What is a ‘good’ mixdown?
I sometimes check out the music production boards on Reddit, and recently someone proposed this question - “How much can a professional mixdown improve a track?”
They were basically asking if they should pay for a “professional” to mix one of their tracks.
It’s obvious where someone is in their journey when asking a question like this - they’re alluding to a difference between their tracks and a ‘Professionals’.
But it got me thinking, what actually is a ‘good’ mixdown?
Here’s the most essential point I arrived at - Does it best present the artist’s original vision?
And I think this would be overlooked by most because we’re all focused on ‘why does his sound louder than mine?’
Second to that point I believe to be the technicals and standards. And it is at the intersection of those two points, I would consider a ‘professional’ mixdown.
Now if your music isn’t sounding the same as others BUT you are following your vision for how you want your music to be, that’s the sweet spot. Continue doing what you’re doing.
After making that statement, why does my music sound comparable to more standard modern musical conventions?
From my perspective (and I’m going to presume this is true for a lot of people), I have spent my life listening to and enjoying music that has met these conventions. We’re all introduced to it through radio. And it’s this developed ‘taste’ that leads me to the desire to produce music that sounds a certain way. Although I think it’s important to push my sound, I don’t agree with going against the flow on purpose. The antithesis of what Aphex Twin believes apparently -
”If too many people would listen to what I listen to I wouldn’t like it.” - taken from this interview, page 6
Sound choice and structure play a huge role in a mixdown, before anyone has reached for an eq it is being shaped. I remember making tracks using certain sounds, then attempting to get them ‘loud’. Resculpting the whole track in the process. Destroying the original vision and the music.
I have just re-mixed and re-mastered an EP from 2018, 6 years can do a lot for your ears. Would these tracks have benefited from outsourcing the mixdown originally? Yes. And I would like to think I would have learnt faster if I would have done so. There’s also the possibility that I would have been complacent and always relied on someone else. Which there is nothing wrong with. Being interwoven with a community is beneficial for everyone.
The cover for the ‘Darling Call Me Later’ EP was part of a shoot we did this week. Mostly for new Order Materia Mens Over Shirts
