My Mexican Friend and What I Learned From His Mix
Let me tell you another
“Oh god…here he goes again…”
Hang on, it’ll be funny.
So the reason I went down there is because my friend Idar owns a studio and wanted me to record him and his band.
Don’t Wear Multiple Hats
He didn’t want to play multiple roles. He absolutely could’ve done it himself but it’s valuable to focus on one thing in the studio.
He wanted to play the role of the musician and didn’t want to worry about wearing different hats and using both sides of his brain.
So Idar focused on his guitar playing on the engineering.
After the recording session was over I started mixing one of the songs so I could get his feedback and vision on the overall mix of the record.
Talking to your clients to hear how they want their music to sound is extremely important.
You Have to Love Mixing
In a few hours we had a pretty good mix going. I took a break because Idar wanted to take a crack at it himself for fun.
The funny thing about it is that I didn’t thing twice about my mix.
When he said he was going to try mixing it I just assumed he’d mix over mine!
But when I came back he had saved it as a separate session so we could compare the two.
I stupidly told him “oh, I just thought you were going to change mine.”
He burst out laughing at the fact that I was OK with somebody basically erasing four hours of work and a great mix.
The thing is, I didn’t really care. If he would’ve mixed over mine I simply would’ve mixed it again.
That’s how much I like mixing. If I had to start from scratch I wouldn’t really mind.
I learn something new every time I mix a song and If I had to mix the same song again I wouldn’t do it exactly the same and I would probably learn something new.
It’s a great goal to have, trying to learn something new every time.
It means that even if you have to repeat yourself you can make it a learning experience.
Idar is one kick-ass mixing engineer too so it’s not like he ruined what I had already done. But comparing the two mixes was very interesting and allowed us to hear what each mix did well and how we could improve both of them.
Idar was actually one of the first people to buy Mixing Strategies back when I first published it.
We have a very similar approach to mixing that we learned at the SAE Institute. It’s also the very same approach I teach you inside Mixing Strategies.
So if you want to skip the expensive education and learn our approach to mixing you can grab it right here:
P.S.
If you love mixing as much as we do I guarantee that you’ll love learning the tips and tricks you’ll find in there. And in case you didn’t know you’ll also get an in-depth report into the whole recording process as a free bonus.
Image by: Christian Frausto Bernal
Music Mixing
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