If you've been following along for a while you know I'm a big goal setter.

One of my goals is to be a panelist at an audio conference where I talk about my experience with music production to the audience.

Well, even though it wasn't a conference I actually did sit on a panel last week where my experience with audio (and being a musician) was the reason I was there.

This wasn't an audio conference and there was no audience unfortunately

I was a panelist at the city's Arts Council where we evaluated grant application for public funding.

How I get myself into these things I do not know.

But it was entertaining. For an extrovert like me that's stuck sitting in his home studio all day it's a nice change of pace to interact with people all day.

Because of my audio and music experience I led the panel on a few music related events. My expertise with live sound, putting on concerts and looking at the budgets of musical events was valuable.

But there were other applications where I didn't really have any input over that of the other panelists.

Which made me think of the structure of a production or a mix.

There were six different people on the panel, all from different backgrounds with different experiences.

Alone we only know so much.

But together we create a diverse team that's highly knowledgable.

It's sort of like all the instruments in your mix pulling their weight.

Everybody has their area of expertise:

• The drums hold the beat and pulse of the mix together.
• The bass brings some harmonic structure but also helps the drums flesh out the low-end.
• The guitars add even more to the rhythm and harmonic structure of the mix, adding middle and high frequencies to the mix.
• The vocals lead the song with the melody, adding the most important part to the mix.
• Additional instruments chime in from time to time, adding a call and response to the mix that supports everything else that's going on.

So just like you need a diverse group of people to see something from every angle, you need a diverse mix of instruments that are all adding something extra to the song.

So maybe I didn't necessarily reach my goal I talked about before. I'll still keep trying.

But did I think I did something important to help the community that gave me a different perspective on how things are done?

Absolutely.

If you're interested in a different perspective to reach the goals for your productions, check out the Recording & Mixing Strategies tutorials here:

www.audio-issues.com/strategies