A common question when planning for a record is how much to budget for mixing. (Check this out if you’re not sure what mixing is.) Unfortunately, there is no universal answer. Ta da! That was helpful, wasn’t it? Seriously though, my usual response is: “Double what you plan to spend tracking and expect to spend that mixing.” In my experience, it’s a formula that works for the majority of bands.

Some folks are surprised that mixing requires that much of an investment. After all, you spent all that time tracking to make sure you got just the right sound. Isn’t it now just a matter of twisting some pots and sliding some faders?

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I am not a total purist about lists. This list is about records that I either heard in 2008 or came out in 2008.

1. 1. Angela Desveaux: The Mighty Ship - I played a show with a band a few weeks ago. We opened for them. And they had their record on vinyl. It’s insanely good. The drummer is mind blowing. I’ve not seen a drummer lean in to his hits in forever. I’ve never seen someone so expressive. Oh and the music is beautiful. And Angela’s voice is wonderful.

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If you stand outside our studio on any given afternoon, you can hear the rumble and roar of the freight trains rolling through an open below-grade pass half a block from our building. This, along with the noise of the buses clambering up Charles Street and the boom of heels on the floor above, presented our first challenges in designing our studio. Not to mention the concerns our neighbors had of a bunch of crazy musicians playing all day and all night right next door. There were many times in the process of planning this renovation when we considered the possibility that we had lost our minds. This was one of them.

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We frequently come across misconceptions about mixing and mastering. The two processes are often confused so I thought I’d take a moment to explain how we approach the two very different undertakings.

Once a band or artist is done tracking and overdubbing the parts of a song, an engineer will mix it. This is the time when all the levels of all the individual parts (instrumentals, vocals, etc) are adjusted up and down to find the perfect mix. Reverbs are added, where necessary. Vocals are compressed if they pop out at certain points. Bum notes are muted, if they distract.

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