Pro Studio Live Business Skills and Mixing Techniques [TUTORiAL]

Tune into this episode to learn some extremely valuable business and audio advice from DR Ford. He explains some essential advice, from tips on running your own studio, to advice on marketing, and how to price your services. He discusses what to look for in a client, how to get ahead as a music producer or engineer when you’re first starting out, and how he preps for his first meeting with a client. He also covers some great exercises for evolving and tuning your ear as an engineer, and gives us some tips for mixing. Tune in to learn some great theory about mixing, including how the golden ratio influences mixing, how human psychology influences mixing, and how he treated each instrument in his example mix for this episode. It’s an extremely informative episode for anyone looking to make a living off engineering or producing.

Also in this episode:

• Business tips for running your own studio
• Compression tips: how to make your mixes sound more analog and how to develop your ear for compression
• The importance of having a relationship with your mastering engineer, as a mixing engineer
• Ways to get ahead as a music producer/engineer starting out
• Why you shouldn’t rent a studio right out of school
• Defining your sphere of influence
• Advice on referral business and the seasonality of your clients in the audio world
• Importance of marketing campaigns: how to not be spam, but still get your name out
• Tips for running a marketing campaign
• DR Ford shows his marketing materials, and outlines the essential components, so you can understand how to put together your own
• How to approach musicians to get business, and the importance of establishing a relationship
• Establishing a dialogue with a potential/interested client
• How we should adapt to changes in the industry
• DR Ford’s formula for establishing your rates, and advice for negotiating with clients/potential clients
• Habits to improve business as a self employed engineer
• Things to consider if you want to build a good enough setup to work from home
• What he brings to a meeting with a potential client, the prep work that he does, and how to conduct the meeting
• Details on contracts and the importance of contracts
• Controlling the mid-range
• Calibrating your studio monitors and the importance of calibrating your studio
• Picking a speaker that complements your room acoustics
• The equilateral triangle and speaker position
• Measurements to take to place your studio monitors and set up your studio
• Free/cheap tools to use to tune a room (apps)
• The Fletcher-Munson Curve
• Working with transients and compressors, exercises to help you understand and develop your ear
• The importance of constants when training your ears
• Understanding the tone balance of your audio
• Mid-side compression: understanding the stereo field and how important it is for bus compression
• His day by day timeline when working with a musician on a track: what they do in which order
• Vocal production tips
• Organizational tips for your session
• Rendering tracks tips
• Efficiency tips so you can get more done in fewer man hours
• Parallel compression advice and tips
• Why he likes to use faders instead of wet dry mix knobs within plugins
• Template advice, including making presets for your plugins
• Why he likes to print things like drum sample tracks
• How he treated the bass in this mix
• How he treated the guitars in the mix: what he likes on guitar, and his decision making process for guitars
• The 3 columns of sound
• Advice on correctly utilizing width and height in your mix
• The golden ratio and mixing
• Listening for the “general” in your mix
• Catering to the tastes of the genre’s fans, and the importance of keeping in mind the culture of a genre

Not convinced yet? Check out these free excerpts from the episode:

1) Using Parallel Compression to Exaggerate Ghost Notes

In this clip, DR Ford shows us how to use parallel snare compression to exaggerate ghost notes, and gives us some advice on using EQ [pre compression]. Watch this clip to learn more ways to treat drums!

2) How to Measure and Place Your Studio Monitors

Watch this clip for advice from DR Ford on how to properly position your studio monitors within your studio.

3) Experiments to Develop your Ear for Compression

Watch this clip to see just one of DR Ford’s compression experiments that help you understand how it works, and develop your ear. In this clip, he runs a blended click and sine wave through a compressor.

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