You bring the music, I'll make the mix.
The Tuning Spoon now offers professional quality online mixing, editing, and mastering starting at the super low, super cool budget price of $100 per song.
what is mixing?
Mixing is the process of taking all the individual instruments and sounds that compose a recording and applying judicious use of equalization, stereo balance, compression, level adjustment, reverb, and a variety of other effects in order to form a single, cohesive whole. Mixing is not a hard science, but a subjective art. Like any art, there is no one "right" way to mix. Generally speaking, however, a good mix allows each instrument to be heard in its own space while creating a single "instrument" or musical experience from the individual parts. Put succinctly, a good mix should be greater than the sum of its parts. Yes, mixing is about creating balance, impact, punch, and clarity, but ultimately it's about effectively communicating the artistic vision and emotion of a song to its intended audience. A well executed mix is the difference between an amateur sounding production and professional one.
why should I have you mix my music?
Let's face it: anyone can pick up a camera and shoot a picture, but not everyone is cut out to be a photographer. In the same way, great recording gear on its own won't get you a great mix. As in photography, film, and the other multimedia industries, professional quality audio gear can be had today at a mere fraction of the price of 10-20 years ago. The input of a trained and experienced sound engineer, photographer, videographer or other specialist, on the other hand, is still just as valuable as ever. You don't hire a photographer to shoot your wedding just because they have a nice camera, but for their skill set. The same goes for recording, mixing, and mastering. Mixing is a skill that takes years of experience, training, and trial-and-error to hone. We've all got our individual strengths and weaknesses, talents and specialties, and not everyone has the time, patience, ear for, or interest in learning the art of the mix. That's where we come in!
Perhaps just as important as the skill of the mix artist him/herself, is the advantage of having a fresh, impartial set of ears to contribute to the production process. Of course, if you're reading this right now, you probably already know all of this! So let's get down to business.
how it works
- First, contact me for availability and any necessary price adjustments based on song lengths & your particular editing, production, or mastering needs.
- You upload each of your individual tracks to me through my web server or on a CD/DVD by mail along with a $50 up-front payment for each song you want me to mix (Both PayPal and checks are accepted, although checks may result in a delay for clearing. Bounced checks will result in a $25 fee from my bank—and you don't want that!).
- I create a preliminary mix and email a completed section of it to you as an mp3 file. Once I have received complete payment, I will release a link to the full, CD quality mix to you for download from my web server. At this point you may ask to have some final modifications made to the mix.