Mixing Options and Plugins

[mikehalloran]

I don't agree with the OP but I'm applying it only to myself. If he feels better for it, I'm ok with that. I certainly don't agree that analog is a lower quality product or that modern digital makes a higher quality -- nor do I believe that the reverse is true. The Spartan approach is neither superior nor inferior. It's how one uses the tools that counts.

In 48 years of recording, I did the first 31 the Spartan way and the last 17 in DP. I think I'm qualified to know what I like. Like anything, I learned along the way and gained a lot of experience. For those who have a good idea how old I am, my father went to work at AMPEX when I was 13 -- I was exposed early (I still have some of those recordings and they pretty much suck but I got better).

Supposing that you know everything in my toolbox makes you wrong - again.

Like most DAW users, I know I don't know everything that all the tools do including DP but I learn what I need. It certainly doesn't bother me that I will never know everything about anything.

Overwhelmed? Hardly. In front of a client? Never. If I audition two or three reverbs or compressors, it's because I know in advance which ones I'm going to try. I can't tell you off the top of my head how many choices I really have but that's never been an issue.

They're tools to do a job. It's no different than deciding what notes to play or how close to follow a drummer while playing bass in a band, giving bowings to a string section as a principal or deciding how to beat a measure, give important cues, dynamics and turn pages when conducting. There are many, many choices to be made in each situation but musicians make decisions while they work. My day job is even worse in that regards.

You shouldn't judge others by your own limitations. It makes you look bad.

[monkey man]

... When it's just for my own amusement, it never gets finished...

Ain't that the truth.

[mikehalloran]

... When it's just for my own amusement, it never gets finished...

Ain't that the truth.

As Da Vinci may or may not have said, "Art is never finished, only abandoned.".

[bolla]

I love all of the options that we have and continue to be offered to try and "engineer" a sound. We are truly lucky to have so many options at hand.
I'm definitely not advocating a "back to wax" philosophy but I would buy the T-shirt.

My main point (and it was late at night.....) is that sometimes an unlimited amount of choices can be useful but it can also lead you to spend endless amounts of time finessing something that only you (and a few others) may hear or care about. I've done it many times and will probably continue to do so.....but....

Sometimes you can fart about and fix things to a point of "perfection" that they become anodyne.

So I'm working on less is more. Leaving in a few more squeaks and tuning indiscretions. Less level riding of the minutia.

Part of that is going for a limited palette of reverbs/plug-ins and finding ways to work with the ones I have.

Wish me luck,

Bolla

"Half of Art is knowing when to stop" - Arthur William Radford

Which is a great theory but..............

[bayswater]

My main point (and it was late at night.....) is that sometimes an unlimited amount of choices can be useful but it can also lead you to spend endless amounts of time finessing

This morning, I could counter with the argument: endless finessing is not something the tools require; it is something we choose to do. But sometimes bosses and clients expect magic, and that won't go away just because you decide to limit your palette.

[mikehalloran]

My main point (and it was late at night.....) is that sometimes an unlimited amount of choices can be useful but it can also lead you to spend endless amounts of time finessing

This morning, I could counter with the argument: endless finessing is not something the tools require; it is something we choose to do. But sometimes bosses and clients expect magic, and that won't go away just because you decide to limit your palette.

Well said.

How many of us have ever had a client ask for a list of our plugins? For that matter, has anyone ever had someone ask about any particular plugin?

In my case, only AutoTune. People have heard of that one and sometimes I get asked. So yes, I own and maintain AT since version 3. I have never used it, not once, not ever -- no need as I have other tools including DP, Melodyne and Nectar which is ridiculously easy to use when I need pitch correction. Which to use or consider is an instant choice. I figure that I may need AT's advanced features on something someday (hasn't happened yet but I don't normally do pop music except for Christian radio) but the real reason I have it is to say, "yes", when asked. I have at least three other tools that let me manipulate pitch, possibly more once I take into account MachFive and Logic.

BTW, that's not quite the same as being emailed a clip and asked if I can fix it. "I've heard you know how to use AutoTune...". Normally I get that because someone else tried AT or simple pitch correction and it did not do the job. I just say, I can fix it and do so in DP with Melodyne or MachFive or DP's pitch correction or...

[Gravity Jim]

I've heard this argument about being paralyzed by choice many times. It has never happened to me, although I have seemingly limitless choices available.

On the contrary, I am more like to be inspired or energized by the introduction of a sound I've never used or heard before.

I don't spend hours agonizing over which reverb, which VI... I use the first one that sounds exciting to my ear. If I had to mix with the same 2 plates over and over and over again.... man, I'd get tired fast.

[kassonica]

Ive gone mainly back to mixing OTB through a vintage desk..

I still use plugins (mainly DP ones and a few select others) I find the mixes just come together quicker... read no better but quicker...

Works for me...

[monkey man]

I reckon it may have something to do with the "fixed" (more or less) signal-flow paradigm, the constrained channel and fader numbers, EQ and aux options, and so on, Mark.

I'm 100% certain that using an analogue (even digital, although it wouldn't be my preference) desk for the bulk of mixing would speed things up for me greatly. It's too late now, so the self-imposed limiting / constraining approach is all I have left to protect me.

If money were no object, I'd be practically completely OTB primarily for this reason; any channel / track-summing improvements in accuracy and other sonic benefits of analogue paths, whilst they'd be wholeheartedly welcomed, would be bonuses only. A road-block free path from inspiration to mixing completion would surely trump all other considerations in my case... except budget!

Things must be sounding pretty darn sweet in your room, Mark, what with the desk and the mighty Opals...

[billf]

Sometimes you can fart about and fix things to a point of "perfection" that they become anodyne.

So I'm working on less is more. Leaving in a few more squeaks and tuning indiscretions. Less level riding of the minutia

There's a loooong thread over at GS concerning the topic of hit records where vocals, guitars, basses, are out of tune, errors made, etc. Many of recordings folks have brought up in that discussion are considered classics, with the likes of the Beatles, Led Zep, and others being mentioned.

Your point about "perfection" is interesting, because between that other thread and this discussion here, it begs the question "have we (in general) become too focused on removing imperfections in modern recordings? It's not so much the wide array of tools, but rather how we use them?

I don't have an answer to it, but it's certainly something interesting to think about.

[mikehalloran]

Sometimes you can fart about and fix things to a point of "perfection" that they become anodyne.

So I'm working on less is more. Leaving in a few more squeaks and tuning indiscretions. Less level riding of the minutia

There's a loooong thread over at GS concerning the topic of hit records where vocals, guitars, basses, are out of tune, errors made, etc. Many of recordings folks have brought up in that discussion are considered classics, with the likes of the Beatles, Led Zep, and others being mentioned.

Your point about "perfection" is interesting, because between that other thread and this discussion here, it begs the question "have we (in general) become too focused on removing imperfections in modern recordings? It's not so much the wide array of tools, but rather how we use them?

I don't have an answer to it, but it's certainly something interesting to think about.

Perhaps.

In my case, not being the likes of the Beatles, Led Zep etc., I can only go with what works for me.

I bought Melodyne so that I could fix some banjo tracks that I recorded in the early 1990s. It's slow and time consuming and, since it's my project, I get to it when I can. I wish that I could just pick up one of my banjos and re-do the tracks but that's no longer possible. Releasing the tracks as I did in 1992 is not an option – I just can't do that without fixing them first. Why? Because I can fix them.

A side benefit is that I'm pretty good at using Melodyne now and that purchase has paid for itself many times over.