Reply by MDM
I have some Mackie 824s I bought by chance (had to trade-in), which I would not recommend if you’re mixing all day, but if you find the right spot — away from corners and walls — they are good for making very quick overall judgments. At least to me.
But I was also referring to BM-15s, which I sometimes use, although they have a sound which makes midrange instruments a bit distant at times, and you tend to have a hard time with sounds with a lot of harmonics, like raw poly-synth or distorted guitars. The blend between woofer and tweeter is a bit mismatched, but they’re still great speakers. And, of course, Genelec, although they have that ring incorporated in the tweeter.
I was commenting on the TYPE of speaker, such as the ones above, on the appropriate stands, compared to the NS-10, JBL bookshelf models, etc., that people used to have on the console all the time as the main monitors.
Reply by stevieeastend
It depends pretty much on the song and arrangement to me. Anything else is pretty fixable, even the vocals nowadays. If a chorus doesn’t work, there might be a couple of ways to create something out of nothing, but most of the time, there´s no rescue for a bad arrangement/song.
In contrast, if mixing something average, it´s more often than not easy to improve with your usual set up of tricks, or try to give the client something unexpected which he usually might like. On the other hand. great songs and arrangements I find to be pretty time consuming and tough to mix.
With a really outstanding song, great arrangement and performance, there are so many possibilities when mixing. I usually end up having something up to 30 mixes just to decide later which one I like best. If it´s great at the beginning, and you have to make it outstanding, it´s a pretty tough thing – so many directions to go..
Reply by Nacho
jonathan jetter wrote: Most of my clientele consists of musicians either unsigned or on smaller indies, so there is rarely the budget for one song per day. I usually do 2 per day – work for 4 hours or so, break for food, come back and do the other. This is of course dependent on musical style, quality of tracking, aesthetic goals of a specific artist, etc.
I will tell the guys to go out and have some food or something, and that I will call them when I’m ready. It works pretty good, because I can work on the song alone by myself and have it ready for them to tell me:“bring up the vocals a little bit in this part,” or details like that. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to be told that nothing has to be changed – but this is rare.
When I have the client sitting in the sofa back in the control room, they’re always saying things like “turn the bass drum up” when I’m working on the flute, so I’ve found it very productive to have them out of the room in order to shape up the mix before they jump in.
Reply by maxim
I’ve been learning oil painting in the last year or so, and one quote that stuck with me was that most students will do a great painting early on, but will paint right over it. It takes a long time to learn when to stop.
Another great quote: “if it sounds right, don’t mess with it; if it doesn’t sound right, mess with it.”
Reply by marcel
What’s that George Massenburg quote? “A mix is never finished, you just have to abandon it.”
I paraphrased, but it’s something like that.
I would also say: “As little as possible, but as much as necessary.”