Focusrite’s suite of FAST EQ, Compressor, Reverb and Reveal AI mixing tools promises swift results, but how fast is fast? Read on to find out…
What Really Matters In A Mix?
A friend once said that you never finish a mix; you only ever stop it. Following on from this, most of us fall into one of three categories: The Wizard, The Tweakhead, or the Reformed Tweakhead. The Wizard can fly through a mix effectively and is either highly experienced, talented, or both. The key is having great listening skills with a clearly formed idea of how things will sound by the end of the mix. Knowing how to translate that using the available tools is the final piece of the puzzle. The Tweakhead can also be talented, but will spend too much time on the things that do not matter. The hope is that they develop the listening skills to know what matters and what doesn’t to reach Reformed or even Wizard status!
What’s So Good About Mixing Fast?
Fast mixing is preferable for anyone, and essential in the commercial environment. Walk into any professional facility, and you will notice a common thread. The people who work there are very quick, turning out excellent results. Time management is so important when someone else is paying, and arguably the biggest thing we can learn from these people is to learn what matters in a mix, and what doesn’t. Mixing fast and well saves money and frees us up to do other things
Mixing With AI
Some will argue that for the foreseeable future, AI cannot know what needs to happen to a mix in the creative sense. However, on the basis that mixing is a great example of where art meets science, no-one can seriously deny that any tool using hard statistics can’t have the more objective tasks covered. There are plenty of jobs to do that lend themselves to a more prosaic approach, such as handling loudness, or removing subsonic clutter. In time, surely the best of these tools will learn our tastes as well to develop their subjective uses too.
For now, tools like FAST bundle do what all the best mixers do. That is to keep its ear on the big picture. They also give the user some control so they don’t feel left out… In the bundle you get a compressor, an EQ, a reverb, and the innovative spectral ducker, Reveal.
How Fast Is Fast?
AI promises exciting new tools that make mixing accessible to more people, and make the life easier for those who learned the hard way. Fast is something that only takes as long as it needs to. The FAST bundle does what it says on the tin and does it incredibly well thanks to Focusrite’s harnessing Sonible’s considerable skill in letting us take a step back, to just listen. If you haven’t tried it yet, try it. It really is as good as you’d want it to be.