The Mix is a Medium

Mixing usually gets lumped into categories with other elements of the recording process. You know, studios offering "mixing/mastering" services, the guy who mixed the album gets credit for "engineering" or "producing". I've been given credit for producing albums where I was never in the room when anyone was recording.

It's always funny to me, but I guess people don't really understand what happens in the mix and how big of a deal it is to the final product. It really can make or break an album. I've heard (and even worked on a few) projects with massive budgets that either rushed or skipped the mix process that in the end sound pretty embarrassing. On the other hand, I've heard albums with essentially no budget where people have taken their time and the finished product sounds really great.

The thing is, mixing is an artistic medium. The song and all of its recorded parts become your palate of colors. The impact of the music, the spectral balance between all frequencies, the dynamic range, the size and depth of the sound field; these all become elements that the mixing engineer carefully manipulates in the mixing process. A skilled mixer can pull out the best elements of a song and present them in a way that feels natural and true to the music... or not. A mix is more then good vs. bad. Any given song can come out of the mix process a dozen different ways, each good in its own way.

I have always felt that the key to a great mix is it's transparency, so to speak. The best mixes I have heard initially dazzle me with their sonic beauty, but then seem to disappear as I get lost in the song. These mixes let the music speak for itself and don't try to impose an artistic direction on the music that it doesn't naturally call out for.

A little abstract and obscure, I know. But you likely know what I'm talking about if you love listening to great music and, by extension, hate listening to garbage.

Next time you are listening to a piece of music that you feel is really great sounding. Listen to how the recorded parts are arranged in such a way that it supports the natural artistic flow of the music. It may be a lush string section that envelopes your whole head in it's soft swells. Or it may be a piercing guitar part that jumps out at you hits you in the middle of you forehead.

You can learn to appreciate a lot more music out there if you listen not just to the music itself, but the medium it is presented in.