Practice Theory/ setting goals? (Perhaps a stupid question)

[SuperLuigi]

When learning a new instrument, You would normally set a goal, such as learn 5 chords, or play something at a certain BPM. And you would dig in and go at it until you've mastered that specific goal. You always have something that your working towards.

Are there any kind of exercises or ear training for mixing? Something that could be "practiced"? Other than just mixing everything you can get your hands on? I have limited access to multi-tracks...

[tehlord]

I think it depends on a genre.

For example in my kick heavy dance tracks the most crucial aspect is getting the kick sitting with the basslines so i'd start with that. Getting vocals sitting with a stereo instrumental mix is tricky, very tricky to do right in fact so that's something to practise.

In fact ignore me.

It's all important.


edit - EQ, that's what you want to focus on

[DeadPoet]

There is a lot of eartraining involved in learning how to mix. Devolping tastes but also recognising frequencies. Divide the freq spectrum in like 3 bands and try to learn them really well. Then go to 5 bands and so forth ... having an octave of accurate frequency recognition is good,having a 1/3 oct (31 bands of a graphic eq) even better.





Herwig

[Danner]

I use time as the measure. As in 1-hour per day. I also separate "playing" from "practice". Playing is re-doing what you already have learned, and practice is pushing forward to something you haven't learned.

My 2¢

[Heartfelt]

I have a frien who interned in Nashville for a season. Prior to that, we attended a school for engineering. While there, he gave me a copy of a CD that effectively was ear training. It helped you learn to idenify frequencies through the use of test tones. Wish I still had it.

Point is, stuff is out there.

[aof21]

Yes there are some really good things you can do. These are all small activities I have done which have helped me.

Golden Ears CDs -- ear training to identify frequencies, hear dynamic range, distortion, delay / reverb times, etc.

RTFM! Seriously reading manuals on how to use a plug-in or your DAW or a synth or something. It has surprisingly often led me to discover helpful new things or somehow inspire me to start writing a song, because I am forced to develop a little lick to try out some of the features.

Do a ton of listening! Get to know your speakers / room really well. Listen to a ton of commercial stuff of many genres in there.

Speaking of your room -- do some more room treatment. At least spend a few bucks or just experiment with moving your stuff around to see how different placements affect things.

Burn a cd of your mixes combined with some commercial mixes and then go speaker shopping. Go to your local Guitar center or something and play your mixes on all sorts of different sets of studio monitors. I did this recently and it was really enlightening. I got a very different perspective on my mixes. I thought I knew them well because I had listened on my 3 sets of speakers and in my car, but listening on like 10 sets of different monitors was an entirely different perspective.