Do You Enjoy Mixing?

[mazz]

I find mixing to be as creative as any other part of the process. A mix that is not up to par will hurt a songs chances in the marketplace. Mixing is the calling card or resume of a song or piece of music in today's film/TV business. If you show up to a job interview in a nice suit but your resume has coffee stains on it and a bunch of misspellings, well, that suit isn't going to make up for that! If you have a great song and a not so great mix, as much as a publisher likes the song, they may not be able to pitch it with that mix.

Learning to mix is like learning any new skill or instrument, it takes time and practice. And patience.

Hang in there.

Mazz

[shorttonpro]

I love mixing!

Granted, I'm a mix engineer now - I enjoy this step more than any other. Tracking gets old take after take, but with mixing, I get to work on a track for a certain period of time, hear it hundreds of times, but them I'm done with it and move on. I get to play with plenty of plug-ins and techniques, and shape how the song with turn out and impact listeners. Sometimes, there is plenty of editing and tedious work to get through, but after that it is quite enjoyable to me.

[cardell]

Actually, in the styles I normally compose, mixing is part of the creative process and I mix as I go.

+1

Stuart

[brentmagstadt]

I love it too - it's the nice shiny jacket over the t-shirt.
Thankfully it gets easier with reps.

[themichaelscott]

It is another beast/animal of an instrument to me...

I would rather mix than write or record. It definitely depends on the style of music though. With today's pop and hip hop especially, the mix IS the song. When I was growing up I wouldn't listen to any artist that couldn't do on stage what they do in the studio. If I still went by that I wouldn't be listening to anything new.

Michael

[michael11]

Hi All!

Thank you so much for sharing your mixing joys and sorrows.

Having looked at all the replies in depth I see that most people enjoy mixing.

To the people that enjoy mixing,are you patient and meticulous by nature and the few of us that don’t,are you impetuous and like to flit from one thing to the next?

Also do you mix according to workflow or do you wait till you are in the mood to mix?

Michael.

[jaredlutes]

After reading FETT's book and absorbing all the tutorials I could, I love mixing! I love wrenching emotions out of EQs and automation.

It can be frustrating and daunting, however, if you don't have a plan going in. I like to say that I obsess over tiny details - but always with the big picture in mind (how do your adjustments make you FEEL). Here's a basic breakdown that it pretty universal (assuming you have great performances and sounds already):

1) Find your core static mix using level ONLY
2) Start panning stuff to find their own spaces
3) Apply EQ (hopefully minimally) making good use of your high-pass filter of most tracks
4) Apply compression (on mix bus and tracks) with attention to THRESHOLD
5) Reverb/Delays (make use of at least two) but use them as sends NOT inserts
6) Subtle Automation is the key to a powerful mix, and makes the song breathe as it arcs (and not just volume)

[themichaelscott]

To the people that enjoy mixing,are you patient and meticulous by nature...Also do you mix according to workflow or do you wait till you are in the mood to mix?

Today at work I was telling someone that writing/recording music takes me longer than some people because I am very science/math oriented. Some people can pick up an instrument, get an idea, track it and have an amazing sound in minutes. I have to jam a while, record, delete, record, delete, mix and think about it.

I mix some as I record to make sure things are going to fit together the way I want. No use in recording bass for the entire song only to find out it doesn't sit in the mix without 5 plugins to finally get the sound that works. I would say when I'm done tracking I have about 50% of the mix done. After I "finish" the mix I will take it to the living room entertainment center to listen and make adjustments. Once it sounds good there I burn a CD and listen in the car to and from work and make adjustments. Once it's good in the living room and car it's usually done.

I usually have about 5 songs in the mixing stages. When I'm in the mood to write, I write. When I feel like mixing, I mix. I am completely useless if I'm not in the mood (sounds like something a bad wife would say )

Michael

[andygabrys]

I love mixing, and I do contract mixing for others (I like it so much...lol).

like Jared said, its good to have a plan of attack.

I don't necessarily agree with getting a static mix without eq or compression though, because these are two good ways to get a "stable fader" as Mike Senior likes to say.

but hey, its fun!

[Russell Landwehr]

To the people that enjoy mixing,are you patient and meticulous by nature and the few of us that don’t,are you impetuous and like to flit from one thing to the next?
Also do you mix according to workflow or do you wait till you are in the mood to mix?
Michael.

Oh... wheeee! follow up questions. Yeeeehaaaa!

OK, I really dig questions that get into "by nature."

The left/right brain thing I think has a lot to do with meticulous and not-meticulous stuff. For instance... after a long time of working from the right (creative) brain, I look around and say "holy crap! how did everything get such a mess." then I jump into my left-brain and get things cleaned up and organized for a while until my right-brain gets distracted by the next artistic endeavor.

So... keeping that in mind... mixing is a right-brain activity for me. It's not a logical process. Though the right-brain does draw on the assistance of the left-brain for rote information, the right-brain is totally in charge of the mix. But I think the artistic right-brain is very meticulous in it's own way. It knows what it wants, and it wants it the way it wants it. That is why, I think, that the perpetual tweaking of a mix happens... the right (artistic) brain isn't satisfied and it wants it FIXED and your sleep schedule be damned!

So I wonder if the people that don't enjoy mixing view it as a logical and left-brain activity.

But that being said... yes I enjoy mixing... and yes I am patient by nature (except when my wife is STILL in the bathroom doing her hair and we've GOT to be leaving NOW or SOONER!)
I am also meticulous, but only in certain things. However... I've noticed something... I tend to obsess. And I flit from one obsession to the next and then come back and obsess on the first thing again. It's kind of like a serial ADD/OCD loop. (oh gawd I just realized I probably need therapy ) And that happens when I mix, too... I may be working on a certain part of the mix and then notice something else in the mix and jump on that for a bit and then remember that I was working on this other thing, but wait... what about...

Russell