Product Description

Secrets of the top mixing engineers are revealed in this second edition of the bestselling Mixing Engineer’s Handbook. In this edition, you will learn about the history and evolution of mixing, various mixing styles, the six elements of a mix, the rules for arrangement and how they impact your mix, where to build your mix from, and mixing tips and tricks for every genre of music. You will also learn the secrets of EQ and the “magic frequencies,” along with tips and tricks for adding effects, EQ’ing reverbs, effects layering, calculating the delay time, and much more. A lot has changed in the recording industry since the last edition was published seven years ago, so the new edition provides completely updated information on tips for a loud mix, hypercompression, mixing for Internet distribution, warning signs of an amateur mix, MP3 encoding, streaming audio, audio codecs, de-essing, gating, surround sound mixing, and more. There is also a completely new chapter on how to get the most from mixing inside your computer, as well as a new section on the bass/drum relationship and how to make this difficult part of the mix easy. The book wraps up with insightful interviews with the top engineers in the fi eld, including George Massenburg, Allen Sides, Bruce Swedien, Elliot Scheiner, Andy Johns, Nathanial Kunkel, and several others. Join the tens of thousands of engineers who have used this book to master the art of mixing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10106 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 290 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781598632514
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
A longtime veteran of the music industry, Bobby Owsinski has produced and composed for records, DVDs, motion pictures, and television shows. One of the first to delve into surround-sound music mixing, Bobby has worked on more than 200 surround projects and DVD productions for such diverse acts as Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, The Ramones, and Chicago, among many, many others. Currently a principal in the music production house Surround Associates and content creator 2B Media, Bobby has also penned several hundred articles for many popular music and audio trade publications and has authored books that are now staples in audio-recording programs in colleges around the world. A frequent moderator, panelist, and program director of a variety of music and professional audio industry conferences, Bobby has served as the longtime producer of the annual Surround Music Awards and is currently an executive producer for the Guitar Universe and Desert Island Music television programs. He is also a partner in the popular Asia Los Feliz restaurant in Los Angeles, and he serves on the board of directors of the Media Entertainment Technology Alliance.

Customer Reviews

The best I've run across
Are you looking for a "magic book" that tells you exactly how to set your EQ, compressor, or reverb for every situation? The bad news is, that book does not exist, and even if it did, it would surely render hideous results. There are far too many variables involved in recording, mixing and mastering even one single genre of music for any one formula to always work. The good news is that The Mixing Engineer's Handbook offers something even smarter: fundamental information that can be used in a wide variety of applications (just generally making the reader a smarter mixer) wrapped in copious straight-from-the-horse's-mouth tips and tricks from a bevy of the top names in mixing from virtually every genre. The book has enough "hard fact" charts, like the "magic frequencies" of numerous instruments and the forumlae for determining BPM and translating that into ms for delays and reverbs, to name only a few, that I found myself making photocopies of numerous pages to keep next to my mixing board for quick reference. But beyond that, the book offers so much general and ultimately FLEXIBLE advice that I find myself getting smarter about mixing just reading it. Rather than telling a reader how to always start a mix, for example, Owsinski offers five suggestions for logical places to start a mix (drums, bass, etc.) then offers a handful of single-paragraph suggestions by top mixers in various genres to support one idea or another, leaving it to the reader to decide which makes most sense for his/her work. It is the very fact that these suggestions by the pros are often contradictory that really gives a reader a broad perspective, leaving it to the reader to decide with which pro they align their own work most closely. In addition, there is an entire section devoted to detailed interviews with these same mixmasters, which amounts to getting a chance to pick the brains of the tops in the industry. I've tried numerous books on this topic, and this is the ONLY one that I find myself revisiting again and again, both as a reference at the mixer and also as casual reading away from the gear to expand my knowledge. The more advanced engineer will find this book lacking in details; one would need to look elsewhere for extremely micro-level discussions of the function of EQs, compressors, etc. That level of detail is usually only addressed in books devoted exclusively to that one piece of gear. This book, instead, provides the beginning/intermediate mixer -- the home and project studio guy -- an outstanding knowledge base from which to take his/her mixes to the next level.

Improved mixing skill
This book takes you through the six (6) steps on how to succeed with a great mix. * Balance - the volume level relationship between musical elements * Frequency Range - having all frequencies properly represented * Panaorama - placing a musical element in the sound field * Dimension - adding ambience to a musical elememt * Interest - making the mix special

Within each step the author also has put in comments from famous producers like Bruce Swedien, David Sussman, George Massenburg, Joe Chiccarelli and more covering the actual topic. A good thing because you get the feeling that the methods in the book also has a practical use and that they work. And they do! Each step has it's own chapter and is filled with tips and tricks both from the author and the producers.

A chapter explaining the basics of mixing in surround is included in the book too. Though the author is not going into any depths it's good to get started on the topic. Some links to websites about surround mixing are there so maybe there will be more in future releases of this book.

At the end of the book there is a chapter with exclusive interviews with 20! top producers. The interview questions are connected to the 6 steps you learned earlier in the book so it is a very good finish. The questions can be like "Where do you build your mix from?", Do you use a lot of compression?", What's is your approach to panning?", "Do you have any listening tricks?" and lots of others.

Well, what can I say. I have improved my mixing skill a lot by reading this book. It is so great because you know other people are doing successful hitmusic using the methods described in this book. You don't get anything for free without practice but you know you are on the right track! I don't give it five stars, just 4 because I feel that a CD-rom with audio examples connected to the book would be awesome here! Maybe in the future? I seriously recommend this book!

Johan Salomonsson, Sweden Email: cwd@swipnet.se

Pretty good "conceptual" material.
It is not a real "handbook" in the traditional sense of the word (i.e. a handbook used by mixing engineers), but rather conceptual ideas that point out the key elements of mixing for the beginner.

The reality of this book is that the content is based on a series of pretty informative interviews that are transcribed verbatum in 2nd half of the book. The first half of the book is the author's summary of the usable data culled from the interviews, and presented in a organized fashion.

The 6 aspects covered (that comprise a good mix) should certainly help beginners start thinking about mixing in ways that don't ordinarily occur to beginners. In essence, what this book does best is to tap into the experience of very experienced engineers, and then present "what the experts do" in various scenarios.

There are NOT so much specifics as there are general guidlines. It is not so much "step-by-step instructions" or "hard reference" as it is a "starting point." There ARE useful things like where to start the mix from, and tables that show where to find the EQ frequencies that effect different instruments--for example, to bring out the slap sound on a bass guitar. Further guidlines suggest, which effects and settings (in broad terms) to use to emphasize/de emphasize other aspecs.

I'm a beginner, and it has been a good resource for me.