Mixing Music with AI

nicolaslinnala
Jun 23
4 min read

Updated: 4 hours ago

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Mixing Music with AI

Mixing music with AI is stirring up more and more conversation. Is it the future, or just a gimmick that doesn’t understand vibe? In this blog, I’ll share my personal experience of how AI mixing actually feels in practice – and why it’s still far from replacing a human.

Every producer makes mistakes at some point – big or small. I’ve made one especially educational mistake early in my career. I had just started my own studio when a Danish musician reached out, saying he needed to record some music. We arranged to meet at the studio to talk things through, make sure we both wanted the same thing and that we were on the same wavelength.

He played me a demo from his phone – someone had recorded some guitar for it. Based on what I heard, I gave him a price and we agreed on a date. But… his skills weren’t exactly what I’d expected. The amount of work we had to put in was a good reminder of what can happen if you don’t take time to figure things out properly in advance.

They say you should learn from your mistakes. I don’t always do that on the first try – and I’ve had to pay a bit extra a few times. But it’s all part of the journey. By the third time, the lesson usually sticks.

I’ve started wondering if AI is one of those things too. If you don’t learn or study it in time, will you end up paying for it later? Then again, making music with AI still feels like a bit of a gamble. No matter how good your prompts are, the result is never quite what you had in mind. And when you try to fix it, it often just gets worse.

Testing AI plugins

I’ve tested a few AI-assisted mixing plugins. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but they always gave me the same basic settings. I tested this by running six totally different bass tracks through them – and got the same result every time. Not terrible, but always the same. Kind of made me wonder if AI thinks all music should sound the same.

Then I tested one of those plugins on a bass track I had already mixed myself – and again, it applied the exact same settings. So it seems the main function is to open a set of default plugins and give you an easy starting point. Handy, sure – but it's not mixing for me.

Maybe it's like this: the AI promises something grand and beautiful… but then delivers something totally different. You end up thinking, “what a useless plugin!” Or maybe I just don’t know how to use it properly yet. Or maybe the whole AI mixing thing is still a bit overhyped?

Who decides the mood?

What if I have a sad song, and I don’t want the mix to sound cheerful – or vice versa? Can AI ever interpret emotion? Maybe in the end, AI is just a tool that speeds things up and makes life easier, but doesn’t decide anything for me.

I’ve also thought about when we’ll reach the point where I can just talk to the AI:“Make it a little sadder,” or “add more saturation here.”And it’ll go ahead and adjust all 90 tracks accordingly. When (or if) that moment comes, is the mix engineer just sitting in the back seat, giving orders to an AI?

In a way, that idea is exciting – and also a little scary. But if you want to keep doing this work in the future, you’ve got to grow with the tools. You have to learn the new plugins and new ways of working.

Mixing is also a feeling

But what if, after the AI plugin applies all the settings I asked for, I’m still not happy? I start tweaking things right away, because my ears just won’t settle. Maybe this is where AI’s real strength lies: in collaboration. I’m still the one who decides the mood, the vibe, and the final result.

I do believe things will evolve – and some plugins already know how to do some pretty clever stuff. But imagine a plugin you could talk to, one that would actually understand what you want from a mix… and just do it.

AI marketing talk

I’ve also noticed a lot of plugins being marketed as AI-powered. But when you dig into it, there’s often no real AI under the hood – just an algorithm that adjusts a few presets. Kinda like those automated mastering services online. I’ll actually write a whole separate blog post on that later.

Final thoughts – UA or AI?

I wonder if others feel the same as I do: I’d rather use UA plugins and tweak things manually than rely on AI plugins that just emulate the same vintage gear. The tweaking is half the fun. And honestly, I don’t think most listeners could even hear which compressor was used in the mix – or if there was a compressor at all. Or even know what a compressor is.

But hey – something for all of us to think about.

Interested in AI, music, and studio work?

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