Your mixing "philosophy"

[ashcat_lt]

Turn the knobs til it sounds like it should.

I was going to say "...til it sounds good" but that's so rarely what I'm shooting for.

[boid]

some of the less important stuff often sounds better when you can't hear it totally perfectly. your imagination fills in the information and IMO often does a better job than you could with an eq or whatever.

you can only pay attention to so many things at once. pick yer battles.

this.

also I've found you can work with that very same part of the brain to get around mixing problems.

for example I'm mixing a song right now for a band who did most of the preproduction theirselves.
the chorus is pretty dense because a synth part is comming in with a wall of direct/distorted guitars so it's pretty much the same frequency range, you can't make out either of the instruments. I can see why they want both to be properly represented, though.
eqing and stereo placement made it work SOMEHOW but it still is a compromise because you can't really focus on the melody of the synth.

what I'm trying now is that I muted the distorted guitars in the first half/all of the first chorus so you can hear the synth clearly.
in the second chorus your brain has already heard the melody and remembers it
so it doesn't matter that it's clouded by distored guitars, and I can turn it down even further making the guitars more aggressive.

the band is happy and I feel like I've cheated because I didn't use a fancy box to do it.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

that's not cheating that's being smart!

[SpencerMartin]

So many gems here! A great deal of the important stuff has been covered, but here's a few conclusions I've arrived at...

1. Good is better than bad, but interesting is WAY better than good... And sometimes bad can be better than good in an interesting, well-presented way.

Example... Mix for the listener, not the fellow engineer. The listener doesn't give a shit about how accurate/realistic or otherwise stereotypically "good" the individual tones are if the composite whole just sounds plain and boring. That's what I call a vanilla mix. The listener will either be intrigued or they won't. Simple as that. (Be extra careful to avoid pretty much all mixing tutorial videos on YouTube. I've yet to encounter one with any glimmer of creativity.)

2. Know what you want the song to sound like before you even start. Don't dive in with immediately soloing the kick drum and trying your hardest to EQ it to sound "good". (Again, trying to make everything sound "good" results in super boring, vanilla mixes - stop doing that shit!) Instead, just listen to the song and pay attention to what it reminds you of (or potentially could remind you of), or interesting, cool ways in which it could be presented.

3. Mix at low volumes and make it sound exciting when it's whisper quiet. Check it loud only occasionally. Volume adds the illusion of quality to anything, so don't fool yourself. (This has already been referred to, but it's worth repeating.)

4. Check your mixes at a slightly louder, more "normal" volume from across the room, as far away and off-centered from the sweet spot as possible. This helps to quickly and objectively access relative volumes - things that are too loud or too quiet will become way more obvious when you're not sitting directly front and center. On the same note, keep at least a pair or two of some super shitty headphones around to use for double checking mixes. It should still sound cool on headphones that are muddy, thin, or mid-rangey. (Not too long ago I pulled out a pair of phones that hadn't seen the light of day in years and ended up sitting there just listening to stuff for a good hour. They were definitely not what you'd call good quality, but the listening was super cool and enjoyable.)

5. Again, and most importantly, just be creative! Listening experiences should be new and fresh and weird. Invent your own sound every time. Or steal and imitate sounds. Do both. This is art. Make it sound like a painting, not a catalog.

[vvv]

Make it sound like a painting, not a catalog.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

Mix for the listener, not the fellow engineer.

years ago (like, almost 20) a friend (actually the guy i made the record i linked to earlier with) said "don't make records for other engineers".

GOOD ADVICE.

as far as mixing quiet/loud....the good reasons for mixing quietly have already been covered, as for why it's important to listen loud (not stupidly loud, but yunno 85db or so)

1. impact/overall rockingness. it should make you want to get out of your chair and dance around and/or smash stuff...depending. if you're too lazy to get up you better at least be playing air drums in your chair.

2. subs and/or low end in general. it's easy to think you have the low end under control if you're only mixing quietly. you need to crank it up to make sure everything's actually in proportion.

3. high mids. again, it's easy to think these are fine listening quietly. you need to crank it to make sure they don't hurt. 2-4k is where excitement lives but it's also a minefield of suffering. some vocals can be really peaky in there....some guitars as well, sometimes twangy telecasters can be lethal on certain notes. on good monitors that peaky midrange stuff can jump out 20 feet in front of the rest of the mix. it can be dealt with at mastering, but as with all things, it's better addressed in the mix.

4. noise. not usually a problem, but sometimes a big problem. if you're recording in a noisy environment, that shit adds up quick. not always obvious listening quietly, very obvious listening loud, really really obvious once everything gets turned up in mastering.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

4. noise. not usually a problem, but sometimes a big problem. if you're recording in a noisy environment, that shit adds up quick. not always obvious listening quietly, very obvious listening loud, really really obvious once everything gets turned up in mastering.

Great point here. I have a pretty strong dislike of headphones (don't get me started) but check everything on phones for this reason. If there are lots of room mics, or lots of compression noise can quickly become an issue. You (or at least I) don't notice it as much on the speakers.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

i hate headphones too.

i notice the noise on the monitors as soon as i bring the gain up. a little tape hiss is fine. tons of accumulated room/traffic/amps/computer/mic pre noise....i find it really distracting.

not that anyone wants to spend more money, but izotope rx is amazing at cleaning that shit up. makes a big difference in the overall depth/clarity of your mix.

[Recycled_Brains]

Identify the character of the band, and exploit it. Push it just a little further; shove what makes them rad in people's faces a little harder.

Do less. Every time I start fucking with things as a rule, I like my mixes less (doesn't stop me from doing it initially). When I strip down to bare minimum processing, I'm happier with the end result almost 100% of the time.

Listen to the rough mixes that you only spent 15 minutes working on. It might actually rule.

Add your own character in a subtle way. A brief weird echo thing, or distorted note, or a snare drum mixed through a bit-fuzz and layered underneath... sometimes just a thing that lasts a split second that upon most listens goes un-noticed, until that one time when a dude is in a room by himself smoking a joint and he hears it and it blows his mind.

Mistakes in the performances can be the coolest stuff. See what that has to offer.

[GooberNumber9]

I didn't realize until I read this thread that I don't mix for the listener or for other engineers, I mix for myself. I do things that I'm not sure anyone else will like, but that I think are cool. I even do things that maybe aren't always audible but which I think are fun to do.

Maybe that's my philosophy, I have fun with it. And I don't let myself try to make things louder, I only try to make them either not fight each other or fight in a good way. Unless I'm told otherwise, vocals always win (when present). Sometimes I'll give second or third place to a cool sound rather than a cool part. If I hate something I'll try to get away with muting it.

I'm a selfish bastard.

[Andrew707]

You can never have too many olives, or too little vermouth ...

Pretty much agree with this approach

[blungo2]

Great thread! Even though i haven't read it all yet :/
I don't know if this is even relevant, mostly i just try to not fuck things up, i.e. it should sound at least as good as what i heard in the room. If what i'm hearing in the room isn't right, i try to fix that before i record.