A Final Guiding Hand: A Practice-Based Study into the Evolving Role of Third Party Mixers

Abstract

As a mixing professional, I have noticed that the role of the third-party mixer is evolving. There is often the opportunity for the mixer to have a strong influence on the song's production. The recent delocalization of the recording studio has made professional production increasingly available to all popular musicians, and the mixer's tacit knowledge of production is valuable to artist-produced material. This project explores within a practice-based study the influence on production a mixing professional can have on a recording by an artist. The song was produced by the artist and then mixed by myself; the mixes presented here should be considered as the research in action and are intended as an aural representation of my impact on the song's production. The artist participated in an interview to help illuminate many perceptions of the adapted mixing process and its related artistic outcomes.

The The skillset of professional studio musicians in the German popular music recording industry

“…As recent research (Auvinen 2016;Herbst & Holthaus 2017) has highlighted, most work on professional roles in the academic field of the art of record production has concentrated on outstanding record producers (Blake 2009;Chanan 1995;Cunningham 1996;Moorefield 2010;Warner 2003;Zak 2001), neglecting those of lesser reputation and other professional roles in this industry like the mixing engineer (Anthony 2017;Kealy 1982). Yet, focusing on the practices of musical actors below international fame could shift the gain of knowledge from historical documentation towards present work realities, as musicologist Tuomas Auvinen (2016: 3-4) has argued discussing the role of music producers:…”