I was emailing a client with a revision for a mix yesterday and I mentioned that I’d tried not to “over mix” the song he’d sent through.
It was a beautiful lullaby for a children’s album that he’s been working on. It had some harp, glockenspiel and music box melody/harmony as well as a couple of vocal tracks.
As soon as I brought up the faders it took shape nicely. Once I had it balanced and the vocals were eq’d and compressed it was pretty much done. Some reverb and subtle slap delay for the vocals and just a touch on the instruments.
I did one little flourish using Logic Pro’s Delay designer to add some pitch shifted delay. This was done in a specific section to help create a subtle variation to the glockenspiel/music box melody.
All that was left to do was master the song and send it off for the client to send feedback on. When he did he was really happy and it was a few technical and level things that were left to be done.
The Takeaway: Whether you’re mixing a song, creating arrangements for a track, recording a part or mastering the final mix. Knowing when not to do something is as important as knowing what to do. Some of the best advice I got as a young mix engineer from Rick O’neil was make it sound good and then stop.
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