It’s been a long time since I first played around in logic and made a song. Sometimes when I look back at those songs and ideas, I still think they are good. I often hear artists talk about how their music used to be so bad and how much they sucked when they started. I don’t exactly relate.
Don’t get me wrong, I wrote some bad songs for sure but for me, the sonic quality and execution was bad while the ideas were often cool or good in my opinion. The thing that has changed over time is how good the idea can sound and how well I’m able to bring the idea, feeling or vibe into reality.
This brings us to my current predicament. I’ve been able to hone my songwriting and producing skills to a satisfactory level but as far as technical quality goes, I’ve basically neglected it and just paid someone else to mix and master my music. However, this is generally expensive and difficult. To be honest it might be one of the most difficult parts of this whole thing. Let me explain..
First you have to understand why music is such a huge phenomenon. Why do people love music so much? Why is it such a big industry? If you ask me, it’s because it’s one of the most reliable ways to change the way someone feels. You can pick how you want to feel based on the song you choose. When you really think about it, for most people, life is just about trying to feel more of the things they want and less of what they don’t and I’m out here trying to help. You’re Welcome ;)
Ok now, imagine you have a feeling or catch a vibe and make a song. It makes you feel exactly how you want and captures the feeling or a vibe perfectly and it feels authentic and feels like you and you love it but there is one problem.. It’s sounds like shit. You can’t get it loud enough, there are errant frequencies all over the place and there are all kinds of suboptimal aspects of it that you need to fix. You have the vision.. Just not the means, skill or knowledge to get it where it needs to go.
This is where it gets complicated. Sound is so complex and the rabbit hole of mixing and engineering music goes so deep you wouldn’t believe it. It’s basically endlessly deep and there are endless roads you can take. I’ve had my music mixed by a ton of different people and it still blows my mind how different a song can sound or come across depending on who mixes it and how they mix it. I’ve had songs come back that sound technically amazing but the feeling or the vibe that was at the heart of it is completely gone. Erased. Lost, EQed, compressed and limited into oblivion.
This gets to the core of my issue. While I’m in a good situation right now where my music turns out how I like, things are going to change and it’s going to either get way more expensive or I’m going to have to dial in with a new engineer or both..
I have to mention that for some artists, the mixing phase may be easy and they just breeze through..however I’m precious with the way my song feels to me. THE WHOLE POINT of my personal music project is to synthesize positive, happy, and uplifting feelings and give them to others.. But if I don’t even get the feeling from the song then I can’t in good conscience put that out into he world. Call me crazy but it’s a hill I’m willing to die on.
There is an additional element here which is that my songs are usually pretty complex and have a bunch of tracks and a ton of stuff going on which makes the mixing process much harder and more variable. I feel confident that I need to simplify my productions going forward. Less tracks.. Better tracks. My natural tendency is to hide mediocrity under a stack of plugins or sounds. Being more selective and raising my standard for sounds and parts will help me on this front.
With all that laid out it might seem like the solution is obvious… Just learn how to mix! I’ve always avoided it because I don’t like it.. I just want to create and I’m not interested in the technical side of things.. I’m just interested in the VIBE. I’m realizing right now as I’m typing this that I just explained how the vibe gets strengthened or lost in the in the mix so.. Do I really care about the vibe that much if I don’t care to mix? Hmm
I’m also realizing now that a co-mix with someone might be an option. I’ll just learn to take it more of the way there and then have a serious pro take over but at less of a cost and time commitment. I’m also holding out for the A+ and reliable AI mixing that might actually be right around the corner.
Either way.. This issue is one of my biggest challenges and I think overcoming it in a sustainable and efficient way is going to be a huge part of my success and I’m determined to solve it.
Danny
Why do I relate so much with your stacks? Haha. I feel the same way when it comes to editing the audios for the podcast. 🫠 Different things, but same feeling.