#000622
Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio
Mike Senior
Aimed squarely at people making music on modest gear in untreated rooms, Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio lays out a systematic method for turning rough tracks into competitive mixes. Rather than chasing boutique hardware, Mike Senior concentrates on the skills that actually decide a mix: hearing accurately despite cheap monitoring, building solid balances, and using EQ, compression, reverb, and automation with intent. Senior, a British engineer best known for Sound On Sound magazine's "Mix Rescue" column, ties the book to a large free online library of demo material and recommended reference tracks so readers can practice and compare. First published by Focal Press in 2011 and revised in later editions, it is widely regarded as one of the best practical mixing guides for home producers, and it speaks to anyone frustrated that their recordings sound thin or amateurish next to commercial releases.
more…less ▴
The author
Mike Senior is a British engineer and Sound On Sound contributor best known for the magazine's "Mix Rescue" column, in which he remixes readers' amateur productions up to professional standard. That column is the seed of this book, and the same diagnostic, problem-solving temperament runs through it.
The book
Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio (Focal Press, first edition 2011, with later revisions) is a step-by-step mixing method for people working on limited budgets in acoustically imperfect rooms. Senior emphasizes accurate listening, balancing, EQ, dynamics, reverb, and automation over gear acquisition, and anchors the text to a large free library of demo tracks and a curated list of reference mixes.
How it reads
It has become a standard recommendation for home producers, praised for being methodical, tool-agnostic, and honest about the limits of cheap monitoring. Its insistence on comparing your work against commercial references, and on solving problems with technique before spending money, has aged very well. Newer editions add material on loudness normalization and modern plug-ins, but the core workflow is essentially timeless.
For more context
Its companion volume, Recording Secrets for the Small Studio, covers the tracking stage.
Sources - Cambridge-MT: Mixing Secrets - Routledge: Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Mike Senior
- Publisher
- Focal Press
- Place of publication
- Oxford
- Year
- 2011
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Craft & How-to
- Location
- Colorado