CREATIVE vs TECHNICAL

Separating The Two

If you’ve ever found yourself hours into a mix and then realised you need to go back and tidy up loads of your audio, chances are you’re not separating the technical part of mixing from the creative. Everyone approaches mixing slightly differently and if you’re happy with your process then keep at it. But if, like me, you’ve ever found yourself getting distracted and delayed by technical elements of a mix then this might be helpful for you.

 First things first. When I say ‘technical’ I don’t just mean editing or comping takes. It’s also anything you do during a mix that isn’t essentially a creative move. In that bracket I include; setting up any basic routing I don’t already have in my session but might need, maybe some extra reverb sends, some parallel compression, and even getting a roughly balanced mix.

Basically, what I aim to do is get all of the ‘boring’ stuff out of the way in one sitting and then do all of the fun stuff unencumbered in the next sitting. If the deadline isn’t really tight I’ll tend to spread this over two separate days. Not so that I can spend more hours on the mix, but so that when I come back to a session on day two I know I don’t need to fix or tidy anything.

 All the core tracks and tools I want to use are setup and ready to get creative with - it’s almost like creating an outline so that all you have to do next is choose what colours you want to use. By separating my time like this it also reduces doubling back or getting side-lined by technical details. If you’re midway through a mix and realise that one of the parts is slightly out of tune, or not quite in time, you can find yourself pulled out of the flow you were in with your mix. You might also start wondering whether there’s any similar issues you need to fix somewhere else in the session, scanning around for problems, which removes you even further.

 FLOW

A really cool part of why I find this separation approach works for me is Flow. Flow is ‘the mental state of being completely present and fully immersed in a task. When in flow, the creator and the universe become one, outside distractions recede from consciousness and one’s mind is fully open and attuned to the act of creating’. (Huffpost)

 There’s loads of great articles and books about flow and creativity and if you get chance it’s definitely worth reading into. I wanted to touch on this concept because I think it highlights how we’d all probably like to feel when we’re mixing, or creating in general, and that even from a brief definition it’s clear that tasks like checking phase relationships or comping takes probably aren’t conducive to achieving a state of creative flow.

EXAMPLES

DRUMS

Let’s look at this in the context of a couple of examples - starting with drums.

 Depending on how you’ve recorded your drums you might not have much to do in terms of audio editing, but if you’ve recorded live drums you might have a selection of takes to choose from and comp together. Then you’ll want to double check everything’s in phase with each other and ensure that there’s a good relationship between the kick and the other bass elements in your mix.

Once you’ve got the core tracks of your drums edited and sounding clear you might have a set of ‘go to’ processing that you’re going to apply, or at least have an idea of what processing you might want to do on a particular track. If that’s the case, and it’s not already setup, then get to work on pulling that together. I’ll often have a couple of different reverbs and delays that I know I can trust as a solid starting point, and based on the track I might setup some buses for other processing like compression and distortion.

It might not take you that long in the grand scheme of the mix, but over a full session it adds up to a lot of mouse clicks and routine decisions that you’re the not having to make when you’d rather be making creative decisions.  

VOCALS

Another really effective application of this approach is vocals. Depending on the song, as well as any tuning or timing corrections, I tend to separate my vocals onto different tracks depending on the type of voice being used at each point.

For example, if the verses are all quite breathy but the chorus is full chest voice I’ll separate those out. Or if there’s a short falsetto line or single section that calls for a particular effect, I’ll separate that too. It does mean I end up with more tracks but ultimately it gives me more control over each section of the song.

 It also means when I do come onto the creative mixing I can lean harder into shaping the sound during a particular section, knowing that I don’t need to worry if it’s going to translate across the rest of that track.  Anyway, I’m digressing a slightly but the idea’s the same.

 By making these edits, and preparing the session so that everything I might want is ready and waiting without needing to make too many ‘what if’ considerations, it gives me more freedom to make decisions I might not otherwise. Perhaps just as importantly, I can make decisions more quickly because the ground work’s already been done.

SUMMARY

There are a couple of points to mention with this approach before I wrap up. Firstly, just because you’ve separated your time between technical and creative mixing it doesn’t mean you won’t have to switch back to technical stuff once you’ve moved to creative. We all miss things, and it’s likely that as the mix develops certain things will become more apparent than they were in a rough mix. That said, if you do separate your time you’ll find yourself in this situation far less than you might otherwise.

Secondly, while you’re in the technical stages try not to do anything that’s going to back you into a corner later on.  By all means, make decisions! We’re all guilty of giving ourselves too much choice and not making decisions if we don’t have to. Not just in music…

So, if you can commit to things early on it’s yet another thing you don’t need to address later. If things need low-passing, go for it. If you know you’re going to completely reshape a sound early on in a mix then give yourself a starting point to pick up from. Where possible though, try to avoid committing to a sound or processing chain that makes it harder for you to work everything else around later, or prevents you from acting on ideas when you’re trying to be creative.   

I hope this has been useful and perhaps shed some light on a slightly different approach to mixing.  If you have any questions or would like me to cover any other topics feel free to get in touch.