Everything *I* do has a blue-print. When a song idea comes to me, it usually comes to me in full where I can hear everything in my head. When I'm tracking, I'm tracking. I don't start mixing or messing around with anything at this point. To me, though it can be helpful in certain situations, I'd like the entire sketch be present before I start stereotyping anything or messing around.
When I'm done tracking, then I'm mixing and producing what I heard in my head. Sometimes I have to really work hard and re-track things or snip a few things up and experiment, other times things go as planned.
When working with others, the same things apply. When the song is presented to me, I hear ideas. I write up my blue-print as well as my soundstage as to how I'll be handling things. If what I hear out of the monitors isn't what I hear in my head, I'll add or subtract until it is. I've not had to zero out a mix and start from scratch since 2003. A few times with old projects, but never with something current because I just wasn’t getting what I was looking for. Things just do not get printed these days over here unless the sounds blow my doors off. I'll spend what ever time it takes to get a sound great on its own naturally before I'll attempt to polish a turd and "fix it in the mix".
Now to answer your questions directly, Philip.
"Do you intuitively (as an artist) know when to Subtract vs. Add performances (or 'brushstrokes' in the painterly sense)?"
Yes. Everything I do is for the song and never for my personal pleasure unless I'm doing an instrumental album for myself. Unfortunately, you don't get this same control when working with clients because most times they have their own vision they are hoping to deliver. To them, what I consider "over-playing" is "no, it's killer sounding and it's one of the best things I've ever played!" They are so close to the killer idea they came up with that they don't understand that they just ruined an incredible song and that killer idea isn't necessarily the right choice for THIS song. You know....like a killer ballad, and a guitar player feels the need to shred all over it like he's doing exercises in his bedroom? Or, a bassist or drummer grooving all over something when they should sit in the pocket? You have to know when to say when with this stuff. A good friend of mine is working on a tune that I'll call "Jungle Juice" for now. He's got every style known to man just about in one song. It's not an easy tune to mix because of all the tracks as well as the got top notch artists he got to perform on it. But in some spots, it's definitely over-kill and some stuff will need to be subtracted or maybe even removed.
"When do you like to ask for feedback from others ... when your mix is euphonic or cacaphonic? You artists are extremely sensitive with your labors of love."
I’ll probably open up a can of worms with my response here, but I’m honestly speaking how I feel about this. I rarely ask for feedback because it's too subjective to me and most people will give subjective opinions that are not really important. Instead of them viewing the painting I have presented the way it was intended, they seem to feel they should give me feedback based on THEIR vision of my song. The second you get that type of feedback, you've just wasted reading time *IF* that’s not the type of feedback you were hoping for.
There's a right way and a wrong way to talk about a "child". That's what my songs are to me...my "children". Each one is loved...flaws and all. However, this is what most opinions lack. Not only talking about the tune, but proper explanation of "flaws". If there are no blatant issues, a tune is a good tune, right? I hate the guitar sound on some old YES albums…but I love Steve Howe and think he’s amazing as well as how the songs sound. So rather than beat up on his guitar tone, I’d just say “incredible tune man!” It doesn’t help much for me to tell him I hated the guitar tone, does it? That’s not up to me to decide. He liked it or it wouldn’t have been printed.
I can go back in time and list incredible mixes that had high acclaim, and point out how I hated certain sounds that annoyed me. I’d probably be able to sell my reasons to others that may not have listened the way I did when I explain what I'm hearing that bothers me. But, that said, it’s really not for me to decide. The opinions of others are just too subjective and people sometimes don't give you the right feedback. So and so listened to your tune on lap top speakers....now he's bashing the heck out of your mix because his reference material that he is used to listening to on his lappy, is way different from yours. If someone listens on a laptop when I’m crying out for help....I’d rather they don't give me any feedback because it's not going to be accurate...know what I mean? If that’s all they have, so be it…but I’m sure you can understand where I’m coming from.
When I ask someone to give my stuff a listen, it's a credible person that is going to listen objectively letting me know about any possible issues or errors within the mix. This is the type of feedback *I* look forward to when I reach out to someone. Or they may bring something to my attention that I may have missed because I'm too close to the project. An artifact, a dissonance, a phase issue, a sub low rumble, abrasiveness, mid range congestion...and there are reasons for this which they will state to help me eliminate the issues if they exist.
