- Oct 21, 2011
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I know I've heard it before, and no doubt many of you have told it to the wandering masses diving in n' out of the recording and mixing realms.
I think it really hit home for me even more so recently. I've gotten to the point where I am quite happy with the "quality" of my mixes, they sound 'oh so clean and surgical, but not so much so to the point of sounding gimped.
I've still a ways to go and many more walls to scale in terms of everything - but I took a step back earlier today, listening to a few of my favorite artists and realized something. The sound most have really isn't all that great. Mmm yeah everything sounds awesome, they have their own specific sound that makes that album hit you as being unique, but whether they're better or not from one to another is a bit subjective. But they still have a pace, and life to the sound, and in all honestly (even tho the mix helped project it) the character of such a sound didn't all come from the mixing. It certainly came from the playing!
I guess most reading that would promptly think *duh, of course*
I do know that all this time I've spent learning the in's and out's of mixing, and achieving a workable sound that's at least a pleasure instead of a painful experience to listen to, has pretty much ate up every spare moment of mine - that I've neglected to foster any real joy for playing an instrument or writing a song, beyond just fulfilling the need to having something ready to mix at the time.
I was listening to the game ost's of Ishiwatari, and everything pretty much has such a puny sound on their own, but collectively it has an impact, and more importantly - the playing itself just fucking rocks, there's a spirit in it that I never really had the pleasure to mix or work with myself.
This isn't something I've been unaware of the whole time. It's definitely something I've known to be missing from my own shit. And after mixing such squeaky clean sounding mixes here lately, I'm beginning to once again hear these little subtle factors come into play much more so in my work now.
Not sure whether I'm explaining this very well or not, it's just one of those things where you have a sudden moment of even more clarity. You go back and once again unveil yet another layer of something you had thought was covered a long while ago, or maybe took for granted.
Or just tl;dr you agree/disagree with title. May you never read anything longer than this from a thread again, unless of course it's an ermz guide
I think it really hit home for me even more so recently. I've gotten to the point where I am quite happy with the "quality" of my mixes, they sound 'oh so clean and surgical, but not so much so to the point of sounding gimped.
I've still a ways to go and many more walls to scale in terms of everything - but I took a step back earlier today, listening to a few of my favorite artists and realized something. The sound most have really isn't all that great. Mmm yeah everything sounds awesome, they have their own specific sound that makes that album hit you as being unique, but whether they're better or not from one to another is a bit subjective. But they still have a pace, and life to the sound, and in all honestly (even tho the mix helped project it) the character of such a sound didn't all come from the mixing. It certainly came from the playing!
I guess most reading that would promptly think *duh, of course*
I do know that all this time I've spent learning the in's and out's of mixing, and achieving a workable sound that's at least a pleasure instead of a painful experience to listen to, has pretty much ate up every spare moment of mine - that I've neglected to foster any real joy for playing an instrument or writing a song, beyond just fulfilling the need to having something ready to mix at the time.
I was listening to the game ost's of Ishiwatari, and everything pretty much has such a puny sound on their own, but collectively it has an impact, and more importantly - the playing itself just fucking rocks, there's a spirit in it that I never really had the pleasure to mix or work with myself.
This isn't something I've been unaware of the whole time. It's definitely something I've known to be missing from my own shit. And after mixing such squeaky clean sounding mixes here lately, I'm beginning to once again hear these little subtle factors come into play much more so in my work now.
Not sure whether I'm explaining this very well or not, it's just one of those things where you have a sudden moment of even more clarity. You go back and once again unveil yet another layer of something you had thought was covered a long while ago, or maybe took for granted.
Or just tl;dr you agree/disagree with title. May you never read anything longer than this from a thread again, unless of course it's an ermz guide
