How to Get Your First Mixing and Mastering Clients

TL;DR: Over 25 years, networking has brought me more clients than anything else, followed by social media, then my website. I tried Fiverr and never got a single client from it. I undercharged for years out of fear, until I raised my prices and got better paying clients instead of fewer of them. I never niched down to one genre, since the techniques are universal and you simply adjust to what the song needs. If you are starting from zero, ask your existing network first, then commit to posting content consistently so people actually know you exist. No course, mine included, replaces being good at the work and doing the marketing yourself.

How Do You Actually Get Mixing and Mastering Clients?

The honest answer is that it is not a mystery, but it is also not a shortcut. Over 25 years, networking has brought me more clients than anything else, followed by social media, then my website. Marketplaces like Fiverr brought me close to nothing. What actually works is people knowing you exist, seeing proof that you are good at what you do, and feeling comfortable enough to either hire you or send someone your way. Everything below comes from what genuinely happened in my own career, not a theory.

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My First Mixing and Mastering Clients Were Not Strangers

Honestly, I do not even remember who my very first paying mixing and mastering client was. What I do remember clearly is how it started. People in my own circle knew I had a studio. They were recording covers, and I recorded, mixed, and mastered them. Nobody found me through an ad or a listing. They already knew me, and they already knew I had the setup to do the work.

That is a pattern I would tell anyone starting out to pay attention to. Your first clients are rarely strangers who discover you online. They are usually people who already know you exist and already have some reason to trust you, even a small one.

What Actually Brought Me Clients Over 25 Years

If I rank the sources honestly, networking comes first by a wide margin. Social media comes second. My website comes third. That order has stayed fairly consistent across my career, even as the tools around each one changed.

Networking working best does not mean it is easy or fast. It means showing up, doing good work for people who know you, and letting that reputation move through a network of musicians, producers, and other engineers. Social media and a website support that process. They rarely replace it.

I Tried Fiverr. It Did Not Work.

I still have a Fiverr account today. I have never gotten a single client from it. I am not saying marketplaces never work for anyone, but I want to be honest about my own experience instead of repeating advice I did not actually live. A profile on a crowded platform, sitting among hundreds of other mixing and mastering engineers, was not where my business came from.

If you are weighing where to spend your time, I would rather you spend it on the relationships and content that actually reflect how people found me, not on polishing a marketplace listing and hoping it gets discovered.

The Mistake That Cost Me Money for Years

Here is the one I would fix first if I could go back. I undercharged for a long time, even after I had plenty of happy clients giving me great feedback. I knew the work was good. But there was a fear sitting underneath the pricing: if I raised my rate, I would lose the clients I had.

Eventually I decided to set a fair price, honestly expecting that it would mean less work coming in. The opposite happened. I got better paying clients, and I also started working with better singers and more serious artists. Raising my price did not shrink my business. It changed who showed up. If you want the fuller breakdown of how I think about pricing today, I wrote about it directly in my guide on how much to charge for mixing and mastering.

Do You Need to Niche Down to Get Clients?

A lot of current advice says you need to pick one genre and stick to it. That was never how I worked. I mixed and mastered all kinds of songs across my career. I even mastered a heavy metal project once, well outside anything I would call my usual lane.

The techniques you use in mixing and mastering are universal. What changes is how you adjust them to what a specific genre and a specific client actually need. I never felt I had to narrow myself down to one sound to build a career. I adjusted to the song in front of me, every time.

How I Built My First Real Portfolio

Before I had any mixing and mastering clients to point to, I had my own music. I produced ethnic music with my band, then started experimenting with EDM. That EDM experimentation eventually led to a release on Armada Music, and at one point I even got the chance to speak directly with Armin van Buuren. That was a genuine turning point.

Around that same time, people started finding my YouTube videos and reaching out for different kinds of work. I was not chasing every one of those opportunities down individually. The content existed, people saw proof of what I could do, and the gigs started coming to me instead of the other way around. If you have no portfolio yet, your own music, made honestly and shared publicly, can do more work for you than you expect.

