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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

Mar 30, 2027 – Apr 29, 2027

Tuesdays, Thursdays, 4 PM Pacific | 7 PM Eastern | 12 AM UK

10 × 2hr classes

$620.00 includes 2 mo. residency

I'm a current resident $450.00

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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One of the greatest, most fun classes I have taken. They open my mind to the possibilities of music

—Alex, San Marcos, CA

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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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Took a class recently with Nathan and he’s a fantastic instructor. His kindness, openness to questions, and knowledge of music is truly phenomenal. I highly recommend this school for anyone who wants to be a great music producer!

—J, Brooklyn, NY

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I was drawn to Beat Kitchen after coming across their videos on social media.

—Jason, California

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Phenomenal work, a joy to collaborate with

—Rafael, Seattle, WA

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 Your lab for carrying a track across the finish line — the forcing function that turns a produced or recorded song into … Production Incubator Your lab for turning a song into a finished production — the forcing function that leaves you with a track ready for the … Recording Incubator Your lab for capturing real performances of your song — the forcing function that leaves you with recordings ready for … Songwriting Incubator Your lab for getting a song started and out the door — the forcing function that leaves you with a draft ready for the …

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Beat Kitchen At-A-Glance

Beat Ktichen Calendar

See the full calendar
Recent Resident Gyms
- WEEKLY-BEAT-CHALLENGE: Reviewed two student beats this week — one from Mark and one from John — with feedback focused on drum programming vocabulary, section development, and how drum parts can drive arrangement evolution. Also demoed a custom-sampled piano instrument built from Nathan's own studio piano, discussing its architecture, velocity layering, neighbor-swapping for machine-gun prevention, and a Claude-assisted EXS mapping workflow.
- OFFICE HOURS: Worked through a chord analysis discovery on Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years," demonstrating that the chord widely charted as a half-diminished chord is actually a minor sixth chord — verified by splitting stems and identifying a C-sharp in the piano part. Also covered setting up multiple audio interfaces simultaneously on Mac using Audio MIDI Setup and Aggregate Devices. A question about sampling permissions and copyright came up, with practical discussion of how to handle dialogue samples from broadcast media.
- THEORY-GYM: We worked through the harmony of Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years," using it as a vehicle for exploring gospel and churchy chord voicings, figured bass notation, diminished chord function, modal interchange, and chromatic bass motion. Topics included the cadential 6-4, common-tone diminished chords, suspended chords (including the "super sus" voicing), and chromatic bass lines moving through borrowed chords to pivot between keys. The bridge was identified as particularly complex and was not fully analyzed in the available time.
- THEORY-GYM: We worked through the chord progressions of "Black Hole Sun" (Soundgarden) to examine how notoriously unusual chords function in context. Key topics included major/minor ambiguity, polychords, anchor notes in melody, tritone substitutions, and modal interchange — using the song as a vehicle to explain how these devices operate whether or not the songwriter named them. We also touched briefly on how power chords (open fifths) reveal harmonic structure by removing the third from the equation.
- THEORY-GYM: Worked through the chord changes to "Sweet Lorraine" (B♭ jazz standard), mapping the full A-section progression and identifying the harmonic devices that create its characteristic chromatic motion — including secondary dominants, tritone substitutions, diminished passing chords, and the use of the iii chord as a stand-in for the I. Also addressed left-hand piano voicing technique: how shells (thirds and sevenths), tenths, and the "drop assassination" vs. "sneak attack" approach connect directly to the voice leading inside those changes.
- WEEKLY-BEAT-CHALLENGE: Reviewed a hip-hop track built around stutter edits and an Aretha Franklin piano sample, with discussion of lo-fi authenticity, kitsch production aesthetics, and how to commit to a retro sound without tipping into parody. Explored stutter-editing techniques in Logic Pro — including the Beat Breaker plugin and manual cut-based approaches — and compared them to a buffer override plugin used by one of the students. Also searched Logic Pro's legacy instrument library for a Farfisa organ sound to illustrate a tonal direction for a separate piece in progress.
- OFFICE HOURS: Covered lead sheet and chart-writing fundamentals — including form notation, repeat signs, segno/coda navigation, and fitting a full arrangement onto a single page — using a Michelle (Beatles/jazz standard) chart as a worked example. Discussed drum kit curation workflows in Logic Pro, specifically how to audition and assemble multiple kits before committing sounds to Drum Machine Designer. Also ran a live vocal review session, listening for pitch offenses in two harmony parts drawn from a live dress rehearsal recording.
- WEEKLY-BEAT-CHALLENGE: Covered guitar reverb gating techniques, including sidechaining and region-based approaches for controlling reverb tails in performance and post-production contexts. Worked through Logic Pro flex pitch and audio quantization workflows, with a focus on how to isolate regions before applying flex to avoid unintended timing drift. Also examined the lead sheet for the Beatles' "Michelle" — its chord content, key ambiguity, and the form notation (D.S. al Coda, repeat signs, segno) required to navigate it on a single page.
- OFFICE HOURS: Worked through a song revision with Christian, focusing on song structure, melodic differentiation between sections, harmonic rhythm, and the "cotter pin" problem — the moment where a pre-chorus and chorus share nearly identical chord progressions and melodic contours, making the transition between them feel stagnant rather than like a lift. Also covered a Logic Pro SMPTE-lock technique for safely halving tempo without displacing regions, and addressed a mixer visibility bug.
- THEORY-GYM: We explored the jazz "real book" tradition — the corpus of standards, show tunes, and select pop songs that jazz musicians have historically drawn from — and examined why certain non-jazz songs earn a place in that lexicon. Using Michelle (Beatles), Yesterday (Beatles), and a Stevie Wonder song as case studies, we analyzed what harmonic features make a song attractive to jazz interpretation: four-note chord voicings, two-five-one progressions, stand-ins and substitutions for the five chord, and the absence of a dominant chorus structure. We also walked through how to read a lead sheet, including repeat signs, codas, and D.S. al Coda navigation.
Learn more about Residency
Upcoming Resident Events
- Office Hours: Nathan
  Oct. 29,
- Theory Gym: Nathan
  Nov. 01,
- Office Hours: Cato Zane
  Nov. 02,
- Theory Gym: Jon Mattox
  Nov. 02,
- Instrument Gym: Jon Mattox
  Nov. 03,
- Office Hours: Nathan
  Nov. 03,
Learn more about Residency
Upcoming Courses
- Nov 7, 2026 Logic Pro 1-Day Intensive
- Nov 10, 2026 Mixing: Effects, Synths & Tools
- Nov 18, 2026 Mix Incubator
- Nov 25, 2026 Production Incubator
- Nov 29, 2026 Mixing: Effects, Synths & Tools
- Jan 5, 2027 Recording Incubator
- Jan 19, 2027 Synthesist
- Jan 27, 2027 Vocal Kitchen
See All Courses
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