less is more? maybe, maybe not...

I think so... I have found the same. The more I have tred to muscle the mix the more dead it sounds. Lately I have taken to a more subtle less heavy handed approach with much better results. Also the source material has a huge influence on the mix. Cluttered song/track/recording yields a cluttered mix no matter what. just my 2 cents

Whenever you spend a long time slaving over a mix, you begin to lose all objectivity. You can just get "lost" in the mix. When this happens, you need to take a break from it- maybe even delete a bunch of plugins and start again. It doesn't help when you keep trying things and experimenting with particular elements without taking the "whole" into consideration. In any event, whether or not "less is more" depends on the style of music and the artistic aim of the production. When tracking is done well and the performances are great, sometimes very little mixing is needed. The one thing that is certainly true is: More mixing is NOT NECESSARILY better. We've all had the experience of mixing something to death. aint pretty.

TraceyStudios


I guess I feel like I have all of these tools and I have to use them, and I feel stupid now that I realize just cuz I have them doesn't mean they have to be used. my challenge now will be to determine when to use them and which ones. 
  
  

Which is why i'm starting to think it's a very good idea for me to hold off on buying any 3rd party plugs.

I have through the years used as few plugins as I can for mixing. I look at plugins as way to fix a problem. If I hear no problem than no plugin.

I agree vlab.

I hired a "mixer" because I don't know anyone locally that is into this as much as I am and uses Sonar. I would rather do it myself, however to get to the skill level I want, would require some school possibly, but certainly more learning. and time is a factor. I will continue to work on and learn more about mixing, however with this current recording project, easier and less stress to just hire a guy. He's a pro, and he is also helping me learn, and btw, he offered to show me some of his "tricks", which i thought was pretty nice of him. He knows I will never take any business away from him and that I have a desire to be better at my hobby.  So its a win - win. I get to learn and he makes some money.

I will continue to work at. Thinking about taking some classes, but its hard to fit that around my work scedule. we'll see.  Thanks!

I have shared the same experiences.  It seems like the more I messed with it.....the worse it got.  I recently attended Alan Parsons' MCTS Class and the major take-away that I had is to keep it simple.  When you take the time to get it right in the tracking stage, the mixing and production becomes much easier and you have to make very few "fixes" and don't require any more than a few basic processors.  To paraphrase what Alan taught us....... "take the time to get it right coming in".  I think that this is a valuable piece of advice.

On one of the recordings that we made during that class here's a summary of the processing that he used.  Added some 10K (actually....a lot) to the snare channel, had the bass player compress his signal coming in to the mix, and he used a couple of Fairchilds on the lead and backup vocal tracks.  That was it.  He did however spend some time making sure that what he was getting to the board was what he wanted to hear before any tracking was actually done. Coley Read (the Pro Tools guy in the control room) basically did tracking, a few overdubs (by punching in and out), a few clip "fade-in/fade-outs", and a couple of very minor touch ups.  He really didn't have to mess with things too much.  I really expected to see tons of things being done and processed in the DAW, but it was used pretty much as the digital recorder.  Admittedly, the studio musicians were awesome, the facility and equipment were second to none and that certainly adds a lot to the tracking process.  I think that "getting it right coming in" though was the biggest contributor to a great mix.

Anyone that gets a chance should attend one of these sessions.  I thought that it was a real eye-opener.

Keep Rockin'!

Dave