This is the ultimate guide to music production—covering producing, recording, mixing, and mastering music, whether you're a Home Producer, Songwriter-Producer, Self-Producer, or a Producer For-Hire.
Make emotionally impactful, professional-quality music that connects—with proven strategies from Mixerman, a highly regarded music producer and mixer with multiple gold and platinum credits. This no-BS book offers his unvarnished perspective and explains how to make great music—technically, emotionally, and politically.
This book sets you up for success:
- Improve your songwriting and arranging through proven techniques
- Record compelling performances with the right tools and instincts
- Master vocal production to get the best performances in any setting
- Use sound design to enhance forward motion and emotional payoff
- Mix and master your music with intent, clarity, and punch
- Apply compression, EQ, and distortion with purpose and precision
- Tackle your home studio acoustics for better recordings and mix translation
- Understand gain staging, loudness, and signal flow—so the audio engineering doesn’t get in your way
- Lead recording sessions (at home or in the studio) with vision, authority, and flexibility
- Choose your DAW, plugins, and gear wisely—without falling for marketing hype
- Build trust with your artist and protect the creative vibe
- Finish songs and full productions with confidence—and without second-guessing
Perfect for:
- Home Producers
- Songwriter-Producers
- Self-Producers
- Engineer-Producers
- Artists in need of a Producer
- Producers For-Hire
You don’t need a degree to make great records. You need insight, strategy, and vision. Mixerman delivers all three—with clarity, confidence, and decades of hard-earned experience.
From the author of Zen and the Art of Mixing, The Musician’s Survival Guide, and The Daily Adventures of Mixerman—a cult classic among professional audio engineers.
If you're a music producer of any kind looking for the best guide book on music production, this is it—nearly 600 pages of expert techniques used by professionals across genres.
Mixerman is Eric Sarafin, a gold and platinum award-winning Producer, Mixer, and Engineer who has worked with major-label Artists across a wide range of genres—including rock, hip-hop, pop, electronica, acid jazz, folk, roots, and singer-songwriter.
He is the author of multiple acclaimed books on music production, including Zen and the Art of Mixing, The Musician's Survival Guide to a Killer Record, and The Daily Adventures of Mixerman—a cult-classic memoir that has inspired countless audio professionals around the world.
Over the past several decades, Mixerman has produced, recorded, and mixed records at every level of the industry—from high-end, all-analog tracking facilities to entirely in-the-box bedroom studios. His approach to record-making is brutally honest, deeply practical, and rooted in decades of hands-on experience.
When he's not producing music or writing books, Mixerman is busy debunking myths, challenging groupthink, and mentoring the next generation of Producers.
