Rethink Mixing Review – Video Tutorial Course By The Recording Revolution

Rethink Mixing course from The Recording Revolution is a great video training series for the beginner mix engineer.

The series consists of 8 Videos of up to an hour, that you can stream or download for later viewing, and the owner of Recording Revolution, Graham Cochrane takes you succinctly through the steps to create excellent mixes.

I’ve been mixing for many years now, but I’m always looking to learn more tips, tricks, and techniques to improve the sound of the music I’m making. There are loads of different ways to approach a mix, and Cochrane is clear that he’s showing you the way that he’s learned.

The site is easy to navigate; once logged in, your home page shows which libraries you’ve paid for (there are other courses available on the webpage), and then upon clicking the library, shows all the videos listed for that course.

Video 1: Mix setup – rough mix setup, levels, pan, quick compression
Video 2: Core instruments – working on the prominent instruments
Video 3: Drums and Bass – Getting the foundations right
Video 4: Buss mixing – grouping instruments and applying group fx
Video 5: Vocal mixing – loads of techniques for good vocal sound
video 6: sweetening – sculpting the overall sound
Video 7: automation – nothing is static, keeping variation in.
Video 8: Premastering – master buss chain, practical info on dithering, bouncing

Cochrane takes the viewer succinctly through the entire process, from your rough edited stems through to completed mix ready to send off to be mastered. One song is used throughout the course, and you can watch Cochrane work on the audio, as he talks about what he’s doing and why he’s doing it. I found that he gave just enough information to be useful without over-talking.

I would say that the course is aimed at the beginner. If you’re approaching mixing and you’ve done very little before; this course is an ideal starting ground, introducing basic concepts such as gain staging, simple yet effective EQ and compression tips. that applied in different ways to different instruments can really de-clutter and add a lot of clarity to a mix. There were also some slightly more advanced techniques that are introduced. Here are some of my favourites:

– LCR mixing, which is a panning technique used by some: for clearer separation, you pan everything to three positions, hard left, hard right and dead centre, the idea being that it gives clearer separation. It’s an interesting concept, and a very useful tool to be versed in. Here’s a great article detailing more about stereo imaging and LCR mixing.

– Mixing in MONO. I’ve got into this over the last couple of years. It’s brilliant. Find a cheap speaker to sit in-between your main monitor system, and use it, or use a utility plugin that comes with every DAW to sit on your master buss and enable switching between mono and stereo. If you get a mix sounding rocking in mono, it’s only going to sound better in stereo!

– Parallel processing. This is a great technique that can add power and girth to sound without adding too much volume. Bus the signal to an aux channel with the compressor slammed. Mix that back with the original source, and hey presto, it sounds fatter. Obviously it’s a little more refined than that, and the video goes into detail, showing you settings, and how it works on different instruments.

Pricing and Availability
Rethink mixing course costs $99 for course described above or $149 for core course with additional material (custom critique of personal mix, 80/20 mix tutorial plus more)

Conclusion

All the videos in this course add up to make a very broad-based introduction to the art and varied techniques of mixing. It covers all the main areas of getting from rough stems to final premastered mix, explaining the basic foundational techniques, and adding on top some creative mixing ideas to add flavour to the sound you’re creating.
Included with the videos are a cheat sheet reference document to refer to when you’re mixing, the multitracks of the file that was used in the course, so you can practice alongside, and another tutorial on the quick mix – if you have to come up with something, and have a small window of time to create it with.
To read more and buy the course visit this website.