Anyone else feel the same way about mixing?

I am rarely ever able to improve on my first quick, "test" mix.

It's like my cooking. I end up adding too many spices and hide the original flavors.

I just ruin everything with a hodgepodge of eq, compression, reverb, de-essing, limiting, etc etc etc.

But...my first mix is never really that bad. Each instrument will have a good place in the mix and overall things will sound pretty good.

But from that point on, it always goes downhill. I'm about ready to set a stopwatch for 30 mins when I begin mixing and stop when it goes off.

Anyone else got the same problem?

I've heard some engineers say that whenever they get a song to mix, they listen to once and make a quick mix and that quick mix is their guideline, they're only making small improvements to the sound from there.

Never heard you stuff, but maybe you're doing whatever you're doing really good so it doesn't need to be mixed, just setup-ed a little bit.

Sounds about right, Eliya. The only problem I have is a complete lack of self-restraint beyond that first mix.

Thankfully I always save a mixdown from the first go at it. It just makes me feel like shit after I spend hours doing what feel like small tweaks, but cumulatively just destroy everything that was good about the first quick try.

I think I'm decent at tracking, but not at mixing. I can capture live sounds pretty well, but I've lost my mix confidence.

Trust me, I know the feeling.

I end up with ten tracks with the volume "pots" way up and having to go back and take each of them down, realizing I had kept compensating as I was going over each instrument.

I've written sixteen songs, only about three of them have less than 2 different mixes. Every other one has like 5 mixes that didn't work and one I settled with.

Maybe I'll post the entire album here.

stewie wrote:I've lost my mix confidence.

I think confidence really plays a big part in mixing.

I've been mixing a lot in the last few months. And I don't consider myself a great mixer. I don't even like mixing very much. But I've noticed lately that the more confident I am the faster I can get a good mix and be done with it.

In other words if I'm confident I can nail a mix in an hour or two. If I'm not confident then I can slave over a mix for a few days. And the outcome is almost always basically the same mix.

When my confidence is down I can chase my tail a lot and second guess myself. That's shits a waste of time really.

Stewie your 30 minute mixes are probably great and they're probably not going to get much better. If I were you I'd make sure all the edits and effect choices are made and then get out the egg timer.

30 minutes to an hour and bang your done.

Brian, you should obviously make sure that things are sounding good before you record them. I know this sounds stupidly obvious, but you'll find that material that is well recorded almost mixes itself compared to something that was tracked badly. When the original tracks sound good it also makes it easier to work with them. Working with less than great recordings is not great fun and the old saying of "you can polish a turd..." generally applies. I do agree that genrally things don't change radically from a basic mix to the final in my experience.

You could always post some tracks if you think you may be missing something.

Roddy

Rodabod wrote:Brian, you should obviously make sure that things are sounding good before you record them. I know this sounds stupidly obvious, but you'll find that material that is well recorded almost mixes itself compared to something that was tracked badly.

Thanks Roddy, but that's actually not a problem for me at all. I know my room and equipment pretty well now, and I spend a good length of time getting ready for tracking. The bare tracks don't sound too bad at all, thank fuck.

The problem is that I can never get things sounding nicely polished, because while my good sounding quick mix sounds well-balanced and "alive", it will usually sound a little amatuerish.


p.s. I hate writing about mixing, because my fingers want to type the words "warm" and "punchy".

I have noticed the same thing. I think it's just a clear head thing.

I'd have to say I have that problem from time to time. I find that the more often I make adjustments with all the instrument up, and not making adjustments to each instrument solo, it comes a lot easier. Also mixing with the band present and paying for it, will also keep you from going overkill.

wasn't it steve who said something like "the key to good mixing is to put the slider where it sounds good and then don't touch it again."

maybe that's why.