May 24, 2014 editorial: comments

How good are your mixing skills? Do you want to find out? The folks at PureMix.net have a cool mixing contest going on, where you can download a 90-track, professionally recorded song, and go head-to-head with all the other entrants.

The grand prize is the Sonnox Essential Bundle, a collection of high-end professional processing plug-ins valued at over $1,000. I should really say “grand prizes,” because the judges will pick three winners, and each will get the bundle!

What’s more, it doesn’t cost a penny to enter, and even if you don’t win, you still get all those tracks to practice mixing with, FOR FREE! Even better, the session isn’t specific to any DAW, so you can load the audio files into whichever one you use.

The song, BTW, is called “Howlin,” by Amber Skye, and was produced by the EMW Music Group in New York City. The deadline for submitting is June 1, so if you want a chance to win, and to have your mixing skills judged by the team at PureMix, there’s no time to waste. So download the session today and get ye to mixing!

Mixing "Howlin" will definitely be challenging, thanks to the sheer number of tracks involved. With a session that big, figuring out where to start is not easy. Would you first solo the vocal and work on its sound? Would you pull down all the faders and begin with the kick drum? There are so many different opinions on the best way to start a mix. Personally, I'd keep all the tracks up, get a rough balance, and then start drilling down into tweaking the vocals, drums, and other tracks. How about you? We'd love to hear how you'd approach it. Post a comment, and let us know.

Best of luck with the mix, and enjoy the holiday weekend!

Mike Levine