mixing
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Keywords: Quick Mixes
(Image: Fons Heijnsbroek) Quick mixes are brief sessions devoted to getting a track’s parts into a rough balance of volume, frequency, panning, texture-tone color, and presence. The track has been finished for a while and now you return to it with fresh ears to notice all that’s wrong. The voices sound dull and need a Continue reading
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Mix Lessons: Relational Listening
Recently I was working on a mix for a piece of music with eight parts: percussion, piano, vibraphone, bass, pad, and voices. The piece has two percussion parts, the first comprising a kick-snare-clap-hi hat drum pattern, and the second a top loop part, which is a beat (extracted from another, earlier piece) consisting of mostly Continue reading
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Musical Vantage Points
What is your vantage point on the music? From what position do you listen—from a point of doubt, sympathy, skepticism, good cheer, confidence, or anxiety? Does your vantage change as the music changes, moving from a positive glance to a negative sneer? Does your positioning allow you to hear the music as it is, as Continue reading
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Trompe-L’Oreille: Notes On An Enchanting Mix
Hieronymus Bosch, The Conjurer (c. 1496 and 1525). An enchanting mix is a sleight of the producer’s hand–a kind of conjuring trick–insofar that it creates the impression that you’re hearing more than you’re hearing, or that somehow the music extends beyond what you’re able to hear—as if it’s fooling your ears. But by what means Continue reading
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A Banjo And An Accordion (And A Gorilla) Meet In A Mix
Mixing, very roughly described by someone far from having expertise in the matter, is the process of balancing the levels and shapes of the sounds in your mix so that together they create a cohesive and living whole. On the face of it, it doesn’t seem all that complicated: if a part is too soft, Continue reading
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A Mix
A mix talks with the music, asking it how it wants to be heard. A mix dances with the music, leading it around the stereo dance floor. A mix emphasizes the important sounds right now. A mix exaggerates, boosting tiny into huge, compressing loud into soft. A mix generates ambiance. A mix balances multiple sounds, Continue reading
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On Musical Perspective, Depth, And Enchantment In A Mix
While I’m not a visual listener (and definitely not a synesthetic one), I do think about mixes as a landscape that unfolds over time, as you, the listener, ride through it on your the vehicle (bicycle, scooter, car) that is your hearing, your perception, your taste. You notice so many things as the landscape wizzes Continue reading
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Things Not In The Mix
“Pay attention. Focus on your surroundings, physical and psychological. Notice something that bothers you, that concerns you, that will not let you be, which you could fix, that you would fix. You can find such somethings by asking yourself (as if you genuinely want to know) three questions: ‘What is it that is bothering me?’ Continue reading
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