Mixing Music | Music Production, Audio Engineering, & Music Business

Lu's on vacation. Dee Kei is alone with a page of talking points and one of the most contested topics in audio engineering right now — and the result is one of the most thoughtful solo episodes the show has produced.

This is not an episode about which AI tools Dee uses or recommends. It's about something harder to talk about: how engineers think about delegation, what happens when a probabilistic recommendation gets presented with the confidence of certainty, and why the pro-AI vs. anti-AI binary is the least useful frame anyone could bring to this conversation.

Dee opens with a distinction that reframes the entire debate: there's a difference between assistance tools, delegation tools, and full replacement — and most of the discourse collapses all three into one. He argues that engineers have been using automated decision-making for decades (dynamic EQ, auto release, delay compensation, drum replacement, LUFS metering), so the real question was never whether machines should make decisions. The real question is how much of the contextual, consequential decision-making we're comfortable handing over — and whether we understand what's being lost in that handoff.

From there he gets into the value engineers actually bring that no AI is accounting for: accountability, history with an artist, taste, creative confidence, the ability to hear the same note as a client and understand what they actually mean. He's direct about the economic effects coming — fewer junior engineer jobs, faster turnaround expectations, clients arriving with better rough mixes — but equally direct about what those changes don't mean: that the ceiling of professional audio work is getting any lower.

The episode closes on a question Dee leaves deliberately open: if an AI assistant could eventually make every technical decision as well as a human engineer, what do we actually believe the mixer is there to do?

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Find Dee Kei and Lu on Social Media:

Instagram: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu @JamesParrishMixes

Twitter: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu

The Mixing Music Podcast is sponsored by ⁠Izotope⁠, ⁠Antares (Auto Tune)⁠, Sweetwater, ⁠Plugin Boutique⁠, ⁠Lauten Audio⁠, ⁠Filepass⁠, & ⁠Canva⁠

The Mixing Music Podcast is a video and audio series on the art of music production and post-production. Dee Kei, Lu, and James are professionals in the Los Angeles music industry having worked with names like Odetari, 6arelyhuman, Trey Songz, Keyshia Cole, Benny the Butcher, carolesdaughter, Crying City, Daphne Loves Derby, Natalie Jane, charlieonnafriday, bludnymph, Lay Bankz, Rico Nasty, Ayesha Erotica, ATEEZ, Dizzy Wright, Kanye West, Blackway, The Game, Dylan Espeseth, Tara Yummy, Asteria, Kets4eki, Shaquille O'Neal, Republic Records, Interscope Records, Arista Records, Position Music, Capital Records, Mercury Records, Universal Music Group, apg, Hive Music, Sony Music, and many others.

This podcast is meant to be used for educational purposes only. This show is filmed and recorded at Dee Kei's private studio in North Hollywood, California. If you would like to sponsor the show, please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠.

Before you do anything else, pause this episode and go take the Big Five personality test at https://bigfive-test.com/ — it's free, open source, and it's the entire point. Dee Kei and Lu share their results live on the show, and if you don't know your own numbers, this episode won't hit the same.

The Big Five — also called the OCEAN model — is the only personality framework that psychologists actually take seriously. Unlike Myers-Briggs and 16 Personalities, which studies have found are closer to horoscopes in predictive power, the Big Five is clinically validated, cross-cultural, and remarkably consistent over time. Dee breaks down exactly why — the difference in test-retest reliability, the Barnum Effect, and what it actually means to score on a continuous spectrum instead of being dropped into a binary personality type.

From there, the episode gets into the part that's most relevant to anyone building a career in audio: what each trait actually predicts in a professional creative context. High neuroticism and how it maps to taking client feedback personally, spiraling on revisions, and undercharging to avoid confrontation. High conscientiousness and how it shows up differently in recording versus mixing workflows. The relationship between openness and musical taste — and why, despite what you might assume, personality and music preference are barely correlated at all.

Then Dee and Lu read their actual results out loud — and it gets surprisingly candid. Lu's strengths and blind spots, including the gap between his external warmth and his internal sensitivity to criticism. Dee's near-perfect openness scores, his low cautiousness, and why his directness can sometimes outrun his warmth in ways people misread. The moment where the AI-generated analysis of Dee's personality is so accurate that he and Lu both go silent.

It's equal parts psychology, self-awareness, and career development — wrapped in one of the more honest conversations the show has had.

What would Dee Kei and Lu actually do if they had to start their music careers completely over today — same age, same responsibilities, but zero industry knowledge, zero connections, and zero credits? That's the question at the center of this episode, and the answers get surprisingly deep.

