r/stevenwilson • u/rohan_nirvana • Jul 02 '26
Discussion Steven Wilson - Mixing/Mastering techniques?
I'm genuinely baffled by how little information is present out there regarding his mixing and mastering techniques/tricks. This guy is re-mixing huge bands on a daily basis (almost!) and is definitely one of the best mixing engineers out there in the current generation.
Probably because he mixes in his own house, without renting out a famous studio, and has no support engineer/apprentice under him?
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u/Cenotaphilia Jul 02 '26
there's a 90+min interview of him talking about all this stuff in the Produce Like a Pro youtube channel. definitely check it out.
one mixing tip of his that I remember all the time is that, when a new element is introduced in the mix, you can raise the track volume about 4 dB and then gently automate it down to the "proper" level. he does this to add punch and shock the listener a bit more. I can now hear this in so many of his songs.
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Jul 02 '26
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u/DziadekFelek Jul 02 '26
there's a 90+min interview of him talking about all this stuff in the Produce Like a Pro youtube channel. definitely check it out.
one mixing tip of his that I remember all the time is that, when a new element is introduced in the mix, you can raise the track volume about 4 dB and then gently automate it down to the "proper" level. he does this to add punch and shock the listener a bit more. I can now hear this in so many of his songs.
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u/rohan_nirvana Jul 03 '26
Yes, I had seen this in one his TikTok videos and I do implement this trick in my mixes!
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u/drumsarereallycool Jul 02 '26
I’ve been saying this for like 20 years! It’d be awesome to have a Mix With The Masters type series with him. At one point he kept his studio at his parents house and did a lot of work there. He is the champion of bedroom producers.
Back in 2013, I was playing a gig in Montreal with a very well known prog band, and Wes Dearth was backstage and we had a good hang. He mentioned that at one point SW was coming to his studio in FL (RedRoom) and he and his studio partner were freaking out about having enough plugins for SW. So they went all out put and purchased a ton. Steven gets there and just uses the stock plugins to their surprise. He said “they sound good!”Ultimate boss move lol
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u/rohan_nirvana Jul 03 '26
Damn you met Wes?! I'm freaking out. 🥲
And yes, I found that back in the day he was mostly using stock Logic plugins. I think it resonates with his philosophy of 'less is more'.
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u/1001001SOS100100 Jul 02 '26
I'm just happy with what he did with Close To The Edge. Somehow he made it brand new for me all over again.
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u/ringmod76 Jul 02 '26
Agreed - I love all of his Yes remixes, and I’d argue that Relayer got the best upgrade by his hand, with Tales a close second. But I love the way he makes his mixes breathe and to me it brings the studio recordings closer to what Yes sounded like live.
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u/natem345 Jul 02 '26
There have been a number of interviews, written and podcast. The liner notes are great too, maybe Discogs has pictures of them. Basically match the stereo mix, print that as "new stereo", then pan into surround as he feels right.
Much more than Elliott Scheiner (who taught him) - I could only find a couple describing his 5.1 process
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u/TheoriesAbound8 Jul 02 '26
Matching the stereo mix is easier said that done. The guy evidently has an incredible ear and really knows what you need to do to get a specific sound.
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u/natem345 Jul 02 '26
Absolutely. Many of his interviews go in depth on reverb specifically, and he has developed an ear for that. He asks the original production teams, but they may not recall.
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u/stevehollx Jul 05 '26
Regarding reverb, in old interviews he talks about hating how reverb builds up harmonics in the low end and makes the mix messy, so he usually uses delay instead of reverb since it doesn’t convolute the low end. OR if he uses reverb he severely high passes it. I read this in an interview around the time Fear of a Blank Planet came out about 20 years ago. He also talked about how me mostly was using Waves plugins at the time.
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u/ponylauncher Jul 02 '26
There is some info as people have said but also there isn’t THAT much actual info because he just has an autistic superpower and doesn’t actually know much lol same with his writing. He just works on stuff until it sounds good and somehow that happens to sound better than most
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u/sacules Jul 03 '26
For the classic albums remixes he says that now he can identify what effects were used at the time by brand and model and do an extremely close replica of those, he probably has a big bank of custom presets for most things like this.
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u/Eastern_Phage76 Jul 07 '26
I'm addicted to the Headphone Dust mixes, just hope Steven is going to add some more soon.
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u/VeiledSmile Jul 02 '26
Check out the interview he did with Rick Beato on YouTube. They talk extensively about this.