Music Production Secrets: Larry Crane on Mixing

Pull more life and energy out of your existing tracks and create great final mixes. Producer and Tape Op magazine founder Larry Crane is back at Jackpot! Recording Studio in Portland, Oregon, to demonstrate mixing techniques that he uses when producing music for well-known musicians She & Him, The Decemberists, Elliott Smith, Jenny Lewis, The Go-Betweens, and Sleater-Kinney. First, learn how to set up a satisfying and efficient place to listen and mix, and get familiar with working with frequencies. Then Larry shares some of his mixing secrets, such as using compression to change drum sounds, using parallel drum buss compression, and cutting frequencies to clean up a mix. In the second half of the course, he demonstrates his sound processing secrets, like how to best use tape delay on vocals, how to create backwards reverb, and how to choose the right distortion on a bass guitar.

Want more music production secrets? Check out Music Production Secrets: Larry Crane on Recording.

Learning objectives
Understanding the mix room acoustics
Cutting frequencies
Prepping vocal takes
Drum mixing
Gating audio for noise elimination or for creative purposes
Creating and using backwards reverb in a DAW
Re-amping guitars, bass, vocals, and more