ABSTRACT

In Mixing with Impact: Learning to Make Musical Choices, Wessel Oltheten discusses the creative and technical concepts behind making a mix. Whether you’re a dance producer in your home studio, a live mixer in a club, or an engineer in a big studio, the mindset is largely the same.

The same goes for the questions you run into: where do you start? How do you deal with a context in which all the different parts affect each other? How do you avoid getting lost in technique? How do you direct your audience’s attention? Why doesn’t your mix sound as good as someone else’s? How do you maintain your objectivity when you hear the same song a hundred times? How do your speakers affect your perception? What’s the difference between one compressor and another?

Following a clear structure, this book covers these and many other questions, bringing you closer and closer to answering the most important question of all: how do you tell a story with sound?

chapter 1|4 pages

The World of Mixing

About the Profession and This Book

chapter 2|12 pages

Listening

Everything Is Relative

chapter 3|20 pages

Laying the Foundation

Creating a Starting Position

chapter 4|17 pages

The Frequency Spectrum

No Light without Darkness

chapter 5|22 pages

Dynamics

Without Soft There Is No Loud

chapter 6|28 pages

Space

There’s More Room than You Think

chapter 7|20 pages

Time and Phase

It’s All About the Sum of the Parts

chapter 8|7 pages

Identity

A Unique Sound

chapter 9|44 pages

Effects

Craziness with a Purpose

chapter 10|12 pages

Automation

Performing the Mix

chapter 11|34 pages

Advanced Techniques

Exploring the Boundaries

chapter 12|10 pages

Bus Compression

The Sum of the Parts

chapter 13|13 pages

Templates

Working Faster Means a Better Mix

chapter 14|16 pages

Preparing for Mastering

A Good Relationship

chapter 15|19 pages

Mindset

A Competition against Yourself

chapter 16|14 pages

The Outside World

Sound Engineering Means Working for Others

chapter 17|55 pages

Tools

Preconditions for Mixing Reliably

chapter |1 pages

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