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Template Mixing and Mastering: The Ultimate Guide to Achieving a Professional Sound
Audio production is an incredibly rewarding craft. To take the raw, basic tracks of a fledgling idea and shape them into one glorious stereophonic sound wave is an amazing feat. The transformation from analogue to digital dominance has brought many advances in sound quality and new techniques, but producing digital music with only a standard computer and DAW can be problematic, time-consuming and sometimes disappointing without the right approach and skills. In Template Mixing and Mastering, renowned mix engineer Billy Decker tackles the challenges of in-the-box production through his innovative template approach. He shares his passion and knowledge from over twenty years of industry experience, including an introduction to templates and a step-by-step guide to their set-up and a discussion of drum replacement technology. Channel and setting information for each of the drum, instrument and vocal sections of his template is discussed along with the master channel and his methodology of mixing and mastering. Finally, he gives professional advice and best practice.
128 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 21, 2020
26 people are currently reading
35 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 6, 2021
Billy Decker is a master of not just template mixing, but of longevity in a novelty-seeking industry. You’d imagine that, when he says “I haven’t changed my vocal chain in a decade”, it means his mixes sound dated. But amazing painters find their art increasing as they paint with ever more delicate brushstrokes; I think he’s just refining details that others might not have ears to hear.
It’s not perfect. Some of what he has to say is, on the surface, factually incorrect. Example: he says that “two channels together sound better than one channel boosted 6 dB”. A simple null test discredits this. Don’t let this be taken, though, as me saying he’s “wrong” here. Try it for yourself, learn the hidden meaning of it, just as Lij did in his Rockstars interview with Billy. The folks on Gearslutz (hopefully, soon, Gearnutz or similar) will deconstruct; don’t do so yourself. Learn from Billy’s 10k hours.
On a technical level, this was a rare treat for me. His gain staging is meticulous, and his mix “template” is really a window into a style of mixing that took him thousands upon thousands of hours to perfect. He exposes it in perfect detail, and rushing through the book-length explanation of his template is not the way to read it. Take your time. Recreate his approach, the template, carefully. Mix songs with it. Re-read it. Find hidden treasures, take them home, make them your own...
It’s not perfect. Some of what he has to say is, on the surface, factually incorrect. Example: he says that “two channels together sound better than one channel boosted 6 dB”. A simple null test discredits this. Don’t let this be taken, though, as me saying he’s “wrong” here. Try it for yourself, learn the hidden meaning of it, just as Lij did in his Rockstars interview with Billy. The folks on Gearslutz (hopefully, soon, Gearnutz or similar) will deconstruct; don’t do so yourself. Learn from Billy’s 10k hours.
On a technical level, this was a rare treat for me. His gain staging is meticulous, and his mix “template” is really a window into a style of mixing that took him thousands upon thousands of hours to perfect. He exposes it in perfect detail, and rushing through the book-length explanation of his template is not the way to read it. Take your time. Recreate his approach, the template, carefully. Mix songs with it. Re-read it. Find hidden treasures, take them home, make them your own...
September 5, 2024
I like his approach to mixing with a template, however, I'm not sure if this template is going to serve all the music I'm mixing. Billy says that he mainly mixes country music and this template might work with that as the style doesn't really change throughout the years but the music I mix is fairly diverse.
After I read his book I decided to listen to his portfolio which he didn't renew in the last 5 years! What I realized was every mix of him sounding the same. It's not a shock because he doesn't only use the same samples, but he uses the exact same eq and compressor presets for every song. Every country song he mixes has the same snare sample which to me is a bit weird.
His ways might be working with the old-school mainstream country and rock, but they won't work many of the alternative genres. Imagine Radiohead sending multitracks to Billy. Is he going to use the same samples and the same presets?
"Professional sound" in Billy's head is nothing more than Nashville country music which repeats itself again and again throughout the years, therefore, it won't work for many other genres.
I'm giving one star because I didn't learn anything new besides I'm not gonna take advice from people without listening to their portfolio again.
After I read his book I decided to listen to his portfolio which he didn't renew in the last 5 years! What I realized was every mix of him sounding the same. It's not a shock because he doesn't only use the same samples, but he uses the exact same eq and compressor presets for every song. Every country song he mixes has the same snare sample which to me is a bit weird.
His ways might be working with the old-school mainstream country and rock, but they won't work many of the alternative genres. Imagine Radiohead sending multitracks to Billy. Is he going to use the same samples and the same presets?
"Professional sound" in Billy's head is nothing more than Nashville country music which repeats itself again and again throughout the years, therefore, it won't work for many other genres.
I'm giving one star because I didn't learn anything new besides I'm not gonna take advice from people without listening to their portfolio again.
March 28, 2021
Ok if you own the same plug ins
If you work in ProTools and happen to have the same plug in suite / tools as the author then this book is for you. If you work in any other DAW using stock plug ins ( due to financial restrictions?) then you’ll have some work to do in deciding alternatives with uncertain / unquantifiable results. For me, not the long term fix I was hoping for
If you work in ProTools and happen to have the same plug in suite / tools as the author then this book is for you. If you work in any other DAW using stock plug ins ( due to financial restrictions?) then you’ll have some work to do in deciding alternatives with uncertain / unquantifiable results. For me, not the long term fix I was hoping for
September 6, 2021
Excellent system and tons of eye opening content
I actually started by watching a series of videos Billy did for Pro Mix Academy but I highly recommend having both the videos and the book as easily h helps e,plain the other. It waz absolutely amazing the first time I dropped files into my completed template.
I actually started by watching a series of videos Billy did for Pro Mix Academy but I highly recommend having both the videos and the book as easily h helps e,plain the other. It waz absolutely amazing the first time I dropped files into my completed template.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews