Oh man...have I got an analogy for you...
So this weekend we had a party at our house to celebrate
Eurovision.
If you don't know what Eurovision is you're:
Anyway, it's every May where Europe goes to war with each over through song. The whole continent competes and every country votes for their favorite. It's been going on since the 1950's, still going strong and still
being weird to watch.
That said, let me tell you about something that happened at the party.
There's a windowed door that separates the bedroom hallway from the living room (party area). It has four glass panels in it separated by wood dividers (this fact will become significant soon).
Sometimes when people
open it too hard the doorknob hits the doorstopper and the lock gets pushed in.
So of course that happened.
And did I tell you there is no key to this door?
So imagine our frustration when the door locked and we couldn't get in.
I thought, OK, this is that time I was worried about when I needed to break down the lock. So I grabbed my tools and started hammering the lock to see if I could break it.
No dice.
Brute strength wouldn't break the lock either and unfortunately that credit-card trick is mostly a myth from 90's movies.
So we thought:
Is there room above the door so we could lift it off the hinges?
Good plan John! I'll try it.
And when I was trying to grab the
door to lift it up my hand went through the window.
No. I didn't break it.
I mean there was no glass there! There was glass in all the other windows and because this particular panel wasn't at eye sight we never really noticed that there wasn't anything there.
And
with no glass in one of the panels I just put my hand through the opening and opened the door from the inside.
That actually panicked some people because when they noticed they thought some crazy Criss Angel voodoo was going on!
That reminds me of a simple lesson:
Sometimes the answer to a problem is
right in front of you and you just can't see it because you're overcomplicated the whole issue.
And man isn't that something we do when we mix right?
We tend to go straight to all our crazy plug-ins and tools to fix a problem that isn't even there to begin with.
Tell me, when was the last time you
threw a compressor on a problem that a volume fader would fix?
That happens all the time.
It's this thing we do as we mix. We don't listen to the song enough. Instead we dive straight into throwing plug-ins on everything to make IT better even if we don't really understand IT to begin with.
Today I have to go back and revise a mix because the kick is way too boomy in the lows. When I was mixing the kick I spent a lot of time throwing different plug-ins on it to make it stick.
In a way I got it sounding
good.
But now it also has problems that'll be harder to fix because as soon as I change something it will interact differently with all the other plug-ins in the chain.
I know it's just an EQ problem but because I have so many other plug-ins after my EQ the solution will be harder to fix now than if I would've just made sure to EQ those rumbly lows to begin with.
So next time you're tackling a mix, make sure you think about what you want to do with the song before you go throwing the kitchen sink at your tracks.
If you need a new and more simplified approach to mixing, check
out the Recording & Mixing Strategies bundle:
www.audio-issues.com/strategies
P.S.
The chance to put your producer hat on win prizes for helping The Long Wait choose songs for their upcoming EP is still open.
Just go here: www.thelongwait.com/vote and watch the video.
The best production idea wins:
The results have been very interesting so far and you guys have a bunch of cool ideas for our songs so we're looking forward to hearing more.