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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.

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What students say

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Awesome interactive/ accessable class, Nathan really cares and has a great way of teaching.

—Em, Portland, OR

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Took a class on Acoustics and Harmonics which blew my mind. This class together with a Chord class also by Beat Kitchen opened up how I think not only about the science behind sound, but also the chordal/harmonic relationships that inform

—Matthew, Los Angeles, CA

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Took a lesson over music theory and learned a lot in a short amount of time! Amazing teacher and lots of great information!

—J4de

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

—Jason, California

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Great class. Nathan is a great instructor. I would definitely recommend Beat kitchen to friends.

—James, Bishopville, SC

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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Electronic Music Kitchen Master electronic music production fundamentals. Learn trance, bass music, EDM composition techniques, MIDI programming, … Hip Hop Kitchen Learn to create unique hip hop beats with professional structure, sound design, and mixing techniques. Master looping, … Orchestral Kitchen Master orchestral production techniques including articulation, arrangement, and realistic programming for brass, … Session Player Kitchen Learn professional session player techniques and realistic instrument programming. Master drums, guitars, bass … Vocal Kitchen Learn professional vocal recording, production, and processing techniques. Master microphone placement, vocal chains, …

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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Recording Studio Masterclass Hands-on recording studio masterclass with professional equipment. Learn large format consoles, studio etiquette, and … Songwriter Masterclass Master songwriting techniques with professional composers. Learn melody writing, chord progressions, song structure, … Synthesist Masterclass Advanced synthesis masterclass covering wavetable, granular, FM synthesis, and sound design. Learn professional …

Beat Kitchen At-A-Glance

Beat Ktichen Calendar

See the full calendar
Recent Resident Gyms
- 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.
- OFFICE HOURS: Worked through a live demo build of a custom synthesizer instrument, exploring string partial modeling, formant locking, and granular playback modes. Covered the acoustics of formants — how resonant peaks define vowel sounds and how locking formants enables pitch-independent vowel shaping. Also explored routing limitations when combining live audio input, sample playback, and the vocoder-style excitation path, identifying a specific bypass architecture needed to resolve the conflict.
- WEEKLY-BEAT-CHALLENGE: Reviewed submitted beats from multiple students, including pieces by Paul and John, and spent extended time on detailed feedback for Josephine's track. Also demonstrated formant shifting using a custom-built plugin called Harmonic, walking through how formant sculpting and spectral shifting work in practice.
- WEEKLY-BEAT-CHALLENGE: Covered bass-line thinking and how to approach bass as an instrument versus emulating it on keys, with a walkthrough of walking bass lines, landing chord tones on strong beats, and directional scale motion. Worked through the caterpillar exercise in depth — shell voicings, third-stacking, and chord substitution — as a framework for building keyboard facility in any key. Also addressed producer perspective: the risks of over-producing familiar material, the limits of metrics-based listening, and how perception shapes what we hear versus what is actually there.
- OFFICE HOURS: Covered a real-world case study in salvaging a poorly recorded garage demo: stem splitting for drum replacement/triggering, cymbal replacement using personal one-shots, re-amping guitars through virtual amps, high-passing for bleed reduction, and heavy vocal processing including noise removal, tuning, saturation, and slap-back delay. Also discussed audio delivery formats (bit depth, streaming platform requirements), Reaper workflow tips for cross-project plugin copying, mastering consistency across singles and albums, drum programming philosophy for producers, and drum fill construction for non-drummers.
- WEEKLY-BEAT-CHALLENGE: Reviewed several pieces submitted to the Beat Challenge folder, including works by Christian and Angela, with discussion of chord voicings and song structure. Also heard a work-in-progress song featuring vocals, live instrumentation, and MIDI horn tracks in development. Much of the session involved troubleshooting audio playback issues with uploaded files before pieces could be evaluated.
- PRODUCTION-GYM: Worked through a sim mastering session on one of Josephine's productions ("Endlessness"), covering the full workflow from initial gain staging to click removal, drum bus compression, and kick/bass frequency balancing. Also opened the session with reference track listening — analyzing production choices, arrangement credits, and recording technique on a contemporary track.
- THEORY-GYM: We used "Our House" by Madness as a lens for analyzing a single recurring chord progression — one chord, one minor five, one minor two, one minor four — and examined how the band built an entire multi-section song from it. We also listened to a second track as a comparison piece, tracing similar techniques: modal borrowing, distant modulations, and fragmentary quoting of familiar progressions broken before resolution.
- WEEKLY-BEAT-CHALLENGE: Reviewed a full original song submission from Josephine alongside additional pieces in the beat bucket. Feedback centered on restrained mixing philosophy — vocal leveling without heavy compression, minimal effects processing, and how to approach bringing in a live drummer without pre-loading their ear. Also demonstrated new Harmonic plugin functionality using piano sample scrubbing and inharmonicity modeling, and briefly covered sampler round-robin techniques for vocal sample variation.
- OFFICE HOURS: working with clients, mixing vs production
Learn more about Residency
Upcoming Resident Events
- Theory Gym: Nathan
  Oct. 11,
- Ear Training: Jon Mattox
  Oct. 13,
- Office Hours: Cato Zane
  Oct. 13,
- Theory Gym: Jon Mattox
  Oct. 13,
- Production Gym: Jam
  Oct. 14,
- Weekly Beat Challenge: Nathan
  Oct. 14,
Learn more about Residency
Upcoming Courses
- Apr 27, 2026 DAW Core Skills
- May 23, 2026 Logic Pro 1-Day Intensive
- Jun 8, 2026 Mixing: Effects, Synths & Tools
- Jun 10, 2026 Hardware & Recording Primer
- Jul 8, 2026 Hardware & Recording Primer
- Jul 12, 2026 DAW Core Skills
- Jul 12, 2026 Theory: Musician Basics
- Jul 15, 2026 FL Studio
See All Courses
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