"It's just music."

I spend a fair amount of time reading in the Gearspace mastering forum. It’s one of the few internet forums with an extremely high average level of expertise and a very high signal-to-noise ratio. I learn in there constantly.

If you want to see the extremes of how tech-y nerdy this forum can get, check out this thread about how various device drivers do or don’t bypass Core Audio on the Mac. Holy shit!

Someone on the aforementioned thread said the smartest thing a couple of days ago, apropos of the extremely insignificant sonic differences that Core Audio can cause, and I wanted to reprint it here.

Also, none of this keeps me from getting work done. There's a difference, but as a human, it's not a difference that really has a major influence on mix decisions. There are so many variables in what we do. Every source is different, and I couldn't repeat the same mix twice no matter what. A change in room temperature, moving my head an inch out of the sweet spot, or too much coffee prior to mixing would alter mix decisions way more than my playback engine in Pro Tools. It's just music.

How good is that? What a wonderfully human and humble perspective. I particularly resonate with the idea that I couldn’t repeat the same mix twice no matter what. That’s so true in my experience. Each mix I do is a unique alchemical admixture of luck, circumstance, empathy, vision, and technical skill, in roughly that order. It’s like I go into a fugue state and, when I come to, I’ve mixed a song. Given that, it’s best for me not to get too precious about my process, or to take the results I get too seriously. They will be different tomorrow. Hopefully a tiny bit better! But definitely not the same.

Detachedly — jamie