Reading this article and your background, I have a similar background, which also started roughly 24 years ago too. I started playing acoustic guitar way back in 1991, and also became an record store addict, got into the Drum n Bass / Drill n Bass, Post Punk, and Industrial scenes. Back then, there was no internet, so my friends at the record store showed me the rabbit hole, and I started importing a lot of stuff from the UK and Europe.

When I was working on my BA in Multimedia, they offered Audio Production in 1998. Back then, the tech was of course rudimentary, compared to the 2000s and now. But, by 1999, i had the same inspiration of actually producing my stuff. Out side of school, I independently started messing around with software sequencers and drum machines.

Similarly to your experience, by 2005, I bought my first hardware synth, then from 2006-presnent I bought audio production gear. 2007, I started my first electronic audio project. It was pretty much composing first, then pursued research for perfecting the science of proper recording, mixing, and mastering. 2010- present. I killed my first project, then started the second project- 2012, used as vehicles to keep learning hands on.

When first released my first tracks, I was very self conscious with my stuff, but by surprise, I received a lot positive responses with my tracks. Not all of the tracks were perfect, some didn’t work.

2019, with more experience under my belt, I shifted directions again, killed off my second project and started 3 new projects in different genres, practicing different disciplines of different genres.

Again, reading this article, and you writing about your experience, I thought I’d put my 2 cents in. Your background reminded me of my experiences, which I started roughly 24 years ago too.

Thanks for the article – Thanks BPB team. You guys are an excellent resource for all things Audio Production!!

Hi Adam,

I just saw your reply. I bit lait, but I’ll send you a mail when I release new music. It would be great to be featured on DI.FM as well!

Thanks and keep up the good work,

Rutger // De Facto

Nice insights, thanks for sharing.

This is a great video about mixing in mono, btw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNxhfTKIrew&ab_channel=ReasonStudios

Highly recommended 👍

the “mono”-part of rmse-rule is a good thing, nice tool for that would be isol8 (freeware – https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2017/12/06/tbproaudio-isol8/), also for checking certain frequency-areas of your mix or to compare those areas to the same areas in the reference track.

These are good principles
I also have some general rule for mixing :
– 1°) DASM Drastic Art, Subtle making : never forget that there is no good and bad mixes, but the listener can often tell when the mix doesn’t comply with the artistic choice. Most of the time, an EDM track with muddy low end is bad taste for instance. So first decide what is the artistic choice : an agressive voice, with a smooth dark guitar or the opposite ? Then be lazy, and do the strict minimum to achieve the goal. Otherwise, you ll end up adding things that are not necessary to accomplish the artistic goal.
– 2°) RMSE rule : This one is technical and is originally a mathematic acronym (synonnym of gain in audio context ), but for me it also stands for :
– Reference (always use references)
– Mono : (especially for EQ, I found out that EQing in mono is one of strongest tool that allows your brain not to be distracted with spatialisation when EQing. Mudiness, phase issues, everything appears clearly)
– Substractive EQ : most of the time, the goal is to carve out stuffs, not add, don’t forget it.