Become a better mixer with the best tools (but for less cash)

As well as producing music of different flavours, training your focus on the mixing process in general will mean you’ll want to allocate your budget to some more specialised tools…

It’s a process that many artists take for granted, but the mixing process can be as creatively imperative as writing that killer hook, chord structure or beat. Mixing requires both patience and attention to detail. It’s where you shape your track from a collection of overlaid stems into a coalescence of sonic splendour. Synths need to pump, guitars need to scream, beats need to be fat, and vocals need to be crystalclear, and all of this frequency-honing is done during the mix stage.

Though some artists tend to be self-sufficient, mixing as they go, training yourself to be a focused expert in this process, while keeping to a reined-in budget isn’t an impossible task. Firstly, getting a grip on how EQ-works, and how detailed plugins can give you an exploded view of every facet of the sound in question, is vital. Learning about EQ, as well as the re-tuning, effect-selection, harmonic balancing and overall stereo-positioning of each stem can be easily done with a budget approach too.

While any DAW will be fit for these processes, we feel that pushing you towards a one-year subscription to Pro Tools – the industry standard for mix engineers everywhere – is a good choice at this stage. Get to grips with it – and its onboard mixing capabilities – and you’ll be primed to use it in a more professional context down the line.

Elsewhere, we’ve chosen some solid compression and EQ options from Waves and FabFilter respectively. Big names in the plugin world, Fabfilter’s Pro-Q 3 might seem like overkill at this stage, but arming yourself with one of the industry’s top drawer EQ champions isn’t an unwise purchase. We also recommend Oeksound Soothe 2 – a dynamic resonance suppressor that operates via ever-changing algorithms to make each part of the mix shine…