What Actually Keeps Clients Coming Back

My approach to client communication has stayed pretty simple. I listen to what the client is actually asking for. But I also do what is genuinely necessary to deliver the best possible master, even when that means going slightly beyond exactly what was requested.

That balance matters. Purely following instructions without applying your own judgment leaves value on the table. Ignoring what the client actually wants in favor of your own preferences damages trust. The clients who came back, and the ones who referred me to other people, were the ones who felt heard and also felt like they got more than they technically asked for.

The Mindset Shift Nobody Tells You About

Early in my career, I did not have much confidence that I was actually good at what I was doing. I was waiting for outside confirmation before I would believe it myself. Because of that, I sometimes felt like the client was bigger than me in the relationship, simply because they were the one paying.

Over time I realized that mindset was not healthy for a long-term career. I made a real shift toward treating client relationships as a transaction between equal parties. You are a professional offering a service. Not more than that, and not less than that either. That shift in how I saw myself changed how I priced my work, how I communicated, and honestly how confident I sounded when I talked to a potential client. It is a normal phase to go through early on, but it is worth actively working to move past it.

The Advice I Do Not Trust

The one piece of advice I see constantly, and genuinely do not trust, is some version of “buy my course and you will get clients.” I will be direct about the irony here. I sell the Audio Business Academy, which shows people exactly how I approach getting clients, from having a song idea all the way to a finished master and to actually selling your services.

But a course, mine included, does not bring clients by itself. The blueprint is real and it works, but you still have to actually be good at mixing and mastering, and you still have to go out and market yourself. Anyone selling the idea that a course alone replaces skill and effort is selling something that has not matched my own experience, or the experience of anyone I have seen actually succeed at this.

What I Would Tell You to Do This Week

If someone told me today that they had zero clients and no idea where to start, here is exactly what I would say. First, ask your existing network. Before anything else, find out honestly whether people you already know need mixing or mastering work. That single conversation has led to real clients more often than almost anything else in my career.

Second, commit to posting content. I will be honest that I do not post as often as I should even now, but it genuinely is close to mandatory today. People need to actually know you exist before they can hire you or refer you. Whether that is organic content or paid ads on platforms like Facebook or YouTube, visibility is not optional anymore the way it might have felt years ago.

Key Takeaways

• Networking has brought me more clients over 25 years than any other single source, followed by social media, then my website.
• Marketplaces are not guaranteed to work. I still have a Fiverr account and have never gotten a client from it.
• Undercharging out of fear cost me money for years. Raising my rate brought better clients, not fewer of them.
• Niching down to one genre was never necessary for me. The techniques are universal, and you adjust to what each song needs.
• No course or platform replaces the two things that actually matter: being good at the work, and doing the marketing yourself.

Related Articles

• How Much Should You Charge for Mixing and Mastering? The pricing mistake that cost me money, explained in full.
• AI vs Human Mastering. What a human engineer offers that is worth explaining to a potential client.
• 10 Mastering Mistakes Most Producers Make. The kind of technical credibility that supports word-of-mouth referrals.
• Should I Master My Own Music? The client-side version of the value question this post answers from the engineer’s side.
• AI Mastering Services: An Honest Guide to What Works. Useful context for what you are actually competing against as a human engineer today.

Ready to Go Deeper?

Getting clients is one piece of building an actual, sustainable audio business. If you want the full picture, from having a song idea all the way to a finished master and to selling your services with real positioning and pricing, the Audio Business Academy walks through exactly how I approach it. It will not do the work for you. It will show you the blueprint I actually used.

Learn more about the Audio Business Academy →

About the Author

Adrian Milea is a Mixing and Mastering Engineer, Music Producer, and Educator with over 25 years of experience. He has releases on Armada Music, features in DJ Mag, and teaches producers worldwide through his courses at adrianmilea.com.

Until next time, Stay Cool and Make Great Music,
Adrian Milea

Last Updated: July, 2026