Mixing Mistakes to Avoid

So you're doing your demo, and if you don't have it mixed well, people will reject you as a loser after hearing 5 seconds of it. So here are some mistakes to avoid.

The first is mastering your own stuff. A successful composer recently told me: there's a reason why people are mastering engineers. If it was easy to do, the world wouldn't have mastering engineers. Besides, you probably don't own the gear you need to do the job well.

Yes, hiring someone can be expensive, but there are places online which work cheap. MasteringCafe is a Warsaw-based mastering house, they'll master a track for $40. (considering they probably spend a few hours on a track, that's $15 an hour, which ain't bad in Warsaw). Are they any good? Your call - their demos are here.

OK, so the second biggest demo mistake is making a bad mix. OK, so there are a billion sub-mistakes in that one but the MasteringCafe guys have a tidy list of the basic mistakes to avoid, covering short, specific tips on things like mixdown, levels and compression. Enjoy!