (optical, valve, etc.) and their digital emulations
• Parallel dynamic processing
• Gates and de-essers
• Dynamic controller tips to achieve clarity in your mix

Reverbs, Delays & Other FX

• Types of reverb and delay, where and how to use them
• In-depth with all the parameters
• Spatialisation with convolution reverbs and delays
• Phaser, flanger, chorus, pitch shifters, harmonisers and creative FX
• Tips on how to make your records come to life with FX

Mixing Vocals

• Preparing vocals, vocal comping and tuning vocals
• Getting separation between lead and BVs
• Tips on automating levels (rides)
• FX Chains for your vocal sound

Creative Mixing

• Filtering and samples
• Vocoder, Ring Modulators, Envelopers, Auto-panning, distortion and bit crushing
• Sidechaining dynamic controllers and filters for FX
• Getting creative with reverb and delay
• Pitch shifters, harmonisers and creative FX
• Saturation
• Automation

Analysis & The Final Mix

• Active listening and critiquing of released mixes
• Analysis and critique of your mixes
• The mix revision process
• Preparing your mix for the master process

Mastering

• Using references to get your EQ and separation. A/Bing
• EQ, brick wall limiting, levels, and phase
• Which mastering plugins to use – dos and don’ts
• Other useful metering tools and techniques

Additional Information

• Use your own laptop, or use our macbooks free of charge.
• Headphones are available to use.
• Personal USB drive or SSD for storing your files is recommended
• Our small class sizes allow for instructors to curate class content to the students wants and needs.
• Students receive access to numerous discounts on production software.

Use the ‘CONNECT’ button below to request schedule and pricing information. One of our placement experts will follow up within a business day. For one-to-one lessons, see our Music Production Private Instruction page.