mixing

well, the weekend mix was a success!

the show is really a bit much.. it's about all these animals that 'saved their owners lives' because they barked right before the guy crossed the road and almost got hit by a bus or something.. just a bunch of interviews with classic torontonians who have clearly replaced their children with their pets, and have completely unhealthy relationships with them.

BUT,

the mix was a total blast. i truly love my job. that's so odd to hear myself say.. only because, with discovery, in what seems like another life (a few months ago) i was so frustrated... and now, i work all weekend and feel totally driven to go in tomorrow and do it again!

it's shocking how BIG tv mixes are. which is to say, how many elements. i mean, this is a little stereo mix for animal planet... a half-hour show that's basically nothing but on-camera, a little bit of sync, and some music. and i still end up about 6 tracks wide on sync, 6 wide on FX, 2 wide on On Camera, 2 wide on music, etc.. which doesn't seem bad, and wouldn't be in a music mix, but can get a little chaotic when it's all bits that are very likely poorly or at best inconsistently recorded, and definitly not effectively cleaned up and balanced. i'm learning that TV mixing is far more about premixing, really, than it is about mixing. i mixed the show in two days (it's my first... it'll probably come down to more like ONE day in the future..) and really, only actually did my level balancing pass on the second afternoon, in the last hour or so.

so MIXING:

sabs asked the question 'what IS mixing?', and so i will describe (hey sabs! ahhh.. if only we lived in the peg, or you lived in the TO...)

basically, taking everything, and putting it all together into a final product. i terms of the record.. think about it like this. over the past year, i've recorded these songs in various locations at various times. in the end, i'm usually sitting in front of a session with about.. i don't know.. 40 - 60 tracks of media.. guitars, drums, vocals, harmonies, shakers, etc.. heck, even the drums are often 15 tracks wide by themselves! (kick, snare, rack tom, floor tome, hats, overheads, rooms, etc. etc. etc.). so mixing is getting everything to play nice together. a) getting all elements to work well against each other level-wise to create the right energy and emotion, and draw focus to the right things and b) to create the right space, in terms of frequency, in which everything can live and be heard, and not step on something else. it's amazing how much a mix can change the way you hear a song. push the drums up 2 dB, and suddenly it's a TOTALLY different feel. i LOVE mixing. best part of the job. it's where you can take all of the creativity and hard work and just have fun with it.


anyway, i should go to bed. james taylor on Tuesday. SWEET!

J