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Mixing & Mixcraft

10 sessions · Tuesdays, Thursdays · 2hr each

Advanced mixing with a real engineer

You know your DAW. You understand signal flow and basic effects. Now learn how to actually mix — decisions about balance, space, dynamics, and movement that turn a tracked session into a finished record.

18 chapters of ground covered

Monitoring and listening — calibrating your room and ears before touching a fader
Mix philosophy — developing an approach to each song, not a fixed chain you paste on everything
Compression in depth — parallel, sidechain, multiband, deessing. Multiple weeks on dynamics because most mixing problems are really dynamics problems
EQ as sculpting — surgical vs. tonal, subtractive first, and when to reach for a shelf vs. a bell
Reverb, delay, and spatial effects — placing elements in a believable space, managing depth without washing things out
Mixing by instrument — drums, bass and low end, guitars and synths, vocals. Each has its own chapter because each has its own problems
Automation and movement — volume rides, filter sweeps, effect throws, and using automation to shape a mix over time rather than setting levels and walking away
Mastering and delivery — reference tracks, loudness targets, and preparing your mix for release

Prerequisites: DAW proficiency, basic understanding of effects and signal flow. If you took Core Skills and the Mix Primer, you're ready.

This class has a full set of companion notes you can browse for free in our guides section.

Building This Class

Seats aren't on sale yet. Raise your hand to request enrollment and we'll build the next cohort around your availability.

The more times you select, the more likely we are to build a class that works for you.

What's a residency?

Residency is your Beat Kitchen membership —$85/mo or $700/yr. It includes office hours, gyms, beat challenges, and a community of producers on Discord.

Non-residents can take any class — residency months are bundled into the price. If you're already a resident, check the box above and you'll see the lower class-only price.

Learn more about residency →

Other start dates and times (1 more)

More Dates

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Jan 2, 2028 – May 14, 2028 Sundays, 10 AM Pacific | 1 PM Eastern | 6 PM UK

Building This Class

Mixcraft

Time to MIX! Once you understand the tools, the rubber hits the road here

Sundays, 10 AM Pacific | 1 PM Eastern | 6 PM UK

Jan 2, 2028 - May 14, 2028

20 x 1hr Classes

Are you a current BKS resident?

No Yes

$960.00

* This price includes 6 months required BKS Residency

None of these times work?

Building This Class

Want this class at a different time? Seats aren't on sale yet — raise your hand and we'll build it around your availability.

The more times you select, the more likely we are to build a class that works for you.

Related videos

What students say

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Nathan is Very knowledgeable and passionate about music. he has a ton of experience as an engineer and producer he plays piano and understands all the notes logic pro that is what i will be doing next. .looking forward to the classes

—Don, Vancouver, BC

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Great teachers and instruction. I will definitely recommend and am really happy I took the time to attend a class-such valuable and easy to understand concepts and a few radical gems that will blow your mind!

—Valentina, Denver, CO

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Man’s really passionate about teaching music went in with literally 0 knowledge of music and came out with a lot still got a lot to learn but definitely recommend them

—Spyder

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This was an awesome music theory fundamentals class. Nathan was a very thoughtful, thorough teacher who offered up time and energy outside of class to help his students in a myriad of ways from answering questions to providing feedback on

—Lizzie, New York, NY

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Had an Awesome class about Music Theory! It was short but sweet! Being only a music enthusiast and curious on what the class has to offer, Nathan (Instructor) was able to explain it so well and had me captivated on what it is all about. Pretty sure I’ll be attending more classes and just expand my knowledge for sure! -Timothy

—Timmy, San Francisco, CA

Explore Classes

Office Hours Weekly. Ask questions, get help, and connect. Included with residency. Production Gym Weekly. Production breakdown of your favorite songs. Included with residency. Theory Gym Weekly. Morning music theory workout. Included with residency. Ear Training Weekly. Test your ears and discuss — music, mixing, and more. Included with residency. Instrument Gym Weekly. Practice and workout on instruments. Included with residency. Weekly Beat Review Weekly. Listen to Beat Challenge song ideas together. Included with residency.

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Beat Building Jam Workshop ideas into songs. Peer feedback. Instructor support. Prep for production Mix Incubator Workshop your mixes. Peer feedback, instructor support, and problem-solving for tracks in progress. Production Incubator Workshop your productions. Peer feedback, instructor support, and problem-solving for tracks in progress. Recording Incubator Songwriting Incubator Workshop ideas into songs. Peer feedback. Instructor support. Prep for production

