Mixer’s Block on Hometracked
KeithHandy posted in Producing, So You Want..., Tools on January 23rd, 2008
I could very easily find myself posting a link to every single article on hometracked.com. Although there’s been a slump in posting volume over the past few months, they seem to be steadily posting again for now.
Ever heard or used the phrase “mixer’s block“? I haven’t, but I think it’s a great phrase. When you’re mixing, you’re painting a sonic picture. If you try to bring more focus to one element of the picture, the context of all the other elements gets thrown off, and you get yourself in a perpetual tug-of-war between, say, trying to make the drums cut through more solidly and keeping some keyboard part “full” and “present” sounding (my own off-the-top-of-my-head example). Often the solution is somewhere in left field; changing some third thing you hadn’t thought of somehow magically solves the first two, but you need to think creatively in order to get there.
I don’t have time to elaborate on this further at the moment, which is probably a good thing. Class dismissed.
