You Asked About Young Chop

The girl in my painting is right to yawn. Mixing does not make for exciting pictures. But it is exciting, I swear, in all of its fiddly glory. I get a song to the point where I absolutely love it and it is the best thing I have ever done, and then ten minutes later the same mix is terrible and how did I ruin the song so utterly. I understand why people are happy to hand off projects they've engineered to be mixed by someone else, because it's so much more difficult to be objective if you were there recording it. And look at me, I wrote, rehearsed, performed, and engineered this crap. I hear a thousand previous and imaginary versions instead of the take I'm supposed to be listening to. I'm screwed.

Or maybe not. Even listening to it with other people in the room changes how I perceive it, as I imagine what it would be like to hear it for the first time. It reminds me that it's all about the bottom line, what people hear first. The questions are then, is THAT the best part of the song, and does THAT sound good? If it isn't, I won't get anyone to notice the cute pun in verse two on their second listen, let alone the pinched harmonics in the third violin on the tenth listen. If I'm lucky.

While it can be difficult and frustrating, the best thing about mixing my own music is I already have a deep understanding of my aesthetic intention for each song, and I can try to achieve it without subjecting a studio employee to poor metaphors, references to Steely Dan, and wild gesticulation. Because I'm saving that stuff for the live show!