Should You Mix While Producing?

Beginners often spend too much time tweaking EQ and compression on individual elements during production, causing them to lose motivation and never finish their tracks.

• Audio producers tend to be perfectionists wanting everything to sound perfect • People emulate big producers and mixing engineers without realizing they have decades of experience • Focus on polishing small details instead of seeing the bigger picture of arrangement and structure

This approach causes people to miss the bigger picture, reduces enjoyment, and prevents songs from being completed.

What takes experienced producers seconds to accomplish (like setting compression on a kick drum) can take beginners 20 minutes or longer.

• Sound design sessions: create samples and explore synthesizers • Production sessions: focus on arrangement and songwriting with pre-made sounds • Sample sessions: develop drum kits and percussion elements

Pick a synthesizer like Serum, choose a reference sound, and work to recreate it. Even if you don't get it perfectly, you'll learn synthesis techniques along the way.

By starting production sessions with a library of sounds you already like and trust, you avoid beginning with a blank canvas and can focus on arrangement instead of mixing.

While production sessions naturally generate new sounds and samples, the separation allows you to keep the focus on songwriting rather than getting bogged down in mixing details.

When adding elements like bass, begin with minimal processing: just an EQ and a tiny bit of saturation to move the sound forward, nothing more.

Seeing a finished bass processing chain with saturation, compression, EQ, exciter, imager, and amplifier makes beginners think they need all that complexity immediately.

Know that you can add more processing later when you come back to refine the sound. The initial goal is just to have something workable that lets you continue with other elements.

Focusing minimal effort on individual elements allows you to work on drums, synths, and the overall arrangement, which creates a greater sense of accomplishment.

Learning guitar taught the lesson that you must separate practice sessions (learning scales, chords, techniques) from recording and performance sessions.

• Dedicated 15-20 minute practice sessions for specific techniques like eighth notes and sixteenth notes • Practicing Barre chords with proper tempo and precision outside of recording context

When you come to a recording session well-prepared from separate practice, you're more confident and perform better than trying to practice while simultaneously recording.

The same principle applies to music production: separate your practice and technical skill-building from your creative production sessions.

Take a look at your workflow and identify times when you're not focusing on what's important and might be killing the vibe or energy.

Everyone's workflow is different, and there are talented people who can do mixing and producing simultaneously. The advice applies to normal producers juggling music as both job and hobby.

• Keep enjoying the creative process • Have fun making music • Continuously improve your skills

The channel is moving to less frequent uploads to focus on higher quality production rather than struggling to maintain a weekly schedule.