Do you ever get envious of the shiny studios super producers and mixers work in while you’re trying to produce great mixes from your bedroom studio?
If your answer is no to that question, what else are you lying about?!
Jokes aside… the truth is that much fewer projects than people think are being produced in high end studios these days than ever before.
Like the rest of the world right now (during the COVID-19 shitstorm), the majority of producers, mixers and songwriters are working from home. The difference between us and the rest of the working world is that trend was in place long before the emergence of the novel coronavirus.
When I say bedroom studio, your studio may or may not literally be in your bedroom. A lot of the world’s biggest producers like Benny Blanco have their studios in a spare bedroom, converted garage or other home space.
Great mixing engineers like Tom Lord-Alge have built their own studios at home.
You might notice straight away that Benny has a few more toys than you do or that Tom’s studio is much more high end than most bedroom studios but don’t stress out and buy into limitation just yet!
Stay with me…
I used to have the limiting belief that it wasn’t possible to produce anything of merit from a home studio
That stuck with me for a long time and thankfully, I’ve had access to great recording studios since I was 17 years old. That’ll skew your perspective a little!
About 8 years ago, I was working a full time job as an engineer/sound designer in a nice studio and producing/mixing from my bedroom studio at home in the evenings.
However, I couldn’t produce the same quality of work at home that I was able to produce in the studio with confidence.
So, I bought into that and it became a belief that stuck with me.
“I’ll never be able to achieve the same mixing results at home as I can in a studio”
I want to tell you right now that belief is total horseshit.
Now, I’m going to prove it to you and give you eight tips on how you can get great mixes in your bedroom studio.
But first, a short story…
When I first moved to London, my connections in the industry were limited. I had to slowly develop relationships with new studios but there were no “mates rates” available to me. Those studios had overheads and they needed to be paid their hourly fee.
I had landed a great gig that meant I would need to spend a lot of time on sound design and mixing but I had no reliable setup and remember that I thought, “I couldn’t get the same results at home that I would in a studio“.
Recording studios and mix rooms are businesses. They need to be paid and make a profit like everyone else.
So, out of necessity, I got resourceful and the first tip I have for you is this…
Like I said… you’re going to be charged by the hour when you go to a commercial studio. If you have a slightly unproductive day, you’re eating into the profit on your job.
I realised I’d need to avoid paying exorbitant London studio rates and work from home. So, I got myself a good set of studio monitors and set myself up to work from my bedroom.
It was a deep dive for me but it paid off.
My limiting belief didn’t leave me too quickly though. Every time I was going into a studio for vocal recording sessions, paranoid Stephen brought his mixes with him to test them out in a treated room.
Guess what? They stood up. They translated. No one died.
Over time, I stopped testing the mixes in a treated room and trusted my gut.
I was working on an animation series for CBBC. The first season’s mixing was done completely in a commercial studio in Dublin.
All sound design and mixing for season two (and three) was done from my bedroom in London.
The composer(s) and I were nominated for a Best Sound Design & Music award for season two.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you proof that you can get great mixes from home in an untreated room.
And that leads me to tip 2…
Before I start this, I want you to know that if you disagree with me, that’s fine. I’ve proven that you can get great mixes in untreated rooms so if you’ve spent thousands treating your room and believe that’s the only way… that’s awesome and I respect that too!
But this isn’t all about me…
Mike Dean is one of the world’s greatest producers and mixers. He’s worked with Kanye West, Madonna, Travis Scott and many more. It’ll only take a quick Google search for you to find many stories about him mixing from his apartment and hotel rooms around the world.
Andrew Scheps is known to mix on the road and often mixes tracks on headphones while he’s flying (in normal, non-virus times, when people could travel).
The examples and successes are endless.
You don’t need a treated room to produce great mixes but don’t get me wrong… I do understand the benefits of a treated room.
Yet when you’ve got some of the best people in the industry like the guys above churning out great mixes with ease from untreated spaces, it shouldn’t stop you either.
