Get Adele’s Vocal Chain—On Your Mix!
… announced the cleverly crafted email newsletter title from a well known plugin manufacturer. I thought to myself, “But I’m not mixing Adele?”.
Marketing VS Better Mixes
I know a bit about marketing. Marketing, good marketing, should not sell the features of a product. Telling me your 1176 clone has an attack time of 20 microseconds is not nearly as exciting as telling me that it has “an explosive compression sound on your drum buss”.
Good marketing sells transformation. You buy this and it will literally make all your hopes and dreams come true … well maybe not all of them.
Now don’t hear me wrong, I don’t doubt the quality of the product and the results it can bring to a production BUT it’s not as simple as that.
Marketers are going to do what they are going to do, but why is selling Adele’s vocal chain terrible? Because no-one else is Adele and it wasn’t her vocal chain that won her Grammys. The marketers didn’t say it did BUT the inference is there and they rely on consumers to go there without really thinking about it.
A Non-Specific Solution To A Problem Not Understood
So why are audio plugin presets so terrible?
Let me give some background. I mix and master plenty of grass-roots productions. I see the preset chains layered 5 plugins deep on each channel. That’s no criticism to my clients, they are doing the best with what they have.
When I start working on a mix, if there are plugins in place, I’ll listen to what they’re doing and decide if it was a creative decision or a “that preset sort of matches my desired outcome” decision. Most of the time I completely strip out the plugins.
This is why audio plugin presets are terrible. They aren’t a solution to the real problem – a great sounding mix. They might point you in the right direction or give you a place to start but here’s the rub, they don’t mix the song for you. Unfortunately most of the time they’ll probably give the inexperienced mix engineer a bum-steer.
Back To Adele’s Vocal Chain
Why am I banging on about this? Because buying Adele’s vocal chain isn’t going to fix your mixes or make your production skills better.
To an experienced mix engineer it could be a nice set of tools but I doubt, unless they’re mixing an Adele tribute singer, that those plugins will ever be set up the same as Adele’s mix engineer set them up. Funnily enough, I suspect if you asked Tom Elmhirst to mix “Rolling In The Deep” again from scratch he might do something different with Adele’s vocals this time around anyway.
The Takeaway
Hopefully the point makes sense. As someone with a virtual rack full of plugins I rarely use, if you want to get better at mixing, use the tools you have and push them as far as possible.
When you get an email for 80% off a plugin, stop, take a hard look at your plugin folder and ask yourself, “Will I use this tool and do I really know how to use the tools that I already have?”
Remember, that deal is part of a marketing strategy. Their goal is to sell more software and the dream they are selling is carefully crafted marketing copy. Doesn’t mean it’s not a great plugin but their goals aren’t necessarily aligned with your goals.
Bonus tip, try getting amazing at mixing using plugins no one uses, then you might just find a sound that people sit up and take notice of.
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