Differentiating between Producing and Mixing/Learning Resources

[Gorgo56]

Hi,

I'm am currently struggling with distinguishing between producing and actual mixing. Being a self taught electronic music producer (and of course my own mixing and mastering engineer ), whenever i look up tutorials or guides on specific problems, i am presented with various techniques and approaches to that. For example the "3 reverb approach" in mixing to create space, or drum compression and drum processing in general. I never know if the presented stuff is meant for the mixing stage only, or should be applied during production already.
I am in general in desperate need of structure, so bits of advice are nice, but maybe pointing me to any affordable resources (like a book or course), which i can cling onto to finally get my workflow organized and a clear understanding of what i have been doin so amateurishly the last few years would be awesome.
I work in FL and various synths, so in a perfect world, there is this "Dark Deep dubstep from Production to Master for idiots in FL-Studio course" somewhere. I only found a 4 hour one on Ghosthack by some kid whose youtube vids seem more aimed at absolute beginners and trying to sell sample packs, somehow i feel i would feel disappointed buying that one...

[BertKoor]

I think these days there is no difference anymore. There is no audio engineer doing the recording and mixing, we're all producers.

The old work stages:
- composition / writing
- arranging
- recording
- mixing
- mastering
- publishing

Note that there is no "production" stage. A producer plays a directing role in some stages. Decisions about effects is a production thing, while mixing. It's not completely wrong.

[enroe]

Nevertheless, I often think that it would be better to keep these different stages separate:

- composition / writing
- arranging
- recording
- mixing
- mastering

Why actually?

Because the song result - at least for us - is better if we ONLY compose first.
So that the abstract composition is right. Only when the overall feeling is right,
when the whole song has a good arc of tension, does it make sense to worry
about the further editing steps "recording", "arrangement", ... etc.

[ChanceB]

Check out some videos by AU5 ,Mr Bill, Alkemy Neuro,Seamless R on You Tube, see how they do things.Watching tutorials for traditional style composition ,recording,mixing ,mastering is not particularly helpful for someone looking to make modern Bass music/Dance in my opinion, the process is different. Sound design,effects,dynamics ,arrangement,automation ,mixing,loudness etc. is all very interconnected and can’t really be done in separate stages.

[billinder33]

^^^ What ChanceB said. A completely separate mix stage really only makes sense in organic music styles. For electronic styles, you're really doing both at the same time because so much of sound design is about fitting your instruments in the mix.

To give you an idea of a typical process that I've fallen into over the years, I compose and 'pre-mix' all at the same time. Usually with headphones so I can hear in intimate detail what's happening with each of the instruments as I'm working on them. Often on my couch, a cafe, or my second home retreat... Whatever makes me comfortable and wherever inspiration hits. By the time the composition is complete, 85% of the project's final mix sound is done.

For 10% of that remaining 15%, on a day just dedicated to mixing, I will mix the song like an actual studio mix session. Seated at my desk in my acoustically treated room in front of room-corrected studio monitors. No arranging or sound designing. Just QA'ing each track for cleanliness, unwanted noise, and EQ standards to make sure nothing has been overlooked. Listening to reference mixes for mix balance targets. Ensuring all levels and panning makes sense. Doing 'coat room checks', phase alignment checks, and ensuring the entire track works in in mono. Validating that the entire mix works together and translates to different listening environments including small consumer speakers. These mix sessions are much shorter than the kind of mix sessions you'd see in rock music productions, typically between 1-2 hours.

And for the final 5%, usually on a different day from the mix session, I will take the mix project, and do a separate mastering session. This time just doing any final light-touch dynamics, EQ, mid-side processing, loudness processing, and export formatting that needs done. This is usually under 1 hour of work.

But pretty much all of the creative mixing work is done in production. The last two stages are really dedicated to the technical aspects of the mix - track checking, low level fixes, validating, translation, and adherence to standards and formats.

Putting a day or more between the creative side and the technical side can help you retain your perspective.

Hope that helps.

[kritikon]

I'm with Bert. TBH I didn't know that "producer" was anything specific in the whole process. I started out doing somewhat separate processes but that was in a different age/different setup so it made sense at the time. I still use a lot of hw but nowadays I do it all, in no particular order. I don't see any point even in recording a bare mix that will be later mastered, though yeah I used to do that. I get a finished mastered end product from the whole arrangement/mixer that is mixed, bussed, processed and mastered all one the 1 screen in the DAW that includes live hw, midi channels hw and VSTi and individual samples/sample channels with God knows how many FX channels and busses. My hw is generally rendered down to audio, so a separate mix gives me no advantages or loss of retraceability etc. I can still recall it all if I ever want to redo it (which I almost never do). And if I want to redo something, I'll probably want to rejig mixing, composition, mastering, pretty well everything anyway, so why split it up into sections.

Yeah, I get the "organisation" aspect. Some people are tidier or more process-driven or logical than others. But there's no right way. You can do 26 different steps from A to Z or I prefer to just have the whole alphabet in one big jigsaw and do it in one process. I always thought "producing" means the whole thing - it's why that name came into being in recent years.

On the other hand, there are people with specific talents out there, and I'm absolutely certain I could get better tracks by having a "mixing engineer" do my mixes for me. Which means doing things a certain way to get your stems or whatever to the engineer. But most of us do it all ourselves, so do it however sits easily with your mindset. I still compose after I've done some mixing and vice versa, and I have an idea of my gainstaging and master levels etc way before I'm mastering. If you're wholly digital, you don't even really need to gainstage except for reasons of neatness/organisation.

[vurt]

production, is the whole.

mixing, is part of the whole.

[Frankie.T]

The difference between production and mixing is important and are a lot.

The most important is the purpose.

While producing, you use eq, compressors, reverbs... to make your sound to be the way you like, as part of your artistic choice, and more close to sound design than mixing.

While mixing you use the same plugins to help every sound to fit a right place in the mix. I.e. you may want something to be in front of the mix, something else to be felt back.

Same tools different approaches, that's the difference.

It's like being a chef, when you cook your food doesn't looks good, but you need to cook it in the right way to make it tasteful (that's production).
Once everything is coocked, you want to place the food on the dish in a proper way to make your food look delicious as it is, so clients (listeners) can appreciate your cocking abilities and the food itself (the song) even more.

I also think it's important to keep these aspects separated, because it's easier and the overal result is better.