The Mixing Engineer's Handbook

by Bobby Owsinski

Mixing music—the process of combining and shaping the component parts of a song into a polished, completed recording—was once considered an unteachable art. The first edition of Bobby Owsinski’s The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook destroyed that myth forever, breaking the craft of mixing down into discrete, understandable steps and showing musicians, audio engineers, and producers exactly how to get great results in the studio. The book has since become the go-to text on mixing for recording programs in colleges and universities around the world. Now available in a completely revised fourth edition, The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook remains the best, most up-to-date source for mastering the art and science of creating pro-quality mixes Topics covered * The six elements of a mix, from achieving balance to creating interest * The secrets of equalization and “magic frequencies” * Advanced techniques expected of today’s mixer, like track cleanup, adjusting track timing, pitch correction, sound replacement, and automation tricks * Easy-to-grasp methods for adding effects, sonic layering, calculating delay, and much more The book also features 25 interviews with some of the music industry’s most successful and celebrated audio engineers/producers/mixers, who share their expertise, insights, and philosophies about mixing. Learn the art of mixing from start to finish, and pick up tips and techniques from the pros, with The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook, Fourth Edition.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Reference, Art, How To, Technical

314 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 1999

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a genius idea: interview a group of professionals and then edit together a book of their responses grouped by subject. Then devote an entire chapter to each person and you have a bit of essential reading for anyone with their eyes on the industry.

[Orçun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okumam çok çok uzun zaman aldı çünkü öğrendiğim her şeyi not alarak, bir kısmını deneyerek ilerledim. Öğrendiğim çok şey oldu. Kitabın yarısından çoğunun röportajlardan oluşması da bana sürpriz oldu açıkçası çünkü e-kitap okuyucudan okuduğum için içerisini karıştırma imkanım yoktu ve neyle karşılaşacağımı bilmiyordum.

Ayrıca, kesinlikle bir başlangıç kitabı değil. Ama konu hakkında bir takım bilgileri ve fikirleri olan fakat benim gibi ne yapacağını tam olarak kestirememiş kişileri en az 1-2 sene ileri götüreceği kesin.

[María Alejandra Duque · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for anyone interested in audio engineering

This book is a treasure of knowledge, and it has definitely shaped my craft and helped me build so much confidence in my mixing skills. Now I’m looking forward to get a physical copy of the fifth edition! I really need this gem among my shelves.

[Sanjay · Rating 4 out of 5]

mystic audio mixing knowledge from whom i imagine to be bearded white men like rick rubin

[Marlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to this book, my indie rock band, an isotope, was able to independently and successfully produce a six track EP a few months ago.

If you know nothing to very little about mixing sound in a recording studio environment, then this is the book for you. It explains things specifically like, how the mics should be set up on the amps, to figuring out what frequencies to boost in order to add more "punch" to the kick drum, to tweaking the reverb to make a single guitar sound fuller.

[nick messitte · Rating 4 out of 5]

i know it's not fiction, but this book is thoroughly useful, and the interviews with various mixing technicians couldn't be more helpful. It's amazing--you can read about how a famous engineer mixed the strings on a whitney houston album (as in, how he panned the strings, the amount of delay added to make it stereo, the model of reverb tank used, the specific compressor added to the mix buss), and then you can listen to the song and actually hear what he's talking about!!! It's a wonderful first step for anybody interested in this stuff.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

a good starting point, but not a crutch by any stretch. it's far too general to ever use as a reference manual.

[Morgan Dusatko · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book I've ever read.

[Lucam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started my music production journey about a year ago, and I'm not interested in becoming a mixing engineer, I only want to improve my productions. I think it's a testament to how much quality information is available for free on youtube nowadays that I can say that I already knew most concepts this book describes before reading it (not that I'm any good at it...). I will keep this book around as a reference as it has some really good technical information about specifics (which frequencies to EQ for each instrument, specific methods of compression, etc.). Generally speaking I found it ironic to read about sound in a book format, and I don't think I'll repeat the experience... you can't hear text, so you can't be convinced by the author's advices without taking a long time to try out everything (spoiler, I didn't so it's hard for me to evaluate the book).

