Listening to podcasts and watching YouTube videos about mixing is something I do regularly. I have subscribed to PureMix and recently saw a great video from them by Shawn Everett who is an multiple Grammy wining (for the band War on Drugs) Canadian legend who lives in LA. He has a kind of childish fascination for creativity and is very experimental. I like his way of thinking and thought I'd just share a short take from what I learned today.
His fascination for mixing is an inspiration to me. His tips among other things are:
-See the frequency spectrum as five rooms make sure each room is well decorated and nothing is hanging sloppily between them. A low frequency room should have a beauty to it for example - not just the whole song. Make room for the vocal. Make you low end clear, harmonious and awesome. He says why not focus in on the low end of a major hip hop track and try to get your rock song to be just as awesome in the low end. It should sound like there is a party going on in the club next door!
Compare with a reference track (A,B-ing) by honing out the low frequency range of a favourite track in and see how yours measures up. A beautiful low end is just as important as letting the vocal come out loud and clear.
- Be extreme! Find a sound you like in a reference take and double it, max it and enhance it or as he says, "massage it" until you get something awesome that makes that section pf the song pop. Let it stick out and scale away some things that are unnecessary so that it gets the listeners attention.
- Follow a rule for a whole day and see where it takes you. He has a deck of cards with catch phrases and quotes to meditate on. I use Scripture too.
- break rules and see where it takes you.
So, in order to grow indie musicians need to hear how the "big guys" think, siphon out the goodies and take it to a new level. Its how we grow!
Until Next time, check out my music by following the link in the bio: https://linktr.ee/ekitzing.
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An Indie Musician's Diary Vol 2
Non-FictionIt's very complex, difficult, expensive, interesting and fun to be an independent music producer. Volume three covers my attempts to: make acoustic improvements to the studio; cut down my production times; learn the art of mastering in-house ad muc...