The conversation starts practical: Lu makes the case for going straight to the top and finding the most credible working professional you can — shadowing, interning, and learning how the industry actually moves before spending a dime on gear. Dee adds his own counterpoint, arguing that hands-on reps with real people, even local ones, build something an internship can't always give you early on. The two go back and forth on the internship vs. DIY debate in a way that's genuinely useful for anyone trying to figure out where to start.

But the episode goes further than tactics. Dee pulls from Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman to break down how self-control, delayed gratification, and the ability to focus attention are more predictive of long-term success than raw intelligence — and what that means for how you show up in the early days of your career. They also get into the fatherhood premium, what motivation looks like when the stakes are real, and why community college might be one of the most underrated networking moves for someone starting over in their 30s.

The episode closes on something more philosophical: the difference between genuinely wanting a career in music and just thinking you should have one — and why knowing that distinction early could save you years of wasted energy or redirect you toward something even more sustainable.

Whether you're 19 with a laptop and a dream or 35 reconsidering your path, this episode will challenge how you think about starting.

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⁠HIRE JAMES⁠

Find Dee Kei and Lu on Social Media:

Instagram: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu @JamesParrishMixes

Twitter: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu

The Mixing Music Podcast is sponsored by ⁠Izotope⁠, ⁠Antares (Auto Tune)⁠, Sweetwater, ⁠Plugin Boutique⁠, ⁠Lauten Audio⁠, ⁠Filepass⁠, & ⁠Canva⁠

The Mixing Music Podcast is a video and audio series on the art of music production and post-production. Dee Kei, Lu, and James are professionals in the Los Angeles music industry having worked with names like Odetari, 6arelyhuman, Trey Songz, Keyshia Cole, Benny the Butcher, carolesdaughter, Crying City, Daphne Loves Derby, Natalie Jane, charlieonnafriday, bludnymph, Lay Bankz, Rico Nasty, Ayesha Erotica, ATEEZ, Dizzy Wright, Kanye West, Blackway, The Game, Dylan Espeseth, Tara Yummy, Asteria, Kets4eki, Shaquille O'Neal, Republic Records, Interscope Records, Arista Records, Position Music, Capital Records, Mercury Records, Universal Music Group, apg, Hive Music, Sony Music, and many others.

This podcast is meant to be used for educational purposes only. This show is filmed and recorded at Dee Kei's private studio in North Hollywood, California. If you would like to sponsor the show, please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠.

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In this episode, Dee Kei and Lu sit down with Andrew Rynhard — mastering engineer, developer, and founder of Naturl Audio — for one of the most technical and candid limiter conversations the show has ever had. Naturl Audio's philosophy is "evolution, not emulation," and that mindset runs through every corner of this episode.

They start at the foundation: what's the actual difference between a brick wall limiter and a high-ratio compressor, and does the distinction even matter in practice? Andrew breaks down how the AL-1 takes a fundamentally different approach — abandoning traditional lookahead design in favor of an original zero-latency circuit, and deliberately avoiding the clipping or wave-shaping stage that most limiters rely on to force a hard ceiling. The result, he explains, is a limiter that stays musical and open under pressure rather than mechanical. Dee walks through how he actually uses the AL-1 in his mix sessions — not just as a loudness tool at the end of the chain, but as a creative shaping device — and Andrew digs into the Optimizer section, which uses upward compression and intelligent makeup gain to add loudness without coloration.

The episode also takes some unexpected turns. Andrew opens up about the intense online backlash surrounding the AL-1's launch — including people threatening him over a plugin — and what that toxicity says about tribalism in the audio world. Dee shares a story about being the only engineer in a room full of pros willing to admit he couldn't hear a difference, and why that kind of honest integrity might be the most underrated quality in the business. Andrew echoes it with a lesson he learned from Jiu Jitsu: ego is the single biggest blocker to actually developing your ears, and the engineers who keep growing are the ones who can say "I don't know" out loud.

It wraps with a real conversation about clipping philosophy — when to reach for a clipper vs. lean on the limiter, and what Grammy-winning masters actually look like in terms of true peak and LUFS. The answer might surprise you.