[Aleksandar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps if this was the first book I read on mixing I would have given it 5 stars, but I actually expected more from it. Bobby definitely provides deep insights into mixing after picking the brains of some of the most successful engineers, but if you're looking for a solid framework on which to build you mixing skills, there are other books to read. This one is definitely more about the heart and the feels than the cerebral aspects of approaching a mix. And it's great that it provides that perspective! In particular, the way the author described Groove is not something I have encountered elsewhere and it's going to be something I implement in my own music.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really helpful info; useful even if you're not a beginner as the author has some great insights he shares from his experience. I took a bunch of notes even though a lot of the info wasn't brand new to me. Recommend.

[Joel Lacivita · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book for anyone wanting to know what the pros do when mixing a piece of music. I learned quite a bit. There are a few typos and the author says "that being said" quiet a bit, but those are minor quibbles. I highly recommend the book to anyone wanting to perfect their mixing skills.

[Nathan Warrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of useful information explained in an up to date way. A great resource to refer back to, with real life examples and interviews with top line producers and engineers. Now to learn how to apply it!

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of great mix strategies and ideas. The interviews at the end are a little tedious because Owsinski asks the same questions in each.

[james l. smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really helpful and informative.

[Karin Melon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very useful and informative. Probably gonna use this as a handbook for practice. Recommend this book for everyone who wants to do som mixing (beginner/intermediate and advanced).

[Santosh Pathak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hello, Im santosh from Nepal, in my country there is no international payment system. I want to read this book but i can not buy in this situation ! Please help me

[Dacord · Rating 4 out of 5]

I great overview about mixing!

[Kes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Learned a lot! All sorts of different approaches to the mixing art! Definitely useful for any amateur-producer at home!

[Sparkie Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, lots of useable info. It’s a book I will continue to refer to for guidelines. Love the interviews in the second half of the book.

[Jeff Ammons · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good intro to mixing concepts and ideas to play with.

[Aaron Myrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely informative at a basic - intermediate skill level. The section at the end where top producers and mixers give their advice made this book far more interesting for me.

[Rokas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could be shorter, and slightly out-dated, but its still very informative and helpful.

[Randhir Sandhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gold mine

[Justin Daab · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great practical guide to the more complex parts of creating a radio ready final mix.

[Mikael Lind · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really good tips here, but often, I miss a more general approach. The book sometimes goes into extreme details to help the reader get the best sound out of the snare drum, but then when it comes to the piano, it tells you nothing more than that with this and this EQ, you can get a similar sound as Elton John. I was hoping for a bit more than that!

This book could work very well for you if you're mixing typical best-selling pop/rock music. If you're mixing the new Radiohead, Sigur Rós, Brian Eno or similar "unconventional" music, it might not be as helpful as you had hoped for, actually. Still worth reading, of course.

[Austin · Rating 2 out of 5]

40% basic knowledge, 35% of that solid foundation for brand-new beginners. 60% old-dudes steady-gerkin about gear and musky potatoe-foot vibes from way-back-when. And it's the same questions for each of them, almost every time.

Definition of "old" isn't the point; this book is stale. That's the point. Lazy, not worth the price of admission.

[Fabio · Rating 4 out of 5]

A valuable tool for the novice/amateur engineer. As there's no real way to learn mixing other than experience and mentoring, this book puts in you hands tons of suggestions, opinions, best practices and tricks from those who do it to earn a living, including many "golden ears" from past and present days. No magic spells, but a lot of rules of thumb to use as a starting point to get better results.

[Roy]

This book is full of good advice from pro engineers about how to achieve certain results in a recording studio. Since I have owned and operated a recording studio, and worked in many others over the years, I find the advice and information in this book invaluable for my daily projects. I only hope to one day understand or have half the skill of these renowned engineers interviewed in this book!

[Ясен В. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had higher expectations for this book. 2.8/5

There is a lot of great information in it, but sometimes the text goes into too much detail, hiding the forest for the trees.

Some chunks of the interviews that take up most of the second half of the book appear in the first half as well.