I get that you might be worried about how your room sounds, so I’ve got you covered with tip 3…
If you’re worried about how your room sounds, then read this.
If you want to skip reading it, then (spoiler alert) it goes into detail on how to position your studio monitors and how to use your reference set to improve accuracy.
I’m also aware that you might not be working from the same bedroom studio all the time. And I’m not talking about jumping into your neighbour’s bedroom to steal their WiFi!
Like Mike Dean, you might be on the road or working in another producer’s home studio.
If that’s the case, you’ll need to adjust quickly.
Tip 4 will help you with that…
Like the previous tip, I wrote a whole article on this.
The spoiler to this one is again all about using references to help you hear the differences in the room, avoid wasting time and keep your mix from falling apart!
No matter where you go, you should be able to mix with ease and confidence in your decisions.
While we’re talking about decisions…
Did you know that creative people can sometimes be a little indecisive and go off track?!
I want you to focus on one word and one word alone… COMMIT!
If you’ve made a mixing decision and you start getting paranoid that your compression isn’t as good as CLA’s or maybe your beard isn’t as glorious as Rick Rubin’s yet, I want you to pause and breathe.
If your beard genetics are anything like mine, Rick Rubin’s epic beard is a long way off and it’s probably not the source of all his powers. Or is it?!
Now, that’s the type of thinking that will take you way off track.
Be comfortable in your home environment and enjoy the privilege of distraction-free mixing time in your bedroom studio. You definitely won’t get that in a commercial studio.
And if you’re wondering how to increase your musical productivity, I’ve got you covered here.
I believe a poor mixer blames their tools. You really don’t need a whole lot of gear to get started.
You might have noticed that I’ve mentioned studio monitors a few times in this article but you don’t even need those. If you’re especially worried about how your room sounds, it might even suit you better to start without them.
To start mixing from your bedroom studio, you need three things:
- A desktop/laptop computer
- A DAW
- A pair of headphones
Keep limitations on your gear and not in your beliefs.
There are stories about Skrillex working on songs with blown speakers and you’d have to be living under a rock to not know about Finneas and Billie Eilish starting their careers from Finneas’ bedroom.
It’s all doable with the minimum of gear.
Not only that but when I have too many plugin or gear options available, I get spoiled and if I’m under time pressure, I end up going back to what I know. Keeping your gear options limited can be very helpful.
And if you’ve “upgraded” from headphones to studio monitors and you’re still super paranoid about how your room sounds, then tip 7 is for you…
Mixing at low volume is the ultimate mixing secret because you’ll save your ears, take a lot of the dodgy room acoustics out of the equation and the mix will sound much better when it’s cranked.
More on that here.
So you’ve produced what you think is a great mix but how do you know if it’s going to sound great outside your bedroom studio? Will your mixes translate?
Well, you test it, of course.
Go through the seven tests here, compare your notes and make your final mixing tweaks.
Your mix is then ready for the world, so get it out there!
I love mixing and I love music. I’ve been held back by limiting beliefs at times and I hope that my story above and the tips listed in this article will give you the belief that you can do it – even if you’re working from a bedroom studio.
In fact, it’s probably the greatest of all times to be working from a bedroom studio. We’ve had to open, shut and adjust the capacity of the studio I work out of quite a few times over the past few months (thanks COVID), so I’m pretty much working from my home studio full time now.
I want you to believe that it is absolutely possible to create great mixes from a bedroom/home studio. Now, more than ever!
So, let’s get to it…
Now, I’d love to know…
Do you enjoy producing and mixing from home? Why?
Leave a comment below!
professional sounding mix every time...
so, frankly I just stopped listening or reading all the yay and nay concerning commercial as opposed to home studios…this is a very good article and speaks the truth…don’t worry about anything!..just make music!
Thanks Doc! Yes, exactly. Have fun and make music!