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Beat Kitchen At-A-Glance

Beat Ktichen Calendar

See the full calendar
Recent Resident Gyms
- WEEKLY-BEAT-CHALLENGE: Reviewed beat challenge submissions from multiple students, with feedback centered on percussion choices, rhythmic feel, and the relationship between drum programming and a piece's overall character. Discussed how early placement of a drum loop or plugin shapes compositional decisions in ways that are difficult to reverse, and explored the value of working with unconventional or handmade percussion sources. Also touched on the Beat Kitchen Harmony Wheel app — current store status, scale/mode counting, chord recognition accuracy, and upcoming fixes.
- OFFICE HOURS: We talked about giving yourself grace when learning mixing and production, we hunted down a few reference tracks for Jon, We also talked about saturation and how to achieve a specific sound Jon was going for.
- PRODUCTION-GYM: We explored the songwriting and production craft of Tori Amos through three songs — "Silent All These Years" (1992), the new single "Shush," and "Cornflake Girl" — analyzing lyric writing, arrangement choices, frequency management in piano-driven production, and the relationship between a producer's frequency awareness and the mix engineer's workload.
- OFFICE HOURS: Checked in with students during open office hours, touched on the Beat Challenge leaderboard standings and encouraged continued participation. Discussed the Harmony Wheel app's new Android release and noted that testing on personal devices has been limited. Briefly explored the philosophy of choosing cover songs and the value of crowd-sourced input for that decision.
- WEEKLY-BEAT-CHALLENGE: Reviewed two submitted beats — one a polymetric rap piece built on a 9/8 sample with vocal phrasing that moves between 6 and 9, and one a piano-driven instrumental developed from the inchworm exercise, featuring arpeggiated chord progressions. Co-prime sequences came up as a theoretical framework for understanding the metric layering in both pieces, and the session extended into a broader discussion of generative songwriting practice, limitations-based writing, and the value of reps over output targets.
- THEORY-GYM: Covered the limitations of traditional music theory when applied to contemporary rock and songwriting, using chord quality recognition and ear training as a practical entry point. Discussed how borrowing chords outside a key's diatonic set is common and useful, and why chasing what sounds good often matters more than fitting strict theoretical rules. Offered guidance on learning songs by ear, alternate guitar tunings, guitar setup and maintenance, and using a DAW to capture and develop ideas.
- INSTRUMENT-GYM: We worked through the Hanon exercise as a harmonic training tool, running it in tenths across all keys via the circle of fourths and fifths. The focus was on using the melodic structure of the exercise to train the ear to catch wrong notes rather than watching the fingers navigate key changes. We also explored adapting the exercise to natural minor and attempted harmonic minor, which revealed the augmented second in that scale and introduced the Phrygian dominant scale as a related concept.
- WEEKLY-BEAT-CHALLENGE: We reviewed beats submitted by Christian and worked through feedback on mixing for multiple playback environments, arrangement choices under harmonic constraints, and the challenge of writing instrumental music in vocal-centered genres. We also touched on diminished chord symmetry as it relates to key rotation, and discussed the studio versus performance relationship as a broader creative framework.
- OFFICE HOURS: Covered approaches to managing sibilance on vocals recorded through cassette tape, including de-essing, multiband compression, frequency balancing, and saturation-based tape emulation techniques. Discussed snare replacement and sample triggering workflows in the context of a current mix project, including how to preserve a drummer's intentional dynamics. Reviewed two tracks brought by a student and gave detailed feedback on mix translation, and spatial decisions.
- THEORY-GYM: We explored secondary dominants using a real-world example: the chord progression from "Hush" by The Marias (A minor 9 – D7 – G major 7 – G7). The central question was how to identify and label non-diatonic dominant seventh chords in a progression whose key center is itself ambiguous. Discussion moved through multiple analytical lenses — five-of-five, five-of-four, modal interchange, and 2-5-1 in a relative major — without settling on a single definitive answer, which itself became part of the lesson.
Learn more about Residency
Upcoming Resident Events
- Weekly Beat Challenge: Nathan
  Jun. 29, 6pm (PT) | 9pm (ET) | 2am (UK)
- Office Hours: Cato Zane
  Jun. 29, 2pm (PT) | 5pm (ET) | 10pm (UK)
- Ear Training: Nathan
  Jun. 29, 7am (PT) | 10am (ET) | 3pm (UK)
- Theory Gym: Nathan
  Jun. 30, 5pm (PT) | 8pm (ET) | 1am (UK)
- Office Hours: Jam
  Jun. 30, 2pm (PT) | 5pm (ET) | 10pm (UK)
- Production Gym: Jam
  Jun. 30, 5am (PT) | 8am (ET) | 1pm (UK)
Learn more about Residency
Upcoming Courses
- Apr 19, 2026 Theory: Musician Basics
- Apr 22, 2026 Mixing: Effects, Synths & Tools
- Apr 27, 2026 DAW Core Skills
- Apr 27, 2026 FL Studio
- May 23, 2026 Logic Pro 1-Day Intensive
- Jun 10, 2026 Hardware & Recording Primer
- Jul 8, 2026 Hardware & Recording Primer
- Jul 12, 2026 DAW Core Skills
See All Courses
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