Should You Have Professional Mix Engineer Mix Your Music?

Now this is a great topic of discussion and I’m really excited to have the opportunity to share my thoughts with you on it. Not just because I’m a professional mix engineer, but also because any one who plans to release their music to the world on any level has to eventually ask themselves the question if they should pay a professional or learn to mix themselves. But before we dive into this, it’s really important for me to let you know that my opinion will not be coming from any place of bias whatsoever. My job is to give accurate information and most importantly, give you the truth! The music industry is hard enough as it is and the last thing people need are a bunch of hustlers just trying to get your money and who could care less if the information they give you is accurate or not. Which I'm sure you’re aware of because unfortunately, it’s all too common on the internet. But enough about hustlers and misinformation, let’s get into this all important topic.

Intession Music Tech is all about educating home studio owners on how to record and mix their own music to a level in which they can get the results they want doing it all themselves. So in large part, our business is built around you learning to mix your music yourself. But if you plan on releasing your music to the world and or having a career in the music industry then at some point, you will really have to address this question seriously and make that tough decision on paying a professional to do it for you. And as someone who is now a professional mix engineer that started out his career as an artist, I thoroughly understand this dilemma and will address all the key factors that you need to look at in order to make a clear, educated decision. And I believe that once you’ve answered 5 key questions, your decision will be very clear as to if you should pay a professional to mix your music.

The 5 key questions that you need to answer are…

1. What do you specialize in?

2. What are your music goals?

3. Do you have the time to learn to mix properly?

4. What value do you place on mixing? 

5. How do you know you’re good enough to not need a professional?

1. What Do You You Specialize In?

How much you choose to learn about mixing is completely tied to what aspect of music you focus on? Do you have a band? Are you a producer, an artist or both? This ultimately plays a major role in what your decision will be. For example, if you’re a producer and beat maker, you actually have to learn to mix to a certain level as it just comes with the territory. But if you’re a band or an artist, learning to mix can be much less of a necessity even if you have your own studio. So artists and bands are going to be much more likely to source out professionals to mix their music simply because it’s not as directly tied to their everyday workflow and job. On the other hand, producers are essentially always mixing to a degree so they will be more inclined to want to learn to do it well themselves. But just because as a producer you may need to learn the basics of mixing, by no stretch does that mean you should be doing the final mixing of your projects if you’re putting them out on a professional level. Especially if you’re working with other artists. 

2. What Are Your Music Goals?

This is the probably the most important question that will determine if you should be paying for a professional mix engineer or not. And in my opinion it’s pretty simple. If you are planning on having any sort of career in the music industry or eventually want to earn money from your music then you should %100 percent have a professional mix your music until you feel your mixes can stack up and compete with the competition. There’s just too much incredible music available to not have your music mixed professionally. And in many ways it could even be looked at as irresponsible.  But if you’re not making music for those reasons, then paying for a professional is definitely not a necessity and are probably better off saving your money and doing it yourself. But don’t get me wrong, I have clients that have no real desire to make money off their music but still want to release professional grade music and pay to have it mixed but that’s just a personal decision people make.

3. What Value Do You Place On Mixing?

You wouldn’t believe how many times I've seen inexperienced mixers make a song sound much worse after mixing it than the raw recording itself. And if you’re an artist, I know there’s a good chance this has happened to you at some point. It’s experiences like this that instantly reveal to people the massive value in mixing. But if you’re new to music and recording, you just don’t know enough about mixing to gauge a value to put on it. But it doesn’t take long before people understand that bad mixing does much more damage than good and this realization simultaneously puts a ton of value on mixing. 

So if your ultimate goal is to sell your music as a professional, it only makes sense to have a professional mix your music even if you know a bit about mixing. There’s a massive difference in results between a professional mix and someone still learning the ropes. Because even for people that don’t know much about mixing, most of them can clearly hear the difference from an experienced engineer to one that’s not. 

Now the term professional is all relative when it comes to mixing, but I would classify a professional as someone that has at least a few years of experience mixing for professional or semi professional artists consistently. Or someone that does music as a full time job. 

While all of this seems like common sense, there will always be artists and producers that are fully aware of the importance of mixing but they still can’t justify shelling out the cash for a professional. For most artists, that money could be going into more important things like photo shoots, videos and nights at the club promoting their music. And there’s no doubt that those things are important but I assure you they are no more important than having professional mixes. 

So if your goal is to release music in hopes of having a career in the music industry, you must find a way to fit mixing into your budget until you’ve developed the skills to do it good enough yourself (if that’s your plan). The fans may not always notice the difference but professionals and peers in the industry will know right away if you have a “good” mix or not. And the mentality that most professionals hold is that if you don’t have quality mixes then you're not taking your music seriously enough, limiting future opportunities to build crucial relationships. 

