Reworking on your mixes again, and again, and again

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

Today I want to talk about a specific loop i find myself trapped regarding a bunch of tracks I’ve done in the past 1.5 year or so.
Basically, I have made 20 tracks or so since last year, and told myself “This time, I’m going step my engineering game up a notch and get as good my mixes and masters as I can”
Since then, I’ve been stuck in a loop of mixing, remixing, mastering, remastering, not being satisfied with the results, reading tips and techniques online (often contradictory) and trying them out, thinking they’re awesome and two days later thinking they’re shit, feeling unable to hear or use compression and distorsion correctly, using tons of reference tracks, meters, buying new headphones, buying plugins, making new versions of these old songs every months and basically being unable to let go.

So I guess my question is how do you let go? How and when do you consider that a track is done from an engineering stand point?

I’m at the point I’m starting to think I’ve basically screwed myself reading too much about this and overthinking it a whole lot, that a vast majority of the blog posts and YouTube tutorials about mixing and mastering are basically bullshit that no one can actually hear to sell you more plugins, but that on another hand I will never be able to get my tracks sounding the way I want them to.

So yeah, I’m kind of confused :slight_smile:

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#2

Often it’s easier to do it proper with every piece of knowledge you gained from previous fails, but on a fresh project.

If you really did a lot of different masters then you are sitting too long on it and you need to move on.

The cure: touch your problem project one last time, then do a backup and delete the project files from your computer.

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#3

I make myself let go and be okay with a less-than-great mix.

I also tell myself that some of my favorite producers and artists had very lofi, thin sounding records before they became warriors of sound. Brian Eno’s first outings come to mind. Soft Bulletin by Flaming Lips.

I also think no matter how much I read or watch on YouTube there is just simply the fact that I haven’t done a LOT of it. I think it’s better to do a lot than to redo the same thing over again.

But if you’d like you can post some stuff here and I’ll critique it.

We’re also our own harshest critics. A friend of mine told me he thought my mixing/arrangement of a song was like a near perfect pop song but at that point all I could hear were all the “failures” so to speak. Muddy bass, brittle highs, buried guitars…

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#4

Oh, that’s the hard way man, you’re brave if you can do this !

I feel like an addict now, “one last miiiiiix” :slight_smile:

But that’s a super good point, keep improving with each song instead of going back to old ones, will try to keep that in mind

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#5

Although good mixing and mastering can make a track so much better than the sum of its parts, there’s too much focus on it in my opinion, especially in electronic music, where there’s almost a level of snobbery attached to it.
I used to get bogged down in my DAW trying to mix things just right and there’s no such thing, you’re chasing the impossible. Learn to embrace the tiny failures in every mix, they’re the things that set you apart, that make your music your own.
I’ve been lofi and proud for about 2 years now, pretty much performing and recording everything into my H4n without doing any post processing. My music sounds shit, but it’s my shit.

Try it, you might like it…

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#6

The thing is:
Visit your projects after years, and you have a totally different opinion about things.
It’s quite fun, therefore: make backups, but wipe that of your disc! :smiley:

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#7

Lots of good points!

I tend to gravitate a lot towards meters that make me do changes that don’t feel that good afterwards, but I still do them because “that’s how a track is supposed to sound” but I get from what you say that I should also trust myself more, if I like it that way, I should keep it so. This will be my sound.

#8

Haha, love that mindset! :slight_smile:

Will try it!

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#9

Totally!
Well that’s basically what I’ve been doing over and over with my tracks since last year, and now the projects are Frankenstein monsters…
Got it, backups and wipe!

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#10

Same as painting. When you finish dont go back and ruin it. Its so tempting but its a mistake. Keeping it fresh and ‘soulful’ is just that. Get the job done and move on.

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#11

totally agree with @gerkinear - the truth is you level up by finishing things.

once you’ve said “that’s done” and can listen back with objective ears and hear exactly what’s wrong with the mixdown FOREVER… then you’re motivated to do better.

:wink:

Also, I (now) kinda feel like… if you’ve done about five mixes of something and it still doesn’t sound right - either your own brain is getting in the way, or there’s something in the arrangement getting in the way of it sounding perfect and by now it’s probably psychologically easier to start another tune than start picking the bones of the thing you’ve nearly finished.

Either way, finish it, make something else.

I also suspect that even mix engineers that get paid thousands still get to the end of a mix and think “cool. that’ll do it” rather than “that is the single greatest way that piece of music could ever be represented no matter if a million people tried for a million years.”

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#12

Yeah, gonna lock those projects away! :slight_smile:

#13

Haha, I almost feel like I should go back to the first versions of my tracks, export those and keep them instead of the new ones now :slight_smile:

And I’m sure you’re right! Although there must be some kind of confidence that builds over time… I hope anyway

#14

Heres some tips:

  • Get a good room and good monitors. Its important to get things right the first time.
  • Commit tracks to audio. So you dont get tempted to go back and fix up on midi/vst things later.
  • Divide up your tasks: Produce first, then mix it, then send it to master if you want that.
  • Set yourself a deadline to finish a track. I find this is what helps me the most to finish things. If you release music, this comes naturally from the label guys. If not, just put an imagined date.
  • Once a track is finished, do as the the guy above said and get it away from your “working on” folder. Keep a copy somewhere hidden though.
  • Make a fresh track. It will be much easier and sound better, cause your are not confused by all the previous mixing errors of the track you have been renovating for years :slight_smile:
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#15

I guess that’s true for each profession. There is a deadline and a budget. No customer will pay for your addiction to perfectionism.

Hanging on to some misguided perfectionism is something that only hobbyists can afford. Do it and learn from your mistakes, but don’t redo it more than once (only if it’s really worth it and/or absolutely necessary).

If its not got enough regarding to whatever standards you are hanging on, so be it. No one will produce only master pieces from the get-go. It’s a learning experience and like with every kind