Mixing

Superlizard

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Kinda makes you appreciate the sound engineer's job a little more, eh? It would be interesting to hear how many famous bands would sound if it weren't for the people behind the scenes fixing things for them.
 
Cagey said:
Kinda makes you appreciate the sound engineer's job a little more, eh? It would be interesting to hear how many famous bands would sound if it weren't for the people behind the scenes fixing things for them.

Let me the first (on this thread) to say that I love doing audio for a living.  Mixing is a true art, in the sense that if you give 10 painters the same color palette, and tell them to paint the same landscape, you'll get 10 different paintings.  Same with mixing.  Give 10 engineers the same tracks and the same gear, and you'll get 10 different mixes.  None of them will be "bad", or "good", but everyone will have a favorite for unfathomable reasons.  That's not to say there aren't badly mixed albums out there (And Justice for All comes to mind).  For me, the tracks tell me where they want to be.  Any "ear candy" that happens to show up starts with a band or a producer that knows what a song needs ... but when it's too up front, it loses it's magic, and if you bury it, it may as well not be there.

I don't mean to wax philosophic, but a great song can only be made better by a great mix, or can be ruined by a bad one.
 
Yeah, Andy, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head with those comments.

What would be an interesting thing to do in a recording session, is to limit yourself to doing what the old engineers HAD to do all the time, and restrict yourself to 4 track, live recordings first up with the whole band, then some bounce down overdubs!

I think that exercise would teach you a lot about your system's ability to handle saturation & also teach you a lot about balance in the mix too. I mean, if you stuff up an early balance it's there forever in the mix unless you completely re-do the track. :dontknow:
 
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