Artist Pool: the musicians whose songs you learn to mix with

Why the practice material is real music

The cheap option would have been generating bespoke practice material: clean loops, no awkward overlaps, every element in its place. The trouble is that such material doesn't teach mixing, because none of the conflicts that make mixing hard ever show up in it. A synthetic guitar never fights the vocal; a guitar recorded in a real room always does.

So the exercises use songs by real independent artists, with their stems separated: room noise, debatable arrangement choices and elements fighting over the same slice of the spectrum included. It's more uncomfortable material to practise on, and it's exactly the kind that teaches something transferable.

And it's paid for. A catalogue of independent music used as teaching material is, for the artist, one more platform where their work plays: every play inside Fix The Mix generates real royalties, and the running total is public on this same page. It isn't a gesture — it's the precondition for asking someone for the stems of their song at all.

How the Artist Pool works

1.An independent artist shares the stems of one of their songs — vocals, drums, bass and the rest, separately — instead of just the final mix.
2.Those stems go into the exercises that work on complete material: they get mixed, rebuilt layer by layer, or used for ear training on real audio.
3.Every play inside Fix The Mix counts as what it is: a listen. It generates royalties for the artist exactly as on any other platform.
4.The running total is public on this same page, interpolated from its source rather than written by hand.
5.From here you can reach each artist and their music outside the platform, which is the other half of the deal.

Where this music plays

Stem Stacker: The song rebuilds layer by layer as you play. It's where you best hear what each element contributes, because you hear the same song with and without it.
Mix Space: The same stems, except you place them in a three-dimensional space. Here you're no longer hearing someone else's decisions: you're making your own on real material.
Gain Rider and Beat Drop: The full songs are the base for the fader and the rhythm exercise. A human drummer behind it teaches things a perfect click can't.
5 artists in the catalogue: Maia San Miguel, Oh Margó, Monár, NVVP, Gillian Harwin and it keeps growing. None of it is library music.

Why this matters for learning

Synthetic material has no conflicts, and the conflicts are the content. A guitar recorded in a real room always fights the vocal; a generated one never does.
Practising on a song that exists as a work gives you a reference: you can listen to the released mix and compare your decisions with the producer's.
Debatable arrangement decisions are a teaching gift. In a real session half the work is dealing with what's already recorded and can't be re-tracked.
If the catalogue were library music, nothing you learned would resemble the problem in front of you when you open your own session.

Frequently asked questions

Do the artists actually get paid?

Yes. Every play inside the platform generates royalties, and the running total is published on this page. It's the precondition for asking someone for their stems, not an image detail.

How does a song enter the catalogue?

The artist shares the separated stems of one of their tracks. What's asked for isn't the final mix, which is already released elsewhere, but the layers it was built from.

Can I listen to these songs outside the exercises?

Yes, and that's part of the point: from here you reach each artist and their released music. The platform is one more place their work plays.

Can I use this material in my own projects?

No. The stems are licensed for use inside the Fix The Mix exercises; they remain the artist's, and any other use is a conversation with whoever made them.

Where to go next

These songs are what play in the exercises that work on complete material, such as Mix Space and Stem Stacker. If what you want is to understand what you're hearing when you compare your mix to a released one, the reference tracks guide; and if you want to release your own, the mastering one.