#212: Streamlining Music Collaboration - How Mixup Changed My Feedback Workflow

So how does it work and can it really save you time ? Let's dive in . You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host , mark Matthews . Welcome to Inside the Mix , your go-to podcast for music creation and production .

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Hey folks , welcome to Inside the Mix and welcome back to the returning listeners and viewers . If you're watching this on YouTube . In this episode , I am sharing a tool , a platform that I discovered recently , called MixUp .

It's probably been around for a while , but I discovered it recently and I wanted to share it with you folks , because I use this to streamline the revision and feedback process when it comes to mixing , mastering and music production in general , not only with regards to client projects , but also collaboration with other artists when I'm releasing my own music .

So a quick backstory I discovered this tool thanks to Elliot Glynn , who you might remember from episode 178 . And he put a post on social media . He's got some great posts , some really really good stuff , but he posted about MixUp and I was in the market . I was mooching around trying to find a better platform for that collaboration and streamlining , etc .

I mentioned earlier and I thought you know know what . I'll dive in and give it a go . But before we go into it , I just want to make sure that you're aware that this episode is not at all sponsored by MixUp . It is literally just me sharing my experience . So , just again , this episode is not sponsored .

I don't get any financial benefit or anything like that from MixUp . It's just me sharing what I've discovered with you folks .

By the end of this episode , you will learn how Mixup simplifies project feedback and how it compares to email or Dropbox , how it stacks up against alternatives like High Notes and FilePass , and the challenges I faced and tips to get the most from it . So if you ever struggled with messy collaboration or wasted time managing files . This episode is for you .

But first , if you love what you're hearing and want to support the show , join the Inside the Mix podcast community on Patreon . You'll get exclusive content , behind the scenes , extras and you'll help the podcast continue going strong . So click the link in the episode description . So here we are in MixUpaudio Now .

I've been calling it mixup but I've been shortening it , but it's mixupaudio by Pure Mix and I'm on the website , so I'll describe it for those of you listening . And I've logged in and I've got the free version . There are tiered subscriptions and you get more depending on what you pay , and you can go and check that out yourself .

Obviously , I'll put a link in the episode description to this platform , but I'm using the free version and it works perfectly for me . I believe that when you yeah , it says it here so 14 days I upload audio , uh , a track versions for feedback , and I've got 14 days before it then gets taken down , which is ample time for me , right ?

I find at the moment I've got no use to move to the next tier , but that could well change . I'm still finding my feet with it . It it's very new . I've only used this on two projects so far . It's that August the 11th was when I started using it and it is now September the 6th , I think . At the time of me recording this , I got three projects here .

The idea here with this platform is that I can get time stamped comments feedback on a track . It makes it so much easier and streamlines the revision process because I know exactly where I need to make any edits , and it's much better , I find , than having an email with comments , which is great . I mean that works .

But for me , having those timestamps makes it so much easier because I can just go straight in and find out where I need to make those edits . Again , I haven't used this for collaboration yet , but I'm going to . I've been using this with clients so far and it's worked really , really

well . So I made the switch to MixUp . I was using Google Drive beforehand , which is fine , but the download feature of it I found was limiting . So if I disabled downloads , I was finding I was hitting a roadblock with regards to the feedback and also , you can't leave revisions and whatnot with Google Drive , as good as it is , I still use it for uploads .

I haven't used this yet MixUp for uploads . I know you can set it so your collaborator , your client , let's say , can upload assets to it , which I haven't done yet , which I'm going to experiment with . But yeah , I wanted to get away from using Google Drive . Before that I was using Dropbox .

Dropbox was okay , you could disable downloads really easily and they could still stream and listen to the project . But the audio quality wasn't great , I found with Dropbox , whereas this is high fidelity audio , so you upload a WAV and it's going to stream at that particular fidelity . So let's dive into an actual project here .

So I'm going to click on this one called One Life to Live , and I've got three versions in here . I've got static mix , drum bass , vox , drums bass , vox , piano . So I'm just sending versions as I'm mixing as I go , just so the client is aware of what I've done and also the direction that the track is going in .

And I've got a couple of comments on this particular version here . You just click on the one you want and you can see the timestamped comments . And then I and I've got a couple comments on this particular version here . You just click on the one you want and you can see the timestamped comments and I can reply .

The beauty of this as well is they can leave comments and not have an account , which I think is great . I don't know about you folks , but if somebody shares something with me and I have to set up an account , I find that a bit of a ball ache .

But in this instance you don't and , if I remember correctly , you can submit your email to get notifications when there's changes . So I guess you're still not set in an account , but you are submitting an email so you get notifications when new versions arise .

I haven't been on the other side of this yet in terms of me submitting feedback , so maybe I should have done that before recording the video , but I will do that at some point . And yeah , you can see the timestamped comments , so I can like it , I can reply and I can solve it . You get that pretty much with any .

I find revision based platform like Loom or something like that , for example . The beauty of this as well is that you can set levels and you can sort of normalize the levels so you don't get that loudness bias , which is great , specifically when submitting the master .

