The Art of the Mix

What do arranging and mixing look like in a modern
recording studio or home studio? In the era of
self-production (where the lines between composer,
engineer, arranger and producer are blurred) and
recording in a DAW with unlimited tracks and
unlimited arrangement possibilities, arranging and
production have become tasked with efficient
work-flow and effective decision making (about
everything from sonic signatures to degrees of
quantization), as much as they involve analyzing
musical content.

In this class, we will learn how to decide what
your recording needs and doesn't need in order to
be engaging to listen to. We will learn how to use
a range of studio production techniques to
arrange, enhance and mix our ideas
correspondingly. We will also use our ears to
identify why our favorite recordings work so well,
and apply these strategies to our own recordings.

This class will include listening sessions that
analyze arrangement and production techniques for
popular and experimental music; hands-on studio
production technique workshops for instrumental,
structural and spatial arrangement;
individually-tailored demo development sessions
and whole-class critiques.