Here's the thing about sitting in a high-falooting studio, mixing down your songs.

When you're NOT there, when you're mixing your stuff at home, in the basement, for the purpose of grooving on and sharing with your 7 e-friends, you don't scrutinize every little mother-lumping detail.

When you're paying the phat kizzzy for the thing, and THIS will be the definitive version of that basement jam tape, suddenly, every single note, every "unh", every difference in reverb, panning, volume - every little thing is scrutinized.

I'm hearing this song in my sleep. I'm hearing it in the car, when I'm listening to talk radio. The thing is consuming me, and in a year, it'll be maybe my 8th favorite song on a 10-song CD, but right now, to quote Depeche Mode, "everything counts in large amounts".

NOW I understand why there's fifty seven different versions of "Extra Lovable" or "Witness 4 the Prosecution" or even "Computer Blue". You record the tracks and you're only 1/3 of the way done. You mix it this way, and then that way, and then, hey, what about the hi-hats being a little more to the right.

THE HI HATS? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WHO IS GOING TO HEAR THEM IN THE CENTER, ON THE RIGHT, WITH A PLATE, WHO WILL HEAR THEM IN A CAN, WHO WILL HEAR THEM, SAM I AM?

So, you get the jist of my world right now. I've mixed and remixed this one song, maybe 5 times now, (when I say "mixed", I mean, 2 hours in the control room, each time, giving the thumbs up that, "THIS is the one", and then hearing it the next day, it's "oh that's no good"). I'm going nuts.

The reverb. That's another thing.

For some bizarro reason, the presence of reverb says to me, either "garageband demo, 1988, back when big hair ruled the earf" -- OR -- "slow jam, 1983, when Jheri Curls ruled the earf" -- either way, it DONT sound like NOW to me. SO when I hear a mix with verb in it, to the point that I can hear it, it drives me bonkers.

"But wait!" I hear you say, "I have your rawkin version of Life Can Be So Nice, and it's awash with the verb". True. That song was one of those where I thought, hey, I'm gonna record and go against everything that I prefer, just to see what's the difference?" and WOW. The song is great. It rocked. It was awesome.

SO THEN. THERE'S THAT. constantly whispering in my ear, "ya know, you killed em with verb on 'Life', so what's a little verb here and there?"

Another set of see-saws to ride in the studio. This is where bands would normally break up. But, since there's no band, it's just me, I'm ready to kick myself out of the band if I don't get my act together.

AHAHAHAH.

Wow that's a bit hostile of a vent, aint it?

oh - which song? that 6/8 tune I already posted. THAT version is mix number 4 or 5. I'm already on to the next one, bringing the acoustic guitars into the middle of the mix, push the slide to the right, bring in another guitar or two.

Meanwhile, the engineer is experimenting with adding some organ to another song, just to see how it'll sound. The song is the super-depressing "sometimes I cry" song - a sparse empty song about death (hey shock). It's empty. He's not hearing me on that one. EMPTY. He wanted to add some acoustic guitar to the song, just to see if it would add something to the song. It's added something. A lack of emptiness.

Time for a "come to Jesus" meeting with the engineer I think. It's hard to constantly say, "no, this is my record and this is the way I want it dammit" - so you start to let little things go, thinking, hey, maybe they're right and I'm holding onto the demo version without being open to options that would possibly turn a pooper tune into something great". But, sure enough, after awhile, you've let go of too much and you start to feel bad for telling the dude, "okay, hey, your ideas are welcome, but, no, I'm going to go back to my original idea. now TURN THE DAMN VERB DOWN".

Whoo. I need a cigarette.

Oh yeah. And that's the latest vice I've picked up in the whole process. Smoking cigarettes.

MAN this woulda made a good reality show.

beauhall said:

As far as the smokes go ...

Right now, if it were my last day on earth, I'd have a carton of camels and one match! Nasty habit. Leave 'em at the studio when your done.

Yeah, it ain't a great thing to pick up at 40.

Hehe, I just quit this week! Make sure you will too after these sessions are done.

BTW that 6/8 track is really cool man!

Sounds like fun!

Last night, we brought in an B3 magician to put some awesome sprinkles on the CD. He added organ where I didn't want it, (and turned the song into an amazing performance now) and then replaced my ham-fisted playing on a couple of tunes.

On the first one, he was amazing. On the other two, mehh - it's okay. I think it'll end up like Whatchagonnado or She's Too Rich, where I'll keep my original lines, (on those songs, it was the harmonica) and then bring their parts in for special moments in the song. I don't know. We drank a lot.

And then, at the end of the evening, we're all standing outside the studio, smoking a cigarette, and a cop car pulls into the parking lot and, OVER THE LOUDSPEAKER in his car, says, "allright - you - the superhot ladycop guy - drop the guitar!!"

Nice to know I'll always have a hit with the coppers. Maybe it'll help me with these two tickets I just got.

Wow, you do take your sheit seriously!

You know, I take politics and religion as serious as you take music. Actually, I take funk music as serious as you take music in general.

But, here's the thing (this may relax you some):

From my experience and from seeing this with others:

When you hear the songs, they may keep seeming "off" to you. You may mix this song 300 times before you keep a mix. The best thing to do is just pick one and go with it. Because from what I have seen, people are only more critical of the technicalities of the music when they are fans of that kind of music. Seriously. I have really studied this. People who like funk are more critical of funk and what it sounds like, and people who like rock are more critical about what rock sounds like, and so on. Have you ever noticed how critical people are who are jazz aficionados? They are picky as picky can be. When I listen to music, most of the time, if it's not funk, I am like "yeah, this is pretty good". Rarely do I hear something unbearable to listen to- I understand that music is as diverse as the socioeconomic structure of the world. You probably do too, but I wanted to remind you not to be too hard on yourself. There are some people who think that disco was horrible. But, if one listens to disco and truly evaluates it, they will see that many disco songs were orchestra arranged with symphonic precision that was flawless. Disco did not suck by any means, nor does most music, even Michael Bolton's (which I have been sarcastic about before).

But seriously, there is some jazz that I don't get. It's all over the place, there is seemingly no arrangement to it, and it sounds like utter noise. But, there are some that think it is the best and most intellectual thing around. And, I don't knock it because even if I think it sucks, it is probably awesome to someone else.

This approach should help you in your decision making process when it comes to choosing your final mix.

Talk at you later,
Jason

Yeah, I've taken a step back from the mixes, but there's certain things that I just can't let go. Excessive reverb is one of them. Having spent a year listening to gobzillions of demos (back when I worked at the rock club) it seems that a constant signature of garageband demos is excessive reverb. At which point, it becomes burned into my head, I'd rather have no verb than too much.

The missed notes, the weak guitar chords, I can take those. The painful harmonies, I can even wince through some of those if mixed correctly. But some things just SCREAM at me. Verb is one.

It's really, at this point, a question of what will I hear in 4 years and STILL wince over? If it's something I can fix now, then I'll fix it. Conversely, will I care about the guitar tone in 4 years? Not at all.

Well, at least you're inversting in your album and making sure it's perfect.
I've recorded some groups who wanted me to record, mix and master a whole album in....10 hours. And I did it

BTW, One of Michael Jackson's songs (I think it was Billy Jean) had 31 versions of mixes.
Do you know which one was picked for the album? the second one they did

hey man, one thing for sure that will speed up your mix process is when you run out of money

talmuzic said:

HAHAHAHAHA.