Help needed

[Krabbe]

I like your food-production-analogy. You are correct, you don't hear the chef using the quality of ingredients as an excuse. You do, however, hear him bitch about it

I do agree that you have to cook with whatever's in the fridge and make a fine meal out of it. For me, I prefer to fill my frigde with ... maybe not foie gras and black truffle, but stuff of a decent quality and then cook with that. It has it's obvious down sides, but ... well, it's working for me.

I genuinely believe that the single stroke of genius in bar 78 should come from the artist and not the mixer. Of course, the mixer should be able to honor this in a proper way, but it starts with the band. I have a producer type in my network, who's also a crazy talented musician. More often than not does he choose to re-record an instrument, where he plays, because the guitarist played a bad note in a solo, the drummer missed a ghost or the bass player wasn't consistent enough. He does it so well that even the bands themselves can't tell the difference. I acutally don't believe that any of them are aware of it. My point being, a mixer can do a whole lot of magic in whatever DAW they're using, and obviously you have to do what's best for any given song, but where's the line? For me that line is the recording, because what's on the tape, can I only assume, is ... ehm, the boundries for the artist's abilities. Would it be "etichally correct" for a mix engineer to make the band sound better than they acutally do?

I feel bad. I feel like I started an unintentional debate while I was in a bad mood. Though I did precisely to start a discourse, of course but I did it poorly.

Obviously a good mix is "more than balancing and tasteful choices". A good mix does start with the band, instruments, gear, recording, mood, etc. But, as a mixer, I have no control over. Nor do I care. I cook with the ingredients given and people judge the meal and chef and not the farm the carrots came from. And as a chef I can't ever say sorry this meal isn't great but the guy who normally sends me chickens....

And that's the fun of mixing. Compensating. And knowing how to do so best. It might be parallel compression (it's built into my template) or heavy eq-ing or scrolling through the list of plug-ins and trying to find something that works in a specific instance. Or knowing to do nothing at all. I've been this for a while off and on and I'm still learning. And it's not from the great recordings. It's from the times I'm like...."Well I could try this vocoder and ring mod and ....." to get something to "sound good". And its stuff I can apply to good recordings as well. It's all just playing an instrument. I can learn how to finger a chord (don't laugh) playing "Fur Elise" that I can apply to "Rhapsody in Blue"

I'll disagree a bit. A mixer has to do what's best for the song. It could be throwing all the faders up and thinking it's right or massaging every track and part to create something. As a kid with my walkman listening to whatever was on the radio (get off my lawn) I absolutely waited for something that moved me in bar 78. Every time. It's partially because bar 78 had a cool part and partially because the rest of the mix held my attention until then.

I do agree that ultimately this site lacks dialog and discussion. We're a bit too keen on not making enemies (though I have) or trying to be too disparaging or whatever and having to analyze one's reply against who one is replying to etc. Some people get defensive and it makes discussions difficult (Like I did! Apologies). I do love when someone comments on my mixes, positive or negative (mostly) especially from a beginner (just speaking in general and not towards anyone in this thread) because they're unencumbered with numbers and techniques and plug-ins. They just speak from the hip. I try to do so as well. I've liked 'bad' mixes on this site and panned 'good' mixes because of how they ultimately made me feel.

And frankly, sometimes I get lazy. I do want to reply to a bunch of posts but I just can't summon the energy so I just do a few. And then someone feels slighted.

I do wish there was a general mixing thread where people can discuss things without a specific song or at least a specific mix where it's all against one. I've had the idea of making a bad mix thread of a song that might stimulate discussion. There probably wouldn't be much traffic though. I'd have to create a sock account because I tend to rub people the wrong way.

Sorry to rant and if this is off topic. I just woke up and still working on my coffee and might be violently hung over. I'm still deciding.

Anyway, this is a touching funeral. I didn't know there was a Minions branded casket. You know what, that $2.75 for Starbucks you owe me from last week? It's on me.

No need to get up, I'll see myself out.