Musical Mixing

All mix engineers need technical skills — but what’s most important is our ability to bring out the emotion in the music.

Mixing is a balancing act. We have to fulfil the artist’s musical vision, while meeting a technical standard. That sounds easier than it actually is, and the reason may be that we sometimes focus too much on the technical aspect.

In fact, I know a lot of engineers who approach mixing from a purely technical standpoint. When they start a mix, they open up the session, hit Play and immediately start adding processing — because that’s what mixing is all about, right? I’m not being judgemental here, nor do I want to tell anyone how they should mix. What matters is that the mix comes out great and the client is happy. But in my experience, more often than not it’s these ‘technical’ engineers who struggle to get a great mix in a reasonable amount of time. And that’s because they tend to skip the most crucial part of mixing: actually listening to the production and ‘feeling’ what really needs to be done.

While this may sound obvious, it cannot be overstated, because it’s so easy to forget: mixing is all about the music! Without the song, there’s no mix. And the hard truth is that we are rarely hired to change it all and apply wicked mixing skills just because we can. We are hired because the artist or label trusts us to make the best possible decisions – which can mean anything from doing hundreds of bold moves to only touching four tracks.

There’s tons of great mixing tutorials around, often featuring the very people who worked on our favourite records. This is great, but what that information often lacks is context.

Diamonds In The Rough

Of course, there is a technical dimension to mixing, which often involves correcting and fixing technical issues that ideally should have already been taken care of during the production. But all this is just a small piece of the puzzle. The essential skill all great mixers have in common is their ability to combine the roles of music listener and audio engineer, by translating what they are hearing into an emotional response that fits the song. This makes them artists in their own right. If you don’t take my word for it, this is what Manny Marroquin, one of the most in‑demand mixers for over two decades now, has to say about it: “I know the emotion I got when I turned faders and EQs. I can change the emotion of the song. That still blows my mind to this day. So, to say that I love what I do is an understatement because I can change emotions based on frequencies. It sounds obvious, but it’s powerful when you utilise it the right way. And that’s what we’re here for. We’re here to play with people’s emotions and emphasise.”

This is why it’s so important to really listen to the music you’re about to mix. Because if you don’t, how could you possibly know which emotions you want to emphasise and play with? You could start with a blank slate, but most likely there will be a rough mix the artist took home after the recording. This could be anything from just a flat balance bounce off the board or DAW session to a quick and dirty mastered...