Here’s a piece of advice for your next recording or mixing session: don’t try every new trick or technique you’ve recently learned. Instead pick one or two major things you want to try and experiment with those. The temptation is to use every great idea you’ve discovered or heard of, at once. And while I’m all for experimentation, I’m also a firm believer in limiting your options. Here are a few reasons why this mindset will help your tracks.
Via Michael Flickr
It’s Hard To Know What Made The Difference
Let’s say on your next recording project you decide to try a lot of new things in the hopes of getting a better sounding track. Perhaps you intend to record at a 96kHz (instead of your usual 44.1), use a new drum mic placement method, switch the impedance on your mic preamps, and record your band live instead of overdubbing like you usually do. And imagine that at the end of the day your recording sounds the best it’s ever sounded. Great! But one question, which of your new techniques really made the biggest difference if at all?
You don’t know. That’s the problem. Obviously what you did worked, but what about it worked? Was the sample rate switch really a game changer? Or did simply moving the mics on your drum kit make all the difference? We don’t know! And not knowing is a handicap because you won’t know much more for next time. Instead if you simply chose one or two of those techniques, you’d have a better clue as to what makes a difference. Then try the other two the next time.
It’s Hard To Stay Focused
If you go into a recording or mixing session with 10 different things you want to try, you’ll never be focused. You’ll be jumping all over the place tweaking knobs, trying to tell if you hear a difference or not. Your final results will sound just as distracted and disjointed as you were in the studio. Imagine trying to mix a song while thinking about 31 mixing tips. It’s insanity! At least all at once it is.
If, however, you decided to pick two new techniques for mixing on your next song, you could focus on the actual song with plenty of focus and still introduce new concepts to your mix. The techniques would serve the song, not the other way around. Focus is such a critical part of anything in the studio, so don’t let new techniques (or even worse, new gear) get in the way.
It’s Hard To Stay Motivated
Finally, think about this: if you go into a new recording or mixing session with a laundry lists of new things you simply “must” try, you’re easily setting yourself up for disappointment. What if some of those techniques don’t work out at first? You feel inadequate, like there’s something wrong with you. Sometimes a tip or idea looks so easy in a video tutorial, but just doesn’t pan out (no pun intended) in real life, for you. It’s OK, you’re not weird.
But overtime, with enough focus and attention you can easily impliment much of what you learn into your sessions. But if you try all at once and much of it doesn’t work out, you get frustrated and impatient. Frustration and impatience lead to a lack of confidence and motivation. And might I submit to you that a lack of confidence and motivation leads to poor mixes, every time.
On Your Next Project
Do yourself a favor: on your next recording or mixing project, decide ahead of time what one or two techniques you’d like to try and commit to those. Experiment like crazy with them. Take note of what you discover. At the end of the projet listen back and decide if those tips/tricks/techniques helped or hurt your results. Then rinse and repeat the process with more techniques the next time. It’s a much more reasonable way to work, honestly.
Great advice Graham! Thanks
great advice. i just finished two soulful house tracks and if you know anything about house (not edm) there is a clash between the kick and the bassline. what i did was i put a high pass filter on both and filter out the realy lows and placed a compresor on each of them and i raised the kick up. now they are not clashing. also i took your advice and place a high pass filter on all the othere tracks so that i had more head room. it came out great. thanks bro you make things so easy.
Wow!
This is exactly the problem I face and I even wonder about all these things you have written.
All your articles have always been the best. No reading has been so relating. I thank you a ton and will try to focus and follow your advice to the best.
Wish you a Happy New Year.
Take care.
Regards,
KS
Totally true! Recently I made this mistake!!! Thank you for your tips! Cheers from brasil!
I Totally agree, and would like to add if I may; listen to the track first and let it tell you what it needs.
Besides the points Graham mentioned, if a chef would use all his ingredients in all his dishes, everything would come out tasting the same.
Sometimes voluteering to mix other people’s stuff will force you to use different techniques, things that you might never need to use on your own material.
Regards,
Whats your take on the se reflexion fillter
Thanks for all of your tips and advice….it is making a huge difference in my mixes and the compliments are now forthcoming. Thanks for sharing your knowledge so freely.
Thanks to all your tips, I think I have become a better mixer. Please listen to this mix, which I used some of your tips from “5 minutes”. Mainly, parallel compression, high pass eq, and the 2K Hz tip.
https://soundcloud.com/alesanchez1979/whole-lotta-rosie
I’m Alejandro, from Argentina.
Happy new year for you and all your readers.
that last one hit nail on the head (not that the past 500 didn’t) but it’s not how much time you spend it’s how you spend it!!
thanks.