I went to lunch yesterday at this restaurant downtown.

As we drove down the street there was this tow truck hooking a car up to its back getting ready to drag it away.

My immediate thought was, "ugh, these guys just on their power trip ruining someone's day..."

I'm terrible with authority and I absolutely despise people that get off on their little power trips. It's like they have this urge to make life shitty for people around them.

But turns out...I was dead wrong.

As I was walking up to the restaurant the manager told me the engine blew out in the car and they had to call a truck to tow it away.

Makes complete sense doesn't it?

Your truck blows out in the middle of the street, you call AAA to get it out of there.

No power trip at all. Actually just a business service you need.

It made me think of home recording and mixing.

Especially when you're knee deep in plug-ins on a specifically tough track to handle.

Maybe you have a vocal track that was recorded so badly you're throwing everything at it to get it to sit well in the mix.

If someone were to peer over your shoulder and look at the 10 plug-ins and 4 aux busses you have on the track they would immediately scoff at you.

Look at this guy over-mixing this vocal track. What an amateur!

But, just like that tow-truck, there's a reason all that stuff is there.

You're trying everything to make the track sound better and sometimes that actually results in an overload of plug-ins.

Because it's better than the alternative of having your vocals sound shitty.

So don't always worry about the technicalities of how much processing you're putting on.

Just worry about the end result.

If somebody judges your mixing because of how it looks while it's being mixed you're better off not listening to that guy anyway.

It's the end result that matters, whether that's an empty street and a worry-free driver or a good sounding mix. Regardless of what the naive onlookers like me have to say about it.

I might be naive about the daily life of tow trucks but I do know a thing or two about audio, so if you want some solid tips on how to create balance, depth and separation in your recordings, check out the Recording & Mixing Strategies bundle:

www.audio-issues.com/strategies​