Mixing and Mastering Course

 

An intermediate/advanced course for writers and producers of all genres of music who want to get to grips with the art of mixing and mastering. Jam-packed full of classic and innovative mixing techniques, tips and tricks shared to you by our established mix engineer instructors.  This course is for everything in mixing and mastering you knew a bit about before, but now want to fully understand and make a massive improvement to your music yourself saving a fortune on mix engineers. It doesn’t matter what DAW you use on your Mac or PC as the principles are the same. This course takes place at the Arthaus in London and the price is £449.

Al Riley, Pete Gleadall and Tom Belton are our mixing specialists. Check them out on our instructors page and Google.

If you miss any sessions dues to holidays or illness, we can engineer it so you can come back on the next cycle. All courses come with extensive notes put together by our expert course developers, and you also get an industry recognised certificate on successful completion.

The courses are designed for optimised learning so you take in the content in a day, recap in between sessions at home, and come back to us a week later for the next session of learning. This makes use of an educational practice called The Spacing Effect. Evening courses run two sessions per week for three hours each.

To enrol, call or send us an email telling us which course you would like to do when it runs and we’ll organise the rest.

 

Week 1 – EQ, Environment, Acoustics and Separation

• Studio monitor speaker design
• The art of balancing and panning
• Acoustics and acoustically treating your home studio
• All about mono, stereo and 5.1 in your software DAW
• EQ (peak filters, low and high pass filters and shelving)
• Notching frequencies using peak filters to create separation

Week 2 – Dynamics (click HERE for taster video)

• How compression works and why we use it
• Threshold, ratio, attack, release, knee
• Types of compression circuitry (optical, valve etc) and their digital emulations
• Parallel dynamic processing for HUGE drums
• Gates and De-Essers
• Use side chain compression and gating to achieve clarity in your mix

Week 3 – Reverbs, Delays and Other FX

• Getting busses and effect returns to sit well in your mix
• Types of reverb and delay, where to use them
• Parameters explained; feedback, delay times, pre delay, diffusion etc
• Spatialisation with convolution reverbs and delays
• Phaser, flanger, chorus, pitch shifters, harmonisers and creative FX
• Tips on how to make your records come to life with FX

Week 4 – Vocals, Automation and Getting Creative in the Mix Process

• Filtering and samples
• Vocoder, Ring Modulators, Envelopers, Autopanning, distortion and bit crushing
• Preparing vocals, vocal comping and tuning vocals
• Getting separation between lead and BV’s
• Tips on automating levels (rides)
• Live and acoustic music listening critique

Week 5 – Mastering

• Using references to get your EQ and separation. A/B’ing
• EQ, brick wall limiting, levels and phase
• Using mastering plugins – dos and don’ts
• All about mastering for vinyl
• The best metering tools
• Electronic music listening critique

Week 6 – Out Of The Box

You’ve learnt how to mix records ‘in the box’ (your DAW). Now it’s time to have a go ‘out of the box’ in the analogue domain on a Neve 8078 console, which are considered by many experts to be the the Rolls Royce of desks and the best sounding consoles ever made. It’s not surprising that they’re highly sought after.

The studio is a commercial mixing and tracking facility available for hire too. Clients to date include Mark Ronson, Katy B, Noel Gallagher, Burial, Alice Gold, Tinchy Stryder and Jamie Woon. You will be guided through the process of mixing a record in the analogue domain step by step as well as trying out the console, the EQ and all of the outboard toys yourselves. Your mixes ‘in the box’ will benefit massively from this experience alone.

 

“As a songwriter/producer I relied on engineers for recording and mixing if I wanted to get my tracks sounding like masters. I always wanted to do more myself but struggled to learn anything watching an engineer zip around Logic at 1000 mph! Then I found Garnish School of Sound and did their mixing workshops. We covered everything from using busses properly, EQ, compression and using specialist mastering plugins. We even covered guitar and vocal recording techniques so all the live stuff I mix in now sounds so much better. Everything was explained and demonstrated perfectly in a way I understood and now I am making phatter sounding records!” Ben Cullum – Songwriter/Producer signed to Chrysalis

 

 

 This course is designed for all DAWs and is suitable for all genres of music.

New Year 2012:

Date	Time
Saturday 7th January	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 14th January	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 21st January	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 28th January	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 4th February	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 11th February	11.00 – 18.00

 

Early Spring 2012:

Date	Time
Tuesday 14th February	11.00 – 18.00
Tuesday 21st February	11.00 – 18.00
Tuesday 28th February	11.00 – 18.00
Tuesday 6th March	11.00 – 18.00
Tuesday 13th March	11.00 – 18.00
Tuesday 20th March	11.00 – 18.00

 

Early Spring 2012 evening class:

Date	Time
Wednesday 15th February	18:45 – 21:45
Thursday 16th February	18:45 – 21:45
Wednesday 22nd February	18:45 – 21:45
Thursday 23rd February	18:45 – 21:45
Wednesday 29th February	18:45 – 21:45
Thursday 1st March	18:45 – 21:45
Wednesday 7th March	18:45 – 21:45
Thursday 8th March	18:45 – 21:45
Wednesday 14th March	18:45 – 21:45
Thursday 15th March	18:45 – 21:45
Wednesday 21st March	18:45 – 21:45
Thursday 22nd March	18:45 – 21:45

 

Late Spring Fridays 2012:

Date	Time
Friday 30th March	11.00 – 18.00
Friday 6th April	11.00 – 18.00
Friday 13th April	11.00 – 18.00
Friday 20th April	11.00 – 18.00
Friday 27th April	11.00 – 18.00
Friday 4th May	11.00 – 18.00

 

Late Spring Sundays 2012:

Date	Time
Sunday 1st April	11.00 – 18.00
Sunday 8th April	11.00 – 18.00
Sunday 15th April	11.00 – 18.00
Sunday 22nd April	11.00 – 18.00
Sunday 29th April	11.00 – 18.00
Sunday 6th May	11.00 – 18.00

 

Early Summer Saturdays 2012:

Date	Time
Saturday 12th May	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 19th May	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 26th May	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 2nd June	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 9th June	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 16th June	11.00 – 18.00

 

Early Summer Evenings 2012:

Date	Time
Monday 7th May	18:45 – 21:45
Wednesday 9th May	18:45 – 21:45
Monday 14th May	18:45 – 21:45
Wednesday 16th May	18:45 – 21:45
Monday 21st May	18:45 – 21:45
Wednesday 23rd May	18:45 – 21:45
Monday 28th May	18:45 – 21:45
Wednesday 30th May	18:45 – 21:45
Monday 4th June	18:45 – 21:45
Wednesday 6th June	18:45 – 21:45
Monday 11th June	18:45 – 21:45
Wednesday 13th June	18:45 – 21:45

 

Midsummer 2012:

Date	Time
Monday 18th June	11.00 – 18.00
Monday 25th June	11.00 – 18.00
Monday 2nd July	11.00 – 18.00
Monday 9th July	11.00 – 18.00
Monday 16th July	11.00 – 18.00
Monday 23rd July	11.00 – 18.00

 

One week summer school condensed:

August 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 & 18

All 11am – 6pm. Same course, same amount of hours, same price, but can be done in one week. Please see our summer school page for information on accommodation.

Book now