Nail the mix

[CatharsisStudios]

how ya'll feeling about this? just wana say a few things

SUPER fucking cool to see how far lasse, george, jeff dunne, joshua wickman, and a bunch of others (seth munson you little serban ghenea )

wow super fucking cool to see!!!


but lets talk about nail the mix? how do ya'll feel about it

 

[C_F_H_13]

For me it's a pretty mixed bag.

Pros:

- I enjoy hearing the productions before mixing and seeing how other producers material stacks up before mix.
- I do thing there is value in seeing how people work. Jeff Dunne in particular , Chris Donaldson, and Will Putney were all really cool.
- I think will putneys tracking course is pretty cool too, probably the best thing they've done.
- SOME of the fast tracks are cool.

Cons:

- I think the emphasis on mixing, is the exact opposite of what people need to hear. Mixing doesn't fucking matter, I wish there was like a nail the mix for song writing. See how the songs come together would be far more interesting than another guy using soothe, or parallel compression. I also don't like how it makes kids forget about actual production. I think SOME of the producers on there reinforce really terrible mindsets too, where it's all about speed and how fast you can crank shit out. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I actually want to give something the attention it needs.
- Some of the hosts are absolute garbage
- Some of the source sessions are embarrassingly bad, but I guess it just shows how important songs are
- MOST of the fast tracks are pretty trash
- They are insanely talented businessmen and are probably making many more 10s of thousands than I do in a year, but I really don't like the whole pyramid scheme / used car salesmen vibe that some of the owners put off.

 

[CatharsisStudios]

man you nailed it. the fast track shit gets me kinda tight because once again its just rehashed sneap forum shit. but also i think alot of the stuff george lever talks about is some of the only viable information on there, and yeah oh man how fucking important is the song writing and tracking for fucking real, like the jens raws are okay (they do sound great) and the mix came to gether super fast, but the song is just so catchy and fun it makes you wana mix it

 

[Machinated]

Agree with whats said above really. The last few years have put such an emphasis on the MIX and the MIXER being so important that often it feels like it's all to make the engineer feel important, rather than serving the song and whoever's paying you. "LOOK WHAT I DID TO THESE PARALLEL TRACKS" rather than anything to do with the creation of the song.

It does seem to forge an attitude in younger engineers to speed through as many jobs as quickly as possible, with the career trajectory leading to selling your own name as a brand on plugins/IR's/Presets/teaching/whatever you can make money on as opposed to building experience in the real world. It's a shame to see some talented engineers look for the first excuse to get out of making records rather than committing for the long haul.

There are definitely positives too, its great that information is so freely available now for anyone who wants to listen and learn. It's also been great seeing friends and talented engineers share their ideas and how they work; largely the magic happens before they even really get to the mix, which is more of a reflection on how well recorded albums are made than anything else. It can be interesting to dig through famous sessions, although they are either a bit depressing from being poorly recorded or they're so well produced and arranged that there is little to do in the mix other than balance (the way it should be!).

I do wish there was more of an emphasis on being artistic and creative, and less a viagra salesman; it kind of gets overlooked in favour of "DOUBLE THE AMOUNT OF HIGH TICKET CLIENTS YOU HAVE WITH THIS SIMPLE TRICK". They try and sell the platform as the ticket to success, when really being a good engineer involves such a broad range of skills and experience that you can only really pick up from being in the trenches every day for a long time.

 

[guitarguru777]

100% hit it on the head. It's literally just everything we all learned here just in a new format. I mean congrats to Joey for monetizing everything he learned here. It was a smart move and getting the other big named guys that were here back in the day is awesome. No hate for that at all.

Joey basically took his Pod "tact" Presets and applied that theory to everything else. Press this button, turn this like this, add this plugin... yadda yadda ad nauseum till it sounds exactly like everything else out there.

 

[CatharsisStudios]

nah joeys brilliant. 100% theres some other players i much don't care for but i fuck with joel and joey heavy, thats the thing about capitalism, it leads to stuff like this. really cool to see some bad ass new engineers coming out of it, but i think everyones on the consenses that mixing reeally doesn't do shit its all about tracking and mind flow

 

[guitarguru777]

nah joeys brilliant. 100% theres some other players i much don't care for but i fuck with joel and joey heavy, thats the thing about capitalism, it leads to stuff like this. really cool to see some bad ass new engineers coming out of it, but i think everyones on the consenses that mixing reeally doesn't do shit its all about tracking and mind flow

Oh I didn't mean that in a bad way! It's not joeys fault people want to clone him. He's incredible and hes hella smart for taking people's desire to sound like him and making it accessible and profitable for himself!

 

[CatharsisStudios]

oh trust me i don't think your talking smack!

 

[guitarguru777]

oh trust me i don't think your talking smack!

Ok cool just making sure ...LMAOO!!!!

 

[Ashgarth]

I never subscribed or checked it...but I've been bombarded with nail the mix advertisements for months now, and reading this thread...I can't do anything else but agree with what you've all said.

Too much people I know are more obsessed about sounding like "insert whatever they like", get things done super quick, super fancy and super cool, but not having to make any efforts.

I'm currently mixing an album for a small band from Barcelona, we got to track drums in a tiny but fucking awesome hand-built studio, they don't have the best gear, but they built a great room, with lots of care on the acoustics, and the results are fucking awesome, that plus 3 guys that have spent many months writing, rehearsing, thinking, tweaking and improving the songs, and busting their asses to be able to play them perfectly and give a great performance.
Ain't that how it's supposed to be? Focusing on the fucking music!

Still, great to have options to learn a lot, as you guys said, they have lots of good stuff too!

 

[Trevoire520]

I subscribe to it mainly to get some cool sessions to play with. I've entered a few and watched some of the streams.

I totally agree about the general vibe and constant upselling. Joels whole "NO SMALL TIME BRO!" and shouting thing really grates on me. Cleary it works on some people though as it seems to be a big way to present yourself in the entrepeur space.


If you guys like the idea of a much smaller less annoying recording community on FB check out Romesh Dodangoda's Control Room. The whole vibe in there is SUPER helpful and Romesh is really involved in the convo's. It's like £5 a month and you get some solid discounts. I managed to win a mic in their Funeral for a Friend mix contest which I was super stoked about.

 

[Paulie!]

Completely agree that Nail The Mix == Sneap Forum on YouTube. And a good arrangement is about 75% of the mix.

I will say from the bits I've seen on youtube, I wish they'd put more stuff out about automation. I still suck at that, so I just do static mixes for the most part, unless I automate entire sections of tracks, like dropping the close mics in a bridge for a super roomy sound or something.