Recently, talking to my great friend and great mixing engineer and producer, Lluís Cots, we discuss about the importance of the previous approaches that we should do before starting the mix.
It was really a very pleasant and interesting conversation (as always with him) so that’s about I’ll talk about in this post.
First of all, we must be aware that a good mix is the result of the sum of many decisions, we are constantly deciding things that will be reflected in the mix (more volume on the overheads, boost some dB on the guitars low freq, add slapback on the voice…) and our job is that each of these decisions must be the right one.
But all this accumulation of decisions derives from one, from the global idea that we make of the song (or maybe the whole album), and from which path we’re gonna go, so before recording, I highly recommend writing.
The first thing I do is listen to the song before being mixed (a row listening) and take “emotional” notes. Without making the brain work, I just write down the first thing that comes to my head, only what the song suggests to me, the very first impression. If what comes to my mind when the chorus enters is “horse”, this is what I write.
It could be said that we’ll never hear the song again in a virgin way, so at this point we are completely open emotionally, NOT intellectually or technically, to perceive it.
The next step is another batch of notes, but this time surgically, or technically, focusing our attention on the things we must correct (the bass needs more low end, the kick more punch…), I also use to ask me questions, that helps me to realize if some aspects finally needs to be processed or not (¿reverb on the hi-hat? ¿should I compress the guitars?)
I use to think that I’ll come back to these notes once I start mixing, but I rarely do. The important thing is that the fact of having written all these notes impregnates me in a certain way that would not happen if I had not made these reflections before.
I use these notes as a starting point, not as a guide, and in my case it really works.
Noise above our heads. 