Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio: A Guide from Sound On Sound

Al-W: I was disappointed with this book. Considering its size, I was expecting it to be a fairly comprehensive guide, but it's not. I found it just too full of superfluous waffle and glaring omissions I prefer books that are more concise have less waffle to wade through. It's good that it has an index; but unfortunately, too many basic and not-so-basic aspects of mixing have been carelessly omitted.

United Kingdom on Sep 18, 2023

Ian Stark: As a mature 'student' wanting to cement my existing knowledge of the mixing process, as well as explore the yawning gaps in that knowledge and develop a consistent workflow, I found this book to be almost perfect.

I'll get the few (minor) niggles out the way first - and these are repeated in my review of Mike Senior's other book, Recording Secrets for the Small Studio. You should read that book as well - in fact, read it first, as it is focused on the capture of material. Get that right and you're in a much better place when it comes to the mix.

Firstly, in the niggle list - the speech bubble call outs are not useful (to me, anyway) as they are no more than verbatim lifts from the text. Fine if the text consists of sprawling passages with no breaks, but this book is usefully broken down into short, titled sections, so the need for those additional highlight bubbles is minimal and they become a distraction. More useful might have been something like another short comment from a respected producer/engineer/artist on the subject being discussed.

Secondly, the larger secondary text boxes are often annoyingly placed, such that they unnecessarily interrupt the flow...

United Kingdom on Apr 26, 2018

J. FELLA: Hmmm this book was hard to review, for several reasons. First, just so you know who this review is coming from, here’s a quick bio: I’ve been a guitarist for the last 20 years or so, and have been getting more into the production/mixing side of things the last ten years. So, I’m no stranger to the subject. I have three other books similar to this, which I’ll be comparing this to.

Ok, one of the difficulties in reviewing this book is based on the title. I’ve learned, after buying many books with similar titles, that it is usually a marketing gimic. However, it’s also subjective. If you’re brand new to the mixing side of things, then indeed this whole book could contain hundreds of secrets. But if you’re already fairly versed, not so much.
My other issue with the title is that the implication is that his target audience is people with not as much experience, who might not know some of the info he is assuming we know. So, he skips over a lot of things I feel could’ve been addressed. When he starts talking about things like phase response, comb filtering, etc. with the assumption we already know about that, he’ll lose a lot of people right...

United States on Dec 30, 2016

GT: Mixing Secrets is a fantastic book full of detail that will help any home studio enthusiast no matter what your skills or gear are like.
The book is broken down into key areas, all as comprehensive as the last. It covers proper monitoring and mix prep in the first hundred pages. Room acoustics, monitors, headphones, mix referencing, proper use of high pass filters, tuning and timing, comping and arranging; all are laid bare here. Seems like a lot of text until you really understand the issues being discussed.
The next section of the book looks at building a mix using the tools most people would think about like faders, compression, EQ. Finally it looks at the “sweeteners”, reverb, delays, automation, etc. In each section you are guided carefully through basic principles into more advanced techniques. Mr Senior provides an excellent strategy and step by step process to help build a solid mix. As the book progresses there is an acknowledgement that this is structured in order to facilitate understanding rather than be a hard and fast process. I feel as though it is something I would stick with for a long time, though, as my mixing skills have increased hugely in the few...

United Kingdom on Feb 07, 2016

Jean Bal: Mike Senior est un mixeur de talent qui s'est fait connaître en animant la rubrique "Mix Rescue" ("Sauvetage de mix") pour le magazine britannique Sound on Sound. Régulièrement, dans cette rubrique pointue, il a montré pendant des années comment il parvenait à sauver les mixages approximatifs que lui confiaient lecteurs et collègues. Avec des résultats souvent époustouflants.
Eh bien, dans ce livre, il a décidé de révéler de manière claire, simple, mais néanmoins complète, la plupart des techniques et méthodes qu'il emploie lorsqu'il veut faire un mix de qualité.
Simple, parce que Senior a des connaissances techniques manifestement très fouillées, mais il n'encombre jamais le lecteur avec des concepts inutiles, préférant l'inviter à essayer les trucs qu'il conseille et explique de façon accessible.
Et ce livre est en même temps très complet, car il aborde une foultitude de thèmes sous un angle pratique. A tel point que l'on a tout de suite envie de se remettre devant la console de son DAW pour refaire ses mixes...
Après le traditionnel chapitre sur le choix de bons moniteurs, il parle ainsi de façon approfondie de maîtrise de la dynamique...

France on Sep 10, 2013

Mrs Raval: I really do love this book. I've only just started to learn how to record and mix myself and had been muddling along looking up the odd YouTube tutorial when I got stuck, but just "having a go" without really having a structured methodology to apply. Hence my early mixes were typical of a small studio producer: too much instrumentation, very muddy, cluttered sounding and just obviously amateur in sound quality.

What I love about Mike's book is that he give you a method to follow. I read the book first cover to cover and his approach really appealed to me because it was saying: here's where you begin, next do this, then do this, etc etc, building on each layer till you get through the whole process and come out the other side with, at the very least, a well balanced mix. He spends the first few chapters giving advice on monitoring and supplementary monitoring so you can really hear what your mix sounds like. He gives you advice on acoustically treating your room etc so once you've passed through the first few chapters and followed his advice at the very least you will be equipped to "hear" your mix properly and therefore make properly informed balancing...

United Kingdom on Jun 28, 2013

Charley Neill: I have been using reason 6.5 recently, and have recorded several orginal works mainly for purposes of providing demos to musicians that I intend to perform the music with live. I never thought that I would produce music to hand to a listener for simple enjoyment of a good recording.

Recently I decided that I wanted to go to a pofessional studio to record something to distribute. I wanted to be able to talk with the engineer in his own language, so i decided to educate myself by reading up on the matter. After reading three different books, I stumbled across this one. I noticed that it had very high ratings from significantly more readers than the previous books. This book was an automated Amazon suggestion. I rented it. Started reading, and it sucked me in.

The only downfall to reading this book is that I'm a law student, and i really needed to be reading my law books. I let this book take me away!

Any way... Cut to the chase right?!
Each chapter gives an assignment, and I decided to actually do these assignments reading the book in order. This is very imoortant if you want to really gain from this book! I chose one of my songs, erased ever plugin and...

United States on May 04, 2013