Should AI Do the Music Mixing?
Let me answer that question the same way I would if we were sitting in my studio at 2 a.m. with cold coffee and a half finished track looping in the background.
Hell no. But also, yes. Sort of.
Music is art. Full stop.
If an AI ends up doing all of the art, then we are screwed. The world where a robot makes the whole song from start to finish already exists. It is called Suno. And yeah, Suno sucks.
It is not that the results sound terrible (sometimes they do not). It is that there is no person behind it. No one decided to slam a ridiculous distortion on the snare at 3:17 because they were feeling chaotic that day. No one fought with the vocal for six hours because they needed it to sound like it was crying in a rainstorm. It is just clean. Polite. Soulless. That is not music to me. That is wallpaper.
So the real question is not “Can AI mix?”
It is “Should AI mix, and if so, which parts?”
I have been producing music for over 20 years. I have worked with professional mix engineers (shoutout to my friend who is probably reading this right now and rolling his eyes. Love you, man). For a long time I sent him my raw tracks and hoped for the best. But every time the mix came back, something felt off. The reverb on the guitars was too nice. The delays on the vocals were too clean. It sounded professional but it did not sound like me.
So I started doing something that drove my mix engineer crazy.
I started sending him pre mixes.
I would already put my own reverbs, delays, weird effects, and creative decisions exactly where I wanted them. I would print all that crazy stuff into the stems. Then I would hand it over and say: “Here. Now make this actually sound good.”
He hated it.
I loved it.
Because I finally realized something important: mixing has two completely different jobs.
Job 1
The artistic part.
This is where you decide the vibe. Where you put the weird effects. Where you destroy the guitar with distortion just because it feels right. Where you make the vocal sit in a weird, dark space that no textbook would ever recommend. This is you. This is the art.
Job 2
The technical part.
This is cutting the 200 Hz mud so the mix does not sound like it is underwater. This is fixing the bass that is masking the vocal. This is making sure the kick and bass do not fight each other. This is the boring, nerdy, ear training stuff that takes years to master.
After 20 plus years I am still not great at Job 2.
And you know what? That is fine.
Does that make me less of an artist?
F no.
It just means I know my strengths. I am the guy who makes the crazy creative decisions. I am not the guy who can hear a 3 dB dip at 1.8 kHz and instantly know it will fix the harshness. That is okay. That is why I used to hire a mix engineer.
A story
Years ago I did the same thing with my friend Mehran. We produced a track together and I was really happy he was also a good mixing engineer. He took care of the mixing part while I focused on the creative stuff. That track ended up becoming one of the official demo songs in FL Studio. It is probably the most played one ever since it sits in thousands of people's DAWs. I still get a kick out of that.
That experience taught me exactly what I am talking about today.
What if an AI could do both jobs? What if it could handle the artistic decisions and the technical cleanup and even throw in some sound design? That is Suno again. And again, it sucks.
I do not want to outsource the fun part. I want to be the one adding the weird shit. I want to be the one making choices that might be too much for some people. That is the me part. That is the artist part. I am keeping that forever.
But the technical part?
Man, take it. Please.
Cutting mud? Fixing phase issues? Balancing the low end so it does not sound like a mess on club speakers? I will happily let an AI or a plugin or a real engineer handle that crap. Because those tasks are usually pretty predictable and repetitive. I do not have the golden ears for it, and I have accepted that.
My actual answer
Let AI do the boring, technical, repetitive stuff.
Keep the weird, emotional, this might be stupid but it feels right stuff for yourself.
Use AI like a super powered assistant, not like a replacement artist.
Let it clean up your 200 Hz mud.
Let it suggest smart EQ moves.
Let it level your vocals so you do not have to ride the fader for three hours.
But do not let it decide that the guitar should have a subtle plate reverb instead of the chaotic reverse delay you actually wanted. That is your call. That is your art.
I still stay in control of what actually matters. The part that feels like me.
Because at the end of the day, the best mixes are not the cleanest ones.
They are the ones that sound like a human who gives a damn made them.
And no AI (yet) gives a damn the way we do.
Atthar
Singer, songwriter and producer. Based in Canada.