Mixing things up - Literary

This week’s article is a reminder about creativity and experimentation, breaking out of a routine.  Many of us tend to get caught up in our typical practices while working in the studio; it’s time to mix and we reach for our favorite plugins and start off with our typical presets.  That’s a good place to begin – especially when deadlines and tight delivery times are involved but sometimes it’s at the expense of good old innovation and experimentation.  Remember when you used to get a piece of outboard gear or a new plugin and you sat down, tossed the manual aside and just started turning knobs and pressing buttons to hear what happened?  If you’re one who does that on a regular basis then kudos to you.  The rest of us though might benefit by trying something different for a change.

Here’s a way to put a different approach into practice:  The next time you’re working on a mix, instead of dialing up your usual plugin, try a different one that does the same task.  Then, instead of browsing through the presets and choosing one, start the playback and begin turning the knobs or moving faders and just LISTEN.  You might hit on a sound or enhancement that really shines.  Also, when we work “in the box” that is, mixing or working fully within a digital audio program, many of us develops a tendency to work from the computer screen and make changes that are visible but not AUDIBLE.  I’ve spoken to many DIY’ers and home studio engineers who have the tendency to round out numbers with the mouse or type in a value.  After all, 2.0 as a fader value looks better than 1.7 but can you hear the difference?  Setting an eq parameter to a nice round number again may look good but how does it sound? 

So next time you sit down at the computer to work on your music, take a few minutes and resist the temptation to dial up that same plugin or focus on the computer screen.  Let your ears be your guide and turn those knobs and tweak settings until you can hear an audible difference.  The end result of your efforts are heard and not seen anyway and you might find that random experimentation outside your normal routine can deliver some surprisingly interesting (and good) results!