We’ve all seen the articles and videos. Mixing with only free plug ins. With only inexpensive or stock plug ins. With only one brand of plug ins. Well this is different. What about mixing with NO plug ins?
The Background
This experiment starts with a story, or actually with several versions of the same story. So gather round the fire and let me tell you about the distant past, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and music was recorded on big heavy spools of tape. Because nothing, other than the actual recorded sounds, was stored on that tape, in order to do the day’s work the engineer would need to put up a balance in the monitors (and for foldback as well) from scratch every time, for every song. And most often the mixing desk would have had a monitor section, a dedicated monitor mixer with limited controls intended just for that purpose.
That mixer probably had 24 channels of faders, might have had pan pots or maybe just left/right/centre switching, and perhaps a send to a single delay or reverb. But that’s all. No EQ, no compressors, only one send to one external effect. Just a simple balance mixer.
But the interesting thing was that, with only those faders and perhaps one shared effect, each engineer could still very much make the mix feel like his or her own. JUST with balance.
I’ve had that actual experience of working as a studio staff engineer and ‘sharing’ a session. (Remember, dinosaurs were everywhere and, yes, studios had staff engineers). Maybe someone was working the day shift and I’d come in for the evening to take over, or vice versa. And in that scenario I would walk in to a session where the mix up on the desk very much sounded ‘like’ the day guy’s sound, and within a short period of time, just by pushing the faders around, and maybe changing a stereo assignment here or there, it would go from sounding like ‘his’ record to sounding like ‘mine’.
But nothing was EQ’d or compressed or otherwise treated differently on the individual tracks. JUST with balance.
The Experiment
So this brings us to The Great Balance Only Mix Off experiment. What we started with here is a fairly basic rock/alternative track that consists of 27 tracks. And we’ve handed it to 3 talented mixers, of varying tastes and experience, and given them these rules:
Everyone is essentially saddled (or let’s be honest, I like to say ‘blessed’!) with the sounds of the tracks as I recorded them.
There aren’t multiple mic choices recorded for anything, for example. (That’s just not how I work).
You may balance any way you hear it.
Automate volumes if you want to, or not.
Mute or use whatever tracks you want.
BUT… no individual EQ or processing of tracks.
Assign anything in the stereo field as you like.
Everyone will have the same, one, plate reverb plug-in (you may set the decay time as you like and, again, you may use it or not as you choose), and one mono delay plug-in (again, use it on whatever you like or not, set the time as you like).
Lastly, we all have the same stock stereo compressor available for the stereo bus (only!) or not. Set it as you hear it or don’t use it. Your choice.
But the bottom line is we are interested primarily in how you hear the balance vs how the other mixers do.
So then? Given exactly the same sounds, how different will the mixes be? To my ears the results vary a lot. Some are quite similar to how I’d hear the mix and some are quite different. But the fact that they can sound different at all I think, or hope, makes the point here.
The most important thing, the most important tool you have, is how you uniquely hear the relationships between instruments in a mix as distinct from how someone else hears them. The BALANCE.
So, what do you think? Do you hear differences?
The point here isn’t so much about which mix, if any, you prefer, but still, did you have favourites? Did you hate one of them? Let us know.
People are always talking about “Mixing Secrets”. Here’s the real mix secret: It’s all about the balance.
The Mixers
J.J. Blair - Johnny Cash, Joe Bonamassa, Rod Stewart
John Agnello - Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, The Hold Steady
Stewart Lerman - The Roches, Dar Williams, Jules Shear
Over To You
Which is your favourite and why? Are you surprised by how similar the mixes are and, where they differ, what do you think that brings to the mix? Share you thoughts and try this yourself. The fader is the most important tool available to you, are you reaching for plugins before you’ve finished balancing your mixes?
Photo by Caught In Joy on Unsplash