where do you focus your attention during mixing?

[junomat]

Great post, Joel.

Amen. Nicely said Joel.

[fossiltooth]

Great post, Joel.

Amen. Nicely said Joel.

Yep.

Joel. I'm almost starting to get bored of your consistently awesome posts.

Can you please try typing something really sucky and uninformed for a change of pace please? You know, mix it up a little, dude.

Yeesh!

[drumsound]

Where do I focus my attention when mixing? I focus on taking a bunch of elements and making the one coehesive whole.

[vvv]

Like when you are boxing, ....

My mixes often sound punch-drunk.

[joelpatterson]

Great post, Joel.

Huh?

[rwc]

I focus on the tubes to transform my amateurly-recorded material to warm and superior sounding tracks.

[junkyardtodd]

Having a hard time focusing on the whole song cuz yr focusing on the minute details? I have a really cool pic of Bruce Springsteen right between my near fields. I focus on that instead, somehow it lets the music come into my ears without that narrow point of attention.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

If you have a mix that just won't come together no mater what you do it is often because the problem lies in the arrangement. A well arranged, well played song is a breeze to mix.
You should start thinking about the mix in pre-production and keep it in mind all the way through the process.

[getreel]

I like to focus on tinkering with all my audio toys like rack gear and plugins. Then, when it sounds like total crap, I take all that stuff away and start over.

Seriously though, it depends on the music. I'll usually start with drums, then vocals and then add other stuff in. I don't solo things too much except for setting compression parameters and sometimes EQ, but I return to the big picture rather quickly since that's what's important. I try not to EQ too much but I will high pass a lot of stuff to keep low end clutter minimized.

After drums and vocals, I'm listening to how the bass, guitars, and keyboards(or other instruments) sit together making sure the bass is filling out the low end and can be heard well enough to make the groove with the drums happen right. Then I try to get the guitars big, if the song calls for that, without obscuring the vocals.

Also try to listen for the dynamics of the song and accentuate that with the mix or add dynamics with mixing if the musicians didn't play it dynamically enough.

Above all, don't neglect the song. Do what the song calls for or is telling you and use appropriate techniques for the style of music.

[getreel]

If you have a mix that just won't come together no mater what you do it is often because the problem lies in the arrangement. A well arranged, well played song is a breeze to mix.

Wow, good post. This is so true. I wish I'd thought of that.

[HighColourStudio]

It's my opinion that lousy sounding drums makes everything sound bad, even if you have recorded the holy grail of guitar sounds.

I agree. If the drums are cloudy, phasey, or otherwise poorly tracked/mixed, then its hard to get any other instruments to sit nicely within the mix. I focus on the snare and kick first, since thats what drives the tune (in most cases). Usually when someone comments on a good recording/mix, they are reacting to either a great drum sound, or good vocals, or Both! In my opinion, tracking drums is the hardest thing to do in the recording realm. A good mix begins with good drumtracking. Good luck, and remember, everyone mixes differently, and there is no right way or wrong way.

[trodden]

If you have a mix that just won't come together no mater what you do it is often because the problem lies in the arrangement. A well arranged, well played song is a breeze to mix.
You should start thinking about the mix in pre-production and keep it in mind all the way through the process.

totally. Ran into that a few times last record i did. What i was doing wrong though, was not making the "weird" parts of the songs, weird or noisy enough... i kept thinking that the arrangement was just not good, but actually the arrangement just needed me to fuck it up (the mix and tone and feel) some more in certain sections. Once i got on the same page as the song writer, it came together much easier.

[@?,*???&?]

Great post, Joel.

Amen. Nicely said Joel.

Nice use of the word Joel.