But after eating the sushi in Japan, I really grew to like it. It's like when people say something is an "acquired taste."
Well, I had been avoiding this particular acquisition for years now, and all I needed to do was go on a 12-hour flight and eat at the Tsukiji
fish market to finally "acquire" this taste.
The simplicity of a good tuna on sticky rice with a touch of Wasabi is now a delicacy to me.
And now I'm really into it. So much so that I actually prefer the simpler Nigiri than the sometimes overcomplicated sushi rolls stuffed with a random assortment of foodstuffs.
And that's true with mixing too. You don't always have to
overcomplicate your mixes with unnecessary processing.
Simplifying your tracks and doing broad stroke processing on instrument groups is sometimes enough to bring out the character of the song.
Is there a time and place for complicated parallel processing, transient manipulation, and sound design? Sure, I do it all the time. I'm mixing an indie rock EP that has amp sims on the acoustic guitars, fuzzy
saturation on the bass, slammed parallel compression on the drums and distortion on the vocals.
It's one overstuffed sushi roll for sure!
But that's not how I started the mix. I started by making it as simple as possible. I built the mix on a foundation of simplicity because that's how I design my mix templates. If the mix needs to be simple, it's easy enough to do. But if it needs to get rowdy and complex, I
have all the effects busses, parallel processing chains, and plug-ins ready to go when I need them.
If you'd like to see my mix template in action, and learn to mix as simply or as complex as the song requires, check out the Mix Workflow video included with Step By Step Mixing and Better Mixes in Less Time bundle.
Here are a couple recent reviews for Step By Step Mixing that I'm super grateful for