So be selective when you ask for feedback. To me this is extremely important. There are people you call on to listen to “the song” and then there are people you call on to listen to “the mix” that will REALLY give you the important stuff you need to hear that will most often not be subjective. A friend that is also a credible engineer may give you his take, but that’s a bit different than an outsider with a voice for the sake of a voice that doesn’t really help much other than throwing opinions out. If I’m not asked for a subjective opinion, it’s not my business to mention it. If I don’t comment at all, chances are some things are better left unsaid. Right, wrong or otherwise, that’s just how I roll on stuff like that.
To answer this question in two sentences though?
I ask for feedback when I think something is good and just want to check to make sure what I consider good, is the same “good” as what my credible sources are hearing.
I also ask for feedback when I’m a bit iffy on something or might be having a problem in an area that is making me question myself or the decisions I’ve made.
I’ve had to call on Bob Katz and Beau Hill a few times. These are the credible sources I’m talking about that can really make a huge impact on the decisions you make because these are gentleman that know engineering.
The other side of the coin is, there are times when bouncing ideas off of clients is a good thing. Some of them can be quite helpful even if they aren’t into all the aesthetics of the engineering field. After all, it is their song. I've even asked them opinions on my songs. But you have to be careful with this because the majority do not know the internal values in engineering. They’d sacrifice a good hook in favor of a killer guitar riff because it’s "cool".
“How would you approach 'starting over', 're-starting', to re-gain your original inspiration/vision/love?”
Thank God I’ve not had to do this often once I learned how to do this stuff the right way. But when I have had to do it or work on an old idea from scratch with my current knowledge, I zero everything out, no effects, all eq’s disabled and I just listen to the instruments to determine if maybe I need to re-track something. If I don’t need to, I try to make the instruments sound as good as they can while preserving the idea of the song. Sometimes I’ll take an old idea and go for something entirely new. It all depends on the song as well as how good or bad the tracking is..and of course what frame of mind I’m in.
“Would you re-gesso your whole canvas (composition) and completely wipe out everything for a fresh attack, or leave certain translucent parts showing through ... to guide you back?”
I usually have several mixes of the same song so I can always go back and compare what I’ve done in the past verses what I’ve done presently. I’m so crazy about this, I save a mix and name it something different each time something new is brought into the equation. This also allows me to experiment with the mixes to where I don’t have to worry about ever losing anything past or present. I’ll also borrow from the things in one mix and apply them to another. Or sometimes, I will just zero it all out and start fresh. But this is extremely rare as I’ve noted. I’m such a stickler for how things are tracked, there usually isn’t much of a need for extensive eq, compression or anything else really.
If I could sum up the art of engineering in one paragraph, it would go a little like this:
High pass the sub lows, accentuate the correct lows, remove mid range congestion, add correct mid range, remove harsh highs, add or subtract good or bad highs, check for frequency masking, compress for consistency or for effect purposes if need be, eq effects properly so they aren’t problem areas, pan things up for my sound stage and I’m done most times.
Unless I need to create an entirely different sound, what I track is often what my mix will sound like…only enhanced in all the right areas. If you spend too much time polishing a turd so to speak, you’ve wasted valuable mixing time. Heck, you’ve taken time off your life. LOL! I just don’t feel the need to ever do this unless it’s one of those times where “you’re stuck with what you’re stuck with”. I’ve secretly altered client files that were just wrong and they didn’t even know I touched anything. I had a bassist that was so bad one time that I had to grab GOOD notes from other songs and manufacture/create a bass part. I did this for an hour and said “what am I nuts?” I grabbed my bass, and played it correctly. To this day, he doesn’t know it’s not him…and neither does anyone else. I don’t like to do that, but if my name is going to go on something, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. As long as no one complains, and it works, mission accomplished.
So that's how I go about this stuff, Philip. Sorry for yet another novel, but I'm so into this stuff, I can't think of how else to say it. Hope this helps a bit. :)
post edited by Danny Danzi - 2011/03/20 00:17:27