The Art of Mixing and Mastering

Mixing and Mastering Music Production Course | Oakland 

We believe the best way to learn is in small, concentrated groups. So, at Garnish, the classes for our Mixing and Mastering Course are no bigger than 8 people. If you’re wanting to add punch, depth, and clarity to your mixes, this is the way to do it! The lessons are an intoxicating mix of classic and innovative modern techniques, along with tips and tricks to keep your interest piqued! If you’re ready to start experimenting with techniques and concepts to transform your music projects, this is the course for you. You’ll also realize you’re saving a fortune on engineers and studio time by being able to bring these skills out in yourself. Better still, this course will cater to all DAW users and all music genres.

Garnish achieves this by using the third-party software Fabfilter, which runs on all popular DAWs. It’s not essential for participants to own them for this course if they use Pro Tools, Logic, or Ableton, but we’d still recommend them highly. If you find that you do want to buy them, as a GMP learner, you’ll qualify for a 50% discount, wherever you are in the world.

The course will afford you 36 hours of focused learning in your small class, where you’ll be able to ask questions, and share tips and findings with like-minded fellow students and tutors to get the answers that you need. Sharing your problems and inspirations in this way is an invaluable learning tool, and we feel this very interactive aspect of the course runs rings around online courses and tutorials.

We’re committed to helping you complete the course, so if you are unlucky enough to miss a session or two due to illness or holiday clashes, we’ll always do our best to get you booked into a future cycle of your choice so that you can catch up. Extensive accompanying notes will be made available as standard and they are put together by the experts who develop our courses.

We’ve made it possible for our students to use their own laptops for this course, so you can get it set up just the way you want, and so that it looks the same at home as it does in the classroom. This will also save you a bit of cash, too… If you don’t want to do that, you can hire one of our iMacs. Each comes fully loaded with software. To book one, just add a supplement of $75 at the same time as you book your course. We’re always able to provide headphones, audio interfaces, and controller keyboards for anyone that needs them.

Mixing and Mastering 101

EQ, Environment, Acoustics, and Separation

• Studio monitor speaker design
• Acoustics and acoustically treating your home studio
• All about mono, stereo and 5.1 in your software DAW
• The art of balancing and panning
• EQ workshop

Dynamics

• Hearing dynamics
• In-depth with all the parameters of dynamic controllers
• Types of compression circuitry, their digital emulations, what to use & why
• Parallel dynamic processing
• Gates and de-essing tips
• Dynamics controller tips to achieve clarity in your mix

Reverbs, Delays and Other FX

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

Mixing and Mastering 201

Vocals, Automation, and Getting Creative in the Mix Process

• Filtering and samples
• Vocoder, Ring Modulators, Envelopers, Auto panning, distortion and bit crushing
• Preparing vocals, vocal comping and tuning vocals
• Getting separation between lead and BVs
• Tips on automating levels (rides)

Mixing Electronic Music

• Side-chaining dynamic controllers and filters for ducking, FX, and punch
• Getting creative with reverb and delay
• Making thin sounds bigger
• Mixing techniques that only apply to electronic music but are very useful to know for everyone
• Electronic music listening critique (bring in your tracks if you wish)
• Electronic music mix analytics – analyze the mix elements of your favorite tunes

Our Instructors!

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