Mixing for independent artists.

For years I ran my own studio, Bottle Rocket Recording, and worked out of a run of London rooms along the way. Early records came together at the Crows' Nest, and later I built The Soapworks in Bermondsey from the ground up with a fellow engineer.

These days I mix out of Floating Door in Sheffield, a nice room with accurate, trustworthy monitoring, which is the thing that actually matters.

Mixing happens in Logic, using a combination of native plugins and UAD. When a track calls for it, I'll reach for pedals and select outboard to add a bit of character.

A few minutes tidying your stems means I can start on the mix rather than on admin. A quick checklist:

• Export each track as its own WAV, all starting from bar one so everything lines up.
• Keep the session's sample rate and bit depth. No need to convert anything.
• Name each file for what it is: Kick, Snare, Bass DI, Lead Vox, and so on.
• Take any limiter or heavy processing off the master before you bounce.
• If an effect is part of the sound, print it, but send a dry version too where you can.
• Include a rough mix or a reference track so I know what you're going for.

Send it all over as a single download link. WeTransfer, Google Drive or Dropbox all work, and big files are no problem.

I focus on mixing and leave mastering to a dedicated mastering engineer. When I send your mixes I'll include a test master, which is just a quick pass on the export so you can hear the mix at roughly the same loudness as other released tracks rather than something quiet and flat. It's handy for reference and for sharing around.

But a test master isn't a substitute for the real thing. A proper mastering engineer brings fresh ears to the record, which matters, because by the end of a mix I've heard it hundreds of times and I'm too close to it to catch everything. If you don't already have someone, I'm happy to recommend people I trust.