Mixing Audio-Roey Yizhaki
I recently received three books from Focal press that deal with the art of mixing audio. The first book review is for this great book called mixing audio by Roey Izhaki.
This book is a wonderful, no nonsense guide to audio mixing for beginners and advanced mixing engineers and producers. The accompanying DVD holds hundreds of audio examples that add an invaluable depth to the reading. Let’s face it, you can’t just write about audio mixing, you must provide examples and this book delivers tons of them.
Audio mixing author Roey Izhaki
Audio mixing covers the basic concepts and practices including popular conceptions and misconceptions about mixing music, such as ‘louder perceived as better’, ‘mixing analysis’, ‘the importance of the mix’ and so on. The author dives deep into technical details but in a friendly non-intimidating way that helps demystify some difficult concepts.
The next part of the book explains the tools that mixing engineers use and goes into great detail in explaining the sound stage, effects plugins, phase, panning and many other issues that are usually left unknown or vague for beginners. Following along and listening to the audio examples embedded in each chapter is an ear opening journey into audio mixing, but the best part of the book comes at the end where the author presents full mixes of projects from the home demo stage to the final mix and final master. Taking the readers through each mixing decision (with examples of course) and revealing some mixing tips and tricks that could take months for mixing engineers to develop and master, The four full mixing projects cover different music genres and demonstrate the different mixing approaches on each of them.
This type of book has long been missing from the arsenal of books about audio mixing and production. Most books are either too detailed with no real appeal to readers, or too specific and within a year or two would be considered terribly outdated. However, Audio mixing covers some universal concepts in a way that would make it relevant through the years.
I highly recommend this book to any aspiring or working mixing engineer/producer. I believe the straightforward writing style ( while not always with the best grammar ), the range of topics covered and the all revealing audio examples make this book a great choice.
There is a second edition to this book coming up from Focal press.
Visit the dedicated audio mixing website for further information.
I agree this is indeed a great book! I’ve picked up some good info and I’m only part way through!
I haven’t had the opportunity l to read ‘Audio Mixing’ by Roey Yixhaki, but from the reviews it looks promising; A worthwhile read especially for audio engineers looking for an introduction into compression, panning, and equalization techniques. I would imagine it gives a good foundation to engineers looking to create solid mixes. I’ve had the chance to read a similar book written by David Miles Huber called ‘Modern Recording Techniques’. There has been a number of editions of this book released over the years and in my opinion the author and writing is excellent. The book outlines the fundamentals of audio and mixing techniques all the way until the mastering stage. The basics are described in detail and the book has enough content for those who want to dig-in even more and know ‘how-and-why.’
Yeah, this is a great book indeed. I am not familiar with the other book you mention but will look out for it. I think a lot of it is about getting your own experience through working, recording, mixing yourself.
There’s only so much that any book could teach you. It’s a hands on profession. Thanks for your comment.