I find that really useful , found it really useful that I could submit a master and it would set a consistent level . So the client was able to audition the master against the mix but they were game matched effectively , which I think is really useful .

Because again you don't get that loudness bias which works really well , and then you can just start the one that you want to be the sort of prominent or the primary track , so when the individual does click on the link it will automatically go to that one . Then you can move them around , move them up and down , which I find really useful .

When I uploaded assets for the client to then download and then up in

the cog at the top here you've got track settings so you can see I've disabled download here but I can enable download once I want the project to be shared . Client is paid . Alternatively , if I'm collaborating , I want the individual to be able to download those assets and you can disable comments and disable notifications as well .

Approval is blanked out and obviously that comes into the the paid tier . What is approval ? Make sure your team members vote and approve one specific version so you can you can vote for a version . That would be quite useful actually , particularly if you're working with a band , let's say , and you've got two or three different versions .

Maybe you've got vocal up , vocal down , guitars up , guitars down . You want to get to get a vote on which one the band prefers . So I can see how that would be useful .

Then , when it comes to sharing , here is where you can set the general access , and if I click here , I've got contributor , approval and comment , which is the default , or you've got listener only , downloader , download , approval and comment , or composer . So this is probably what I would use if I were collaborating .

Password protection Ah , I need to upgrade for password protection . So now I'm beginning to see where I would need to upgrade . To be honest with you , I'm not too fussed about password protection , but I can imagine working with a label .

That would come in handy , right , I think that would come in handy , particularly with , like an SLA , if you're working with a label , a service level agreement or something along those lines , and then you just click copy link . So in fact , let's do that and then let's open an incognito tab and let's have a look at what it looks like on the other end .

So this is what it looks like . You can see here , get notified about new comments and uploads . Apologies , folks , I say see here . If you're listening to this I'm describing it the bottom left get notified about new comments and uploads , and you just enable notifications and you put your email in there . You can see .

You can leave your timestamp comment at the top there and then just play it back Because I'm not gonna play this because it's a client project and close that down . So yeah , that is basically the interface . You can actually I discovered this just now actually you can click on level and it will actually go in .

You've got a level manager and you've got to see loudness references about loudness levels . I haven't looked and dived into this yet , but it could be quite interesting . Personally , I'd rather just listen . If I know they've been game matched , I'll just have a listen . I'm not too worried about that , to be honest .

But to add a new version , let's say you click plus and then you can drag and drop . You can also add versions from Dropbox and from other mix-up sessions . I've only used the drag and drop feature . I haven't used the other two yet . That's the basics of Mixup .

Going back to the main dashboard , I'm just going to click new item and this is where you can create a new track . So this is what I've been using . A track contains several versions of the same song . A playlist contains several tracks with their respective versions and you've got a folder to sort your tracks , playlists and folders .

I haven't used playlists or folders yet . I haven't had enough projects with it , but I've been using new tracks . So it's as easy as that and then you just click on it and then you just upload your track . Basically you drag and drop . Easy as that .

Now I have used HiNote and I've used FilePass in the past . I'm not going to do a direct comparison because it's been a very long time since I've used file pass . Where file pass I think does win is that you've got the paywall so you can set it . So the individual pays the final amount and then it automatically enables download .

So it does streamline that part of it . At the moment I send an invoice , individual pays and then I enable downloads . To be honest with you when it comes to a free versus paid version , I'm happy with that . I'm happy with that trade-off .

Maybe if I had loads and loads and loads and loads of projects at once , it could get a bit of a pain , but I only take on so much at a time anyway , so it kind of works for me in that instance . But I do like FirePass , and FirePass does have other bits and pieces as well that are really really good .

But again , it's been a while since I've used it . High Note works in a very , very similar way , but I found with High Note if I remember rightly again it's been about a year since I've used it I had an issue with disabling downloads .

I think I was finding that if I disabled downloads and then an individual created an account , it would then enable downloads . It was doing something weird . I could probably get corrected on that .

Maybe it was me setting it up incorrectly , but the fact that I was experiencing an issue so quickly made me move away from the platform and I haven't experienced it with MixUp . It's just really easy . Again , this isn't a sales pitch for MixUp .

It's just me sharing what has really helped streamline my revision and collaboration process in the last month or two , and I get no financial benefit from sharing this . Folks just to make that abundantly clear .

But I'm going to use it going forward and , like I say , maybe I will go up to the paid version when I start to need the password feature and also voting as well , and that's MixUp Audio . So a really nice , efficient way of streamlining that revision

and feedback process . Folks , I want to hear from you what tool do you use to streamline that collaboration and feedback process in your projects ? Click the send me a message link in the episode description and let me know and I'll give you a shout out on a future episode .

If you're a DIY producer or independent artist or just in music production in general , do go check out mixupaudio . I'll put a link in the episode description and streamline that revision process . If you have enjoyed this episode , consider supporting the podcast on Patreon , unlock exclusive content and help the podcast grow .

Click that link in the episode description and until next time , keep creating , stay inspired and don't be afraid to experiment inside the mix .