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HIRE DEE KEI

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Find Dee Kei and Lu on Social Media:

Instagram: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu @JamesParrishMixes

Twitter: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu

The Mixing Music Podcast is sponsored by ⁠Izotope⁠, ⁠Antares (Auto Tune)⁠, Sweetwater, ⁠Plugin Boutique⁠, ⁠Lauten Audio⁠, ⁠Filepass⁠, & ⁠Canva⁠

The Mixing Music Podcast is a video and audio series on the art of music production and post-production. Dee Kei, Lu, and James are professionals in the Los Angeles music industry having worked with names like Odetari, 6arelyhuman, Trey Songz, Keyshia Cole, Benny the Butcher, carolesdaughter, Crying City, Daphne Loves Derby, Natalie Jane, charlieonnafriday, bludnymph, Lay Bankz, Rico Nasty, Ayesha Erotica, ATEEZ, Dizzy Wright, Kanye West, Blackway, The Game, Dylan Espeseth, Tara Yummy, Asteria, Kets4eki, Shaquille O'Neal, Republic Records, Interscope Records, Arista Records, Position Music, Capital Records, Mercury Records, Universal Music Group, apg, Hive Music, Sony Music, and many others.

This podcast is meant to be used for educational purposes only. This show is filmed and recorded at Dee Kei's private studio in North Hollywood, California. If you would like to sponsor the show, please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠.

SUBSTACK LINK

In this solo episode, Dee Kei reads and expands on his Substack essay — a thoughtful response to the now-viral Jim Lil preamp video that sent the audio engineering world into a frenzy. If you haven't seen it, Jim Lil tested a Neve 31105 against a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 and found the audible difference between the two to be far smaller than most engineers would ever admit. The reactions were loud, emotional, and — according to Dee Kei — largely missing the point.

This episode isn't really about whether preamps matter. It's about why the conversation got so heated, what that reaction reveals about how engineers attach their professional identity to their gear, and what it looks like to hold your preferences with confidence without letting them harden into ego. Dee draws on philosophy — Nietzsche's concept of self-overcoming and Nishitani's idea of emptiness — not to be abstract, but to give language to something engineers feel but rarely articulate: the difference between having taste and needing your taste to be doctrine.

He also calls out the logical fallacies that flooded the reaction videos, breaks down what Jim Lil's test actually proved versus what people claimed it proved, and ends with a distinction that every working engineer should sit with — the difference between a confident engineer and an egoic one.

This is one of the more unique episodes in the show's catalog. Equal parts audio philosophy, industry critique, and professional development — and it's the kind of conversation the mixing world needs more of.

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HIRE DEE KEI

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Find Dee Kei and Lu on Social Media:

Instagram: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu @JamesParrishMixes

Twitter: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu

The Mixing Music Podcast is sponsored by ⁠Izotope⁠, ⁠Antares (Auto Tune)⁠, Sweetwater, ⁠Plugin Boutique⁠, ⁠Lauten Audio⁠, ⁠Filepass⁠, & ⁠Canva⁠

The Mixing Music Podcast is a video and audio series on the art of music production and post-production. Dee Kei, Lu, and James are professionals in the Los Angeles music industry having worked with names like Odetari, 6arelyhuman, Trey Songz, Keyshia Cole, Benny the Butcher, carolesdaughter, Crying City, Daphne Loves Derby, Natalie Jane, charlieonnafriday, bludnymph, Lay Bankz, Rico Nasty, Ayesha Erotica, ATEEZ, Dizzy Wright, Kanye West, Blackway, The Game, Dylan Espeseth, Tara Yummy, Asteria, Kets4eki, Shaquille O'Neal, Republic Records, Interscope Records, Arista Records, Position Music, Capital Records, Mercury Records, Universal Music Group, apg, Hive Music, Sony Music, and many others.

This podcast is meant to be used for educational purposes only. This show is filmed and recorded at Dee Kei's private studio in North Hollywood, California. If you would like to sponsor the show, please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠.

A listener-requested episode is back by popular demand! Dee Kei and Lu tackle one of the most common questions in the show's history — what computer should you actually buy for mixing, producing, recording, and video editing in 2026?

They make the case for why Mac has become the default choice for anyone working in a collaborative environment, breaking down file compatibility issues, AirDrop convenience, and why the cost gap with PCs no longer justifies the headache. From there, they go deep on the Mac mini's rise as one of the best value computers ever made, why it became so hard to find, and how the M4 and M5 chip generations have made fan noise, overheating, and lag basically non-issues for audio work.

The conversation also covers RAM and storage decisions that actually matter (versus the ones that don't), why external Thunderbolt drives are now just as fast and far more affordable than maxing out internal storage, and surprising GPU improvements that are changing video editing speeds for producers who dabble in content creation. They wrap with an unexpected but relevant detour into Apple's privacy stance and what that means for engineers handling sensitive, high-value sessions.

If you've been putting off a computer upgrade or just don't know what specs actually matter anymore, this episode cuts through the noise.

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HIRE DEE KEI

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⁠HIRE JAMES⁠

Find Dee Kei and Lu on Social Media:

Instagram: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu @JamesParrishMixes

Twitter: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu

The Mixing Music Podcast is sponsored by ⁠Izotope⁠, ⁠Antares (Auto Tune)⁠, Sweetwater, ⁠Plugin Boutique⁠, ⁠Lauten Audio⁠, ⁠Filepass⁠, & ⁠Canva⁠

The Mixing Music Podcast is a video and audio series on the art of music production and post-production. Dee Kei, Lu, and James are professionals in the Los Angeles music industry having worked with names like Odetari, 6arelyhuman, Trey Songz, Keyshia Cole, Benny the Butcher, carolesdaughter, Crying City, Daphne Loves Derby, Natalie Jane, charlieonnafriday, bludnymph, Lay Bankz, Rico Nasty, Ayesha Erotica, ATEEZ, Dizzy Wright, Kanye West, Blackway, The Game, Dylan Espeseth, Tara Yummy, Asteria, Kets4eki, Shaquille O'Neal, Republic Records, Interscope Records, Arista Records, Position Music, Capital Records, Mercury Records, Universal Music Group, apg, Hive Music, Sony Music, and many others.

This podcast is meant to be used for educational purposes only. This show is filmed and recorded at Dee Kei's private studio in North Hollywood, California. If you would like to sponsor the show, please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠.

In this solo episode, Dee Kei walks through exactly what a mixing session looks like from the moment he sits down to the moment the file goes out — no guests, no theory, just the real process he uses on every project.

He covers why the very first listen always happens before a single plugin is touched, how he organizes and gain stages a session before anything else, and the order in which he builds a mix and why. He also gets into his philosophy on plugin chains, how he actually uses reference tracks without chasing them, and how he knows when his ears have stopped telling him the truth. The episode wraps with his delivery routine — what the final check looks like, how he communicates with clients on send, and why the follow-up step most engineers skip is more important than they think.

If you've ever wanted to look over Dee Kei's shoulder during a real session, this is the closest thing to it.

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HIRE DEE KEI

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⁠HIRE JAMES⁠

Find Dee Kei and Lu on Social Media:

Instagram: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu @JamesParrishMixes

Twitter: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu

The Mixing Music Podcast is sponsored by ⁠Izotope⁠, ⁠Antares (Auto Tune)⁠, Sweetwater, ⁠Plugin Boutique⁠, ⁠Lauten Audio⁠, ⁠Filepass⁠, & ⁠Canva⁠

The Mixing Music Podcast is a video and audio series on the art of music production and post-production. Dee Kei, Lu, and James are professionals in the Los Angeles music industry having worked with names like Odetari, 6arelyhuman, Trey Songz, Keyshia Cole, Benny the Butcher, carolesdaughter, Crying City, Daphne Loves Derby, Natalie Jane, charlieonnafriday, bludnymph, Lay Bankz, Rico Nasty, Ayesha Erotica, ATEEZ, Dizzy Wright, Kanye West, Blackway, The Game, Dylan Espeseth, Tara Yummy, Asteria, Kets4eki, Shaquille O'Neal, Republic Records, Interscope Records, Arista Records, Position Music, Capital Records, Mercury Records, Universal Music Group, apg, Hive Music, Sony Music, and many others.

This podcast is meant to be used for educational purposes only. This show is filmed and recorded at Dee Kei's private studio in North Hollywood, California. If you would like to sponsor the show, please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠.

In this solo episode, Dee Kei gets honest about something nobody in the audio world really wants to say out loud — talent is the most common thing in this industry, and it's rarely what separates the engineers who are thriving from the ones who are struggling. After years of working alongside incredibly gifted mixers who can't keep the lights on, and watching others with average ears build sustainable careers, the pattern is clear: the gap isn't in the DAW.

Dee breaks down the real reasons talented engineers stay stuck — from waiting until they feel "ready," to undercharging out of insecurity, to treating their craft like a hobby instead of a business. He talks about the trap of being busy without being strategic, what it actually takes to build a referral pipeline, and why isolation might be the most career-limiting thing a mixer can do.

This one is a mindset episode, but it's also practical. Every point has a fix — and none of them require you to get better at mixing.

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Join the ‘Mixing Music Podcast’ Discord!

HIRE DEE KEI

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⁠HIRE JAMES⁠

Find Dee Kei and Lu on Social Media:

Instagram: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu @JamesParrishMixes

Twitter: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu

The Mixing Music Podcast is sponsored by ⁠Izotope⁠, ⁠Antares (Auto Tune)⁠, Sweetwater, ⁠Plugin Boutique⁠, ⁠Lauten Audio⁠, ⁠Filepass⁠, & ⁠Canva⁠

The Mixing Music Podcast is a video and audio series on the art of music production and post-production. Dee Kei, Lu, and James are professionals in the Los Angeles music industry having worked with names like Odetari, 6arelyhuman, Trey Songz, Keyshia Cole, Benny the Butcher, carolesdaughter, Crying City, Daphne Loves Derby, Natalie Jane, charlieonnafriday, bludnymph, Lay Bankz, Rico Nasty, Ayesha Erotica, ATEEZ, Dizzy Wright, Kanye West, Blackway, The Game, Dylan Espeseth, Tara Yummy, Asteria, Kets4eki, Shaquille O'Neal, Republic Records, Interscope Records, Arista Records, Position Music, Capital Records, Mercury Records, Universal Music Group, apg, Hive Music, Sony Music, and many others.

This podcast is meant to be used for educational purposes only. This show is filmed and recorded at Dee Kei's private studio in North Hollywood, California. If you would like to sponsor the show, please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠.

In this episode, Dee Kei breaks down how he actually thinks about mixing vocals — and it's probably not what you'd expect. Before touching a plugin, an EQ, or a compressor, the most important step is understanding the intention behind the song. Is it a club banger or an intimate bedroom record? A polished pop vocal or something raw that's supposed to feel that way? Dee explains why blindly applying mixing techniques without reading context is the number one mistake engineers at every level make.

From there, he dives into the fundamentals: how low-mids shape intimacy versus energy, why most beginners over-de-ess their vocals, when heavy compression works in your favor and when it fights the song, and how vocal placement in the mix is determined by the density and genre of the track. He also gets real about something not enough people talk about — the rise of intentionally "rough" sounding mixes that are racking up streams, and what that means for how you serve your clients.

Whether you're a bedroom producer mixing your first song or a working engineer looking to sharpen your instincts, this episode will shift how you approach every vocal session.

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Join the ‘Mixing Music Podcast’ Discord!

HIRE DEE KEI

HIRE LU

⁠HIRE JAMES⁠

Find Dee Kei and Lu on Social Media:

Instagram: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu @JamesParrishMixes

Twitter: @DeeKeiMixes @MasteredbyLu

The Mixing Music Podcast is sponsored by ⁠Izotope⁠, ⁠Antares (Auto Tune)⁠, Sweetwater, ⁠Plugin Boutique⁠, ⁠Lauten Audio⁠, ⁠Filepass⁠, & ⁠Canva⁠

The Mixing Music Podcast is a video and audio series on the art of music production and post-production. Dee Kei, Lu, and James are professionals in the Los Angeles music industry having worked with names like Odetari, 6arelyhuman, Trey Songz, Keyshia Cole, Benny the Butcher, carolesdaughter, Crying City, Daphne Loves Derby, Natalie Jane, charlieonnafriday, bludnymph, Lay Bankz, Rico Nasty, Ayesha Erotica, ATEEZ, Dizzy Wright, Kanye West, Blackway, The Game, Dylan Espeseth, Tara Yummy, Asteria, Kets4eki, Shaquille O'Neal, Republic Records, Interscope Records, Arista Records, Position Music, Capital Records, Mercury Records, Universal Music Group, apg, Hive Music, Sony Music, and many others.

This podcast is meant to be used for educational purposes only. This show is filmed and recorded at Dee Kei's private studio in North Hollywood, California. If you would like to sponsor the show, please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠.

In Episode 376 of the Mixing Music Podcast, Dee Kei shares a solo episode covering a wide range of topics that have been on his mind recently, from sleep and creativity to parenting, education, faith, and the psychology of pursuing music.

He reflects on how sleep affects patience, decision-making, relationships, and creative work, why teaching is a completely different skill than doing, and how balancing rules with freedom applies to both parenting and artistic growth. The conversation then expands into bigger questions about faith, cynicism, self-limiting beliefs, and the importance of maintaining hope in an industry that often feels uncertain.

This is a thoughtful and highly personal episode about creativity, perspective, and learning how to move forward without becoming trapped by fear, certainty, or negativity.