MIXING is one of the most important steps in the formation of a well crafted, radio/stream ready song. It can be looked at in many ways. To some, its a safety measure to make sure that their sound is bearable when entering any form of mastering processors or plugins and to others, it is a fresh start and the want for a new perspective over a piece of work they have just wrapped up, but in the long run, the final picture, the goal stays the same, that is to make sure all the elements of the song have a purpose.
Some tracks need to fulfil the purpose of maintaining the rhythm of the song, some need to determine the key of the song and some just need to add depth and width and it is my job and privilege as a Mixing engineer to assign which track does what.
As an engineer who pretty much did it all, which included Production and Recording, I only recently narrowed it down to MIXING and Mastering. Niching down to a specific task was one of the first bits advice I had got when I was starting off and was something I wish I had listened to earlier. MIXING is the part of the process I am most obsessed with. Iv been listening to music of various genres and developed a passion for listening at a very early age, which explains why I would enjoy this process. I still listen to full length albums to this day.
As a kid, making beats on fruity loops, which later became FL studio and then recording other elements and mixing it all down on Cool edit pro, I ALWAYS wondered why my mixes didn’t have the same impact that commercial releases had. I was 13, but it was one of my biggest concerns. Why do the songs that I’m recording and mixing, sound small compared to releases like American idiot and Take off your pants and jacket. The drums lacked everything that those albums had and so many problems and strange sounds that I just could not seem to troubleshoot. I didn’t even know what mastering was then. It took me quite the while to figure it out and I’m still constantly learning.
Till date, some of the artists who get in touch with me ask me whether mixing is even necessary, especially today, with all the resources and technology that is openly available to everyone at decent prices and not to mention, AI. The answer is the same. Being able to mix a song, to a standard, takes time. EVEN WITH everything that is available to us, it still takes time to figure out where one would like the song to be in an overall perspective. And as of now, even AI can only get one so far. The secret to great mixes is the HEART and love that is put into it and that’s something AI can not replace…… YET…. If one does not have the money to afford someone to mix their song, invest in time. Took me years to figure out whether what I was doing sounds good or not, and that might seem strange, but that is actually the BIGGEST problem faced with MIXING engineers who are just starting off. Ear fatigue is real and so is listening endurance. I developed my endurance and tuned my ears through the years and years of listening and am now able to execute the results I want through years of experience. So in a nutshell, AM I NEEDED? YES and NOT REALLY. I PERSONALLY started obsessing over this process because I KNEW that I wanted to be able to execute a great mix and master, and I have spent the time in learning, so insisting that I’m a necessity would make me a hypocrite, and Im sure there are a million artists who feel the same. So if mixing is what’s giving you the itch, then scratch it. And for the artists who like to leave the mixing and mastering process in the hands of seasoned listeners such as myself, Youl know where to find us! :).