4. Do You Have Time To Learn How To Mix Properly? 

I know most of you don’t want to hear this but it’s important that I keep stressing it. But the  reality is that it takes years to become a great mixer, therefore great mixes ultimately come at a price. Either costing you a lot of time or money (depending on how much music you are releasing). And even though this is the truth of it, It’s also vitally important for new artists and producers to understand that mixing can make or break your songs in a flash. Many will argue that good music is good music regardless of how good the mix is and I actually agree with that to a degree. 

So then the question becomes, why is a mix so important if the song is well written and well recorded? Mainly because all of the competition has their music mixed and regardless of how good the song might be, it just won’t be able to compete with a really good song that is also mixed well. And actually now more than ever, great mixing has become a must because anyone has the tools to do it from wherever they might be making their music. All we need is recording software, so there’s really no excuse not to have a good mix these days. Whereas in the past, even commercial studios didn’t have even a fraction of the tools available to enhance recordings that the digital music age does. 

If you’re an artist or band…

But just because we have all of the tools available for anyone to learn how to mix, does that mean that you should be putting a lot of time into learning how to mix? This comes back to what your music goals are. I feel that if you’re serious about becoming a professional artist or band you most likely won’t have time to learn to mix really well, simply because it’s not high on the priority list. It’s great to learn the basics and enough to “get by” especially when you first start recording music but if you find yourself wanting to get serious about a music career then more time should be put into perfecting your craft, writing music, performing and marketing.

If you’re a producer or beat maker…

Like we discussed earlier, mixing is now as much of a part of the process as the compositions themselves. You have no choice but to learn how to mix, but to what extent? Most producers will end up recording artists in their studios and will eventually have to learn to mix to some degree because of the clients expectations of recording a studio. It’s essentially part of the job so I feel that there’s no way around learning how to mix well if you want to be a successful producer. So it’s not as much about having time to do it but more of a necessity. As a producer, you have to make time to learn to mix regardless of how much you like it or not.

5. How Do You Know You're Good Enough Not To Need A Professional?

What an all important question this is! We all know that trying to gauge skill level in any art has never been easy for anyone because it’s so subjective. And even though there’s an objective element to mixing, there’s still no system or standard available for people to refer to. So that means people really only have a few options…

Number 1:

Trust your ears enough to know that your mixes sound as good as the competition. But this also means that you have to be honest enough with yourself to objectively know your mixes really do sound as good as the competition. This is always tougher that you might think. Most people seem to find themselves too far left or too far right so to speak. They either think their mixes will never be good enough or they think that their mixes are far better than they really are. I see this all of the time. But if you have enough experience and you can look at your music objectively, trusting your ears is one way to know if your mixes are up to par.

Number 2: 

Getting the green light from industry professionals that your mixes are done well. And in my opinion, this is probably the best and most credible way to know where you stand. If professionals and peers you trust and value their opinions are giving you solid feedback, then you’re likely at a stage where you can take the reins of mixing your own music for the purposes of releasing it professionally. And if you don’t have a lot of people in your network to turn to for advice, you can always send your music to submission sites. Most of them will give you valuable feedback on how you can improve your tracks. It might cost a bit of money but it’s a great investment for your future.

Number 3:

knowing that you’ve put in enough work and time towards your craft to be confident in your skills. From my experience in life, it usually takes the average person around four years or so to really start getting some decent results in any skill we try and develop. Now of course this is all relative to many factors but I feel it’s a legit way to gauge your skills in anything. So if you have some years of mixing under your belt, there’s a solid chance you are capable of doing it all yourself. 

Hopefully this cleared things up for you!

One thing that I’ve learned over the years that's just as important as anything we’ve discussed so far and really needs to be taken into consideration here is that mixing just isn’t for everybody. It requires a lot of technical knowledge that many artists and producers aren’t privy to and don’t really care about learning. They just want to write, record and compose songs and that’s great. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that and I even strongly encourage this for many people. But even artists and producers who do enjoy the mixing process need to understand the importance of having a professional mix, especially if your goal is to have a career in music. 

In the end, if you’re still early in your mixing journey but are releasing music consistently, I would strongly advise you to invest your money into a professional until you are confident your skills can stack up to at least the status quo. There’s just too much competition out there. I’ve seen too many people in my career underestimate the importance of having a good mix and not paying for a professional to get it done properly. The negative effects of this can be much worse than you think. I’ve seen people get so discouraged that they stop making music period because they didn’t like how their songs were turning out. And it’s not that the music was bad, the mixes were bad but they didn’t have enough experience to bridge the gap as to what the primary problem was. So not only will your music sound much better but it will also be taken more seriously by peers and industry professionals, if that’s the goal. 

Want me to mix your music?

If you’re still in the process of figuring this mix thing out and are wanting to release music with the intention of building an audience and generating an income and feel you could use a professional touch. Click the link here and shoot me a message if you’re interested in getting a JA Mixdown!