Tracking, Editing, Mixing, and Delivery

This unit advances students’ home-recording abilities by teaching microphone selection and placement, room optimization, DAW editing and MIDI workflows, mixing techniques, and final delivery formats. Students learn professional session management, collaboration and backup strategies, and mastering basics (including preparing files for streaming, download, and physical formats) to ready projects for release or continued production.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze room acoustics, microphone characteristics, and signal-chain components to select and position microphones, preamps, and stereo-miking techniques for at least three common home-recording source scenarios (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar/bass).
• Apply DAW-based editing and MIDI workflows — including comping, quantizing, loop editing, automation, submixing, and use of gates/expanders and modulation effects — to produce polished multitrack sessions prepared for mixing.
• Demonstrate mixing and mastering workflows by creating a final stereo master (lossless and MP3), using EQ, dynamics, spatial processing, de-essing, and mono-compatibility checks, and prepare deliverables for distribution or physical pressing (e.g., vinyl).
• Evaluate and implement professional session-management and collaboration practices by saving/backing-up projects, transferring files (including MIDI and mobile-session data), using version control and file-sharing methods, and applying appropriate social-media and delivery strategies.