In this article Dom Morley considers the question of what you should do when a mix just isn’t working and how best to avoid it happening in the first place.
The fun thing about this question is that there are actually two answers. Which is because there are two ways a mix can be abandoned – temporarily and permanently.
Temporary - A Mix Hiatus
Let’s answer the ‘temporary’ question first - and this is all about perception. When your perception is shot then you absolutely must abandon the mix you are working on until you’ve got it back. After years of trial and error I’ve got pretty good at spotting when this happens in myself. The process goes something like this: I’ve been working on a mix for a while (many hours, in fact) and it’s getting gradually better each time. It’s a slow and steady process of improvement – occasionally you have to take a step back to take two forward, but it’s gradual and positive. Then, out of nowhere, I suddenly decide that the entire mix sounds terrible. Irredeemably appalling – literally every decision I’ve made to get me to this point has been wrong. When I start thinking like this, I pause for a second and realise that the small adjustment to the hi-hat EQ that I just made is not capable of completely destroying the mix, so something else must be at play here. I realise that I’ve lost all perspective and need to step away from the speakers before I make changes that I’ll regret. If it’s late-ish at this point then I’ll go home and start again the next day, and if it’s not I’ll make sure I take a significant break. This could be a long walk (my studio is in rural Oxfordshire – genuine Hobbit country) or I’ll go into the nearest town to run an errand. For me, about an hour is a good enough period to reset properly, and then I come back and it’s all sounding promising again. Onwards!
Permanent - Write It Off
The far more serious way to abandon a mix is permanently, in that you’ve gone so far wrong that you need to go back to the beginning and start again. I’ve fortunately never found myself in this position, but I have seen it happen a few times back when I was an assistant in a big studio. Painful as it was in the moment it was the best decision to make, and the end result (plus the relationship between the client and the mix engineer) was better for it. In the times when I saw it happen, the client would show up near the end of the mix to hear how it was going, and after a first listen there would be a serious conversation about how it was not at all how they had imagined it. Fortunately, each time I was assisting excellent mix engineers, so they just said it was no problem and we would start again. It’s tough to throw away all that work, and it’s tough to admit you got it wrong, but the best mixers in the game can do this and then produce the right result. That stuck with me. One other lesson that stuck with me in these moments was that the fix is probably just balance. Each time the mix engineer turned off the automation (we were on large-format analogue consoles), pulled all the faders down and started again – but importantly the sounds pretty much stayed as they were. EQ, compression and effects barely changed, and it was the balance that was worked on. So, if you ever feel like you’re completely lost in a mix, try pulling all the faders down and starting again. It’s surprising how quickly you can get to something completely different that really works.
Avoiding The Problem
Perhaps the most important issue that we should address while we are on this topic, though, is how to avoid getting into an ‘abandon permanently’ situation at all. There are a few ways that have worked for me that allow me to have a pretty clear idea of what an artist is looking for when I’m mixing for them, so perhaps this will help. It all starts with a playlist. Ask the person you’re mixing for to put together a playlist of songs that you should be aiming to sit alongside in terms of the mix (or if you’re mixing your own tracks then do this for yourself). There shouldn’t be many – anything over a couple of dozen and there are too many options - it gets too vague. For some artists this is difficult because it’s the first time they’ve considered how they want their music to sound so forensically, but it’s a really useful process to consider the sounds and then make these decisions, and it follows that the process of making a record becomes much smoother and more enjoyable. Along with the playlist I also ask for an email detailing why each song is on there – is it the drum sound that you like? Or the vocal sound? I do this because I got it very wrong once and nailed the drum sound of a track on the playlist that I was given, and it turned out the artist hated that drum sound, and it was on the list because the vocal reverb was great. You live and you learn. Then I also ask for the last rough mix that the artist was listening to before they sent the track to me. This is gives me an idea of the sort of balance they have been enjoying, so I have a solid starting point. Remember during the mix process to keep referencing the playlist - just to make sure you’re still in the ballpark! In the midst of a ‘flow state’ it can be easy to drift off target and end up a long way from where you should be.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that as a mixer you should not be exercising a bit of creativity in your work – that is an important part of the gig a lot of the time - but when it’s someone else’s track you always have to remember that you are trying to deliver the sound the artist hears in their head, not what you hear in yours. That way (with a bit of luck) you’ll never find yourself having to completely abandon a mix.
More Recording Resources From Dom Morley
Dom is the founder of the Mix Consultancy, a zero risk (money back guarantee) way to get notes on your tracks to help improve the sound. Whether you're an artist who likes to mix all their own work, a composer putting together a pitch on a limited budget, or an engineer who wants a discreet second opinion before sending a mix off to a client - we're here to help.
“I just completed a mix with the help of Dom Morley & The Mix Consultancy. The mix we turned over was qualitatively better than the one I would have gone with on my own.
It's been said that "a mix is never done, it's just abandoned", but the truth is, you *really* do feel a sense of completion and closure having worked with Dom because you know in your heart that you did everything you possibly could to get the best result possible for the client.
The beauty behind the process is that not only do you get a better mix for your client, but Dom's advice contains all kinds of gold that you can borrow and deploy in future mixes.”
Geoff Manchester, Manchester Music
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In addition to the one-to-one advice Dom has produced some excellent online courses;
Everything You Need To Know About Recording Vocals
Preproduction, DAW set-up, preparing the studio, psychology, equipment. Literally everything you need to know.This is a short, free, mini-course on the four things that you really need to know in order to get great mixes, and the four things that you really don't!
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko