Music Production and Mixing Tips for Beginner Producers | Inside The Mix
How do you make your mixes sound professional as a beginner? What’s the real difference between mixing and mastering? And do you actually need expensive gear to produce great music at home? Inside The Mix is the podcast for beginner and early-career music producers, as well as hobbyist musicians, who want clear, practical answers to the most common questions in music production and mixing music. Each episode breaks down real-world techniques used in audio engineering, helping you improve clarity, balance, and confidence in your mixes — even in a home studio. You’ll learn how to: Make your mixes sound professional as a beginner without overcomplicating your workflow Fix common problems like muddy mixes, weak low-end, and poor translation Understand the difference between mixing and mastering — and when you really need each Build a reliable production process using tools you already own Hosted by Marc Matthews, Inside The Mix goes beyond generic beginner tutorials. Expect insightful interviews with industry-leading engineers and producers, listener-focused round-table critiques, and practical coaching designed to accelerate your progress. Past guests include Grammy Award-winning professionals such as Dom Morley (Adele) and Mike Exeter (Black Sabbath). 👉 Start with audience favourite: Episode #175 – What’s the Secret to Mixing Without Muddiness? Achieving Clarity and Dynamics in a Mix Subscribe, follow, and explore Inside The Mix to grow from beginner to confident producer — one mix at a time.
Episodes
A single Spotify comment sparked a bigger question: Does networking actually help musicians, or are you on your own? In this episode, Marc breaks down networking tips for beginners who want real results without feeling fake, awkward, or salesy. If you’ve ever wondered how to network as a beginner, or asked yourself “what is not an example of professional networking?”, this conversation offers a clear, no-cringe reset you can use im...
Year-end victory laps are more fun when they belong to all of us. We gathered standout wins from the Inside the Mix community and stitched them into a guided tour of what real progress looks like in music: narrative albums released one single at a time, a premiere on a tastemaking YouTube channel, the first vinyl in decades, live shows rebooted, and a charity compilation that rallied more than 56 artists and topped Bandcamp charts....
A single take can now become a gospel run, a country croon, or even a convincing female lead, and it happens in seconds. Justin and Rich of the Face Your Ears podcast unpack how AI jumped from pitch correction to “auto-sing,” the cost breakthroughs behind engines like DeepSeek, and what tools such as ACE Studio mean when 80-plus virtual singers sit inside your DAW. It’s a fascinating leap for producers and a gut-check for vocalists...
If your mixes keep fighting you, the problem likely started before the DAW ever opened. In this podcast takeover, Mike Indovina (Master Your Mix) digs into a source‑first mindset with London engineer and mixer Will Purton (RAK Studios), unpacking the practical decisions that make recording faster, mixing smoother, and translation far more reliable. From choosing the right instrument and tuning it properly to mic selection, placemen...
What if the best mix isn’t the cleanest, but the truest? In this podcast takeover, Lij Shaw (Recording Studio Rockstars) dives into a standout conversation with engineer, songwriter, and producer-in-the-making Abby Griffin to explore how “being the weird girl” can be a creative superpower, and why the moments you capture now may matter more than perfection later. From choir training and vocal anatomy to tape love and AI stems, Abby...
What does it really take to go from invisible intern to trusted, Grammy-winning mastering engineer? The Sound Discussion Podcast sit down with Dan Millice to unpack the habits, choices, and honest work that shaped his journey, from cleaning bathrooms and taking cheques to the bank at MasterDisc, to building a client list one late-night venue at a time, to mastering records for artists across genres and continents.
Dan expl...
What if the fastest way to a better mix is caring more about the human, the song, and the signal path than the plugin chain? We pulled seven moments from our 2025 conversations that changed how we write, record, mix, and master, and stitched them into one practical, heart-first guide you can use on your next session.
We start where great records begin: with the singer. Rich Bozic, a professional vocal coach, shares why phy...
Ready to trade plugin FOMO and meter anxiety for moves that actually make your tracks better? Marc pulls seven stand-out moments from a huge year of conversations with producers, engineers and artists to help you finish faster, mix with confidence and stay creatively sharp.
We kick off with a surprising angle on depth: shaping contrast with bit depth instead of defaulting to saturation. You’ll hear how assigning different ...
Stop counting playlist streams and start building momentum where it matters. Marc Matthews and Tim Benson unpack a year of wins and lessons that took monthly listeners from modest to meaningful, and the theme is simple. When you optimise for saves, repeats and fast post-release engagement, Spotify’s algorithm does the heavy lifting. That means Radio, Discover Weekly, and personalised mixes begin to surface your music beyond your im...
Ever twist a saturation knob and wonder if you’re hearing compression, distortion, or something in between? In this episode of Inside The Mix, Marc Matthews puts that question to the test with a clean, scientific setup, a 440 Hz sine wave, the Softube Saturation Knob, and Wave Observer, a free oscilloscope plugin by Press Play.
By placing Wave Observer last in the signal chain, Marc visually shows how your waveform changes as you di...
Tired of guessing what kind of podcast content actually helps you make better music and grow as a producer or artist? In this special listener-driven episode of Inside The Mix, host Marc Matthews flips the script — and puts you in charge of shaping the show’s next chapter.
Marc is designing the 2026 Inside The Mix editorial calendar, and your feedback will decide what the podcast covers next: from mixing workflows, DAW productivity ...
Staring at a blank DAW is exhausting; staring at a mapped-out arrangement from a reference track is energising. Marc walks through a clear, repeatable reference track arrangement blueprint workflow that turns a single reference track into a full song structure, so you can stop looping and start finishing. From matching tempo and key to placing eight-bar markers, Marc shows how to label intros, verses, breakdowns, builds, and drops,...
What if a better‑translating mix starts before you touch a single channel plugin? I put top‑down mixing under the microscope and share a candid, first‑hand evaluation: what worked, what didn’t, and how a few smart moves on the mix bus reshaped the entire project in less time and with fewer plugins. Rather than a tutorial, this is a field report packed with practical takeaways you can try on your next session.
I begin by se...
What does a true wall of sound feel like when the vocal still breathes? We sit down with vocalist‑producer Jay Cali (DRUMxWAVE) and mixer‑producer Brian Skeel to unpack the craft behind Severed, big drums, widescreen synths, supportive guitars, and why clarity starts with a shared vision before a single plug‑in loads.
We trace the journey from demo to master, beginning with an hour of alignment on emotion, references, and ...
Free plugins often get overlooked in the endless pursuit of premium software, but professional producers know that some of the most powerful tools cost absolutely nothing. In this illuminating conversation, Marc Matthews and Tim Benson (Aisle9) unpack their go-to free plugins that consistently deliver exceptional results across various production scenarios.
The discussion begins with TAL Chorus LX, Tim's top recommend...
Have you ever felt stuck in an endless cycle of tweaking, adjusting, and second-guessing your music production decisions? Producer John Kunkel (aka John Grand) reveals the counterintuitive truth that many of us miss: working smarter, not harder, is often the key to finishing more tracks and creating better music.
John shares his game-changing approach to using reference tracks as structural blueprints rather than just mixi...
Frustrated by endless email chains, confusing file links, and clients commenting on the wrong version of a mix? In this episode of Inside the Mix, Marc Matthews explores how Mixup.audio is transforming the mix revision process for producers, mixers, and collaborators.
Marc breaks down the platform’s most powerful features, including timestamped comments, version comparison, and normalised level matching, which eliminates loudness bi...
Ever wondered how singers record vocals remotely and make them sound professional? In this episode of Inside The Mix, Marc Matthews is joined by New Zealand synthwave vocalist INDIGO to explore the art of remote vocal collaboration and the songwriting process behind her unique sound.
From her unexpected start in the synthwave scene to collaborations with artists like Wolf Club and Turbo Knight, INDIGO shares how she records vocals f...
Should you record vocals with compression or save it for mixing? It’s one of the most debated questions in music production, and in this episode of Inside The Mix, we break it down with practical advice for producers at every level.
Guest Tim Benson shares why he often tracked vocals with hardware compressors in the studio, not just for sound quality, but because hearing compressed vocals in headphones helped singers perform with mo...
Curious what happens when a producer opens Vital Spectral Warping Wavetable synth for the very first time? In this episode, I explore the free wavetable synthesizer from scratch, answering common questions like: Is Vital really free? Is the free version powerful enough for professional music production?
With zero prior experience in the plugin, I start from an initialised preset and build a 90s-inspired trance bass step by step. You...
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