Brute-force it if necessary

In a perfect world, we would have achieved such a level of technical mastery that our perfectly-recorded tracks respond perfectly to the finishing touches of EQ and compression that we apply to them, and our mixes should fall together effortlessly.

Here in the real world, sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way, right? There will always be the vocal that just … won’t … quite … compress … right. Or the bass part with uneven note loudnesses. Gah! So frustrating.

It’s so tempting to fall into a weird mindset in which our mixes are only valid if they are technically perfect under the hood; if another engineer would look at them and say, “Wow, that’s perfect.”

But you know what? Screw that. The real world is rarely tidy. And the only thing that matters is what comes out the speakers. So we do what we have to do!

Here are some things I routinely do that I imagine “the pros” might say I shouldn’t:

• Automate individual syllables with volume automation

• Push individual syllables more or less into the compressor by adjusting their waveform gain (aka bite gain, clip gain, etc)

• Edit waveforms to create better versions of performances, including flying notes from one place to another

• Automate compressor thresholds

• Automate EQ gains

• Write plugins to waveforms so that I can subsequently chop them up

If you saw some of my sessions you would be like “Did a squirrel on meth edit this?” BUT: my mixes sound good. And that’s literally all that matters. Nothing else matters.

Free yourself from the “shoulds” — and just do whatever you need to do to make your work as great as you can make it. Including getting down and dirty in ways that “the pros” imply you shouldn’t. No excuses; just get it done.

Never taking no for an answer — jamie