Al Groves mixing hybrid at The Motor Museum Information

From Raw Takes to Radio-Ready: Mix Like a Pro with this masterclass from Al Groves

The Ultimate Mixing Deep-Dive – 5 Hours of No-Fluff, No-Rules Mixing with Al Groves

If you’re a musician who’s tired of soulless, over-polished mixes—or frustrated by tutorials that only scratch the surface—this is the course you’ve been waiting for. In this five-hour epic, acclaimed producer and mix engineer Al Groves takes you inside his entire process, from raw Pro Tools session to finished, emotionally-charged mix.

No fluff, no guesswork—just the real-life techniques, philosophies, and gear that have shaped records for Bring Me The Horizon, Elvis Costello, and more. Whether you’re an artist mixing your own songs or a producer chasing that perfect balance of power and feel, this is your all-access pass to the kind of complete, instinct-led, musically conscious mixing that brings tracks to life. This isn’t just a masterclass—it’s a manifesto for mixing with intent.

What You’ll Learn In Al Groves mixing hybrid at The Motor Museum

• From Chaos to Clarity: The Art of a Clean Pro Tools Session
  Ever opened a Pro Tools session and felt like your brain was melting? Al Groves kicks off this Masterclass by showing how to tame the chaos. His “slimmed-down mix session” approach transforms an overloaded production file into an organised, colour-coded masterpiece. You’ll learn how clarity in layout leads to clarity in sound—and peace of mind. This isn’t just tidying up—it’s laying the groundwork for a faster, calmer, more creative mix. Labels, colours, routing, and layout—it’s all done with intention, and it’s the bedrock of Al’s workflow.
• Drums That Thwack, Snap, and Breathe
  If you’re a drummer or produce drums, this section alone is worth the price of admission. Al dives deep into drum mixing, where live performances meet intelligent sampling. He demystifies the delicate balance between preserving the emotional grit of a live performance and enhancing it with tools like Snapback and Slate Trigger. You’ll see how to make toms feel alive with just the right amount of bleed, how to sculpt kick and snare with taste—not trickery—and how ambient samples can subtly reinforce space without stepping on authenticity. The myth that great mixers only work with perfect multi-tracks? Al obliterates it.
• Big Bottoms & Bite: Recording and Mixing Bass Like a Boss
  Bassists, take notes: Al always records three channels of bass—DI, amp, and a wild distortion track. From a SansAmp PSA1 plugin with rock-solid presets to capturing the growl and presence of an Ampeg B-15, you’ll get the lowdown on building bass tones that thump, growl, and sing—sometimes all at once. You’ll also learn how saturation affects balance across different volumes and why checking the mix at multiple levels is key to a bass that feels right in every playback environment.
• Console Nirvana: How to Mix in the Sweet Spot
  Al doesn’t just mix with his ears—he mixes with his hands, heart, and whole body. With every fader assigned to a specific purpose and a layout designed for ergonomic bliss, he walks you through his SSL console setup like a chef showing you around his kitchen. Learn how VCAs help him ride emotion, how subtle use of outboard EQ shapes the stereo field, and why mixing with intention beats mixing with presets every time. Plus, you’ll see his secret sauce: a parallel 1176 channel with all-buttons-in for drama and centre-image punch.
• Reverbs, Delays, and Outboard Magic
  Forget random plugin presets—Al brings pure magic into the room with gear like the Lexicon PCM90, Dimension D, and Eventide H3000. Discover how he uses reverbs and wideners to enhance width, create emotional cues, and glue vocals in ways that feel cinematic. Learn when to reach for shimmer, when to let the dry vocal shine, and how modulation can either soften or embolden a mix. Every effect is chosen for its feel, not its flash—and that’s the real trick.
• Vocals With Grit, Urgency, and Style
  Vocals are the emotional centre of any mix—and Al doesn’t sanitise a thing. You’ll watch him leave in breaths for urgency, lean into “scorched” takes for character, and craft delay throws and reverb tails that elevate without drowning. He demonstrates how his analogue slap-back echo from a Roland SDE 2500 creates presence and width without convolution. And through it all, he brings a respect for performance that keeps the humanity of the track front and centre. As Al says: “My job isn’t to sanitise—it’s to get it across the line.”
• Emotion-Driven Editing & Mixing Instincts
  What separates a technical mix from an emotional one? Feel. Al shares his philosophy on “hands-off” editing—using tempo maps, phase-aligned transients, and minimal comping to maintain feel while ensuring precision. You’ll see how he uses tempo maps not just for timing, but to make the band’s groove the actual grid. This is next-level editing, done in the service of energy, not perfection. You’ll also learn how he builds a mix instinctively, starting with choruses, shaping drums and bass fast, and then refining from the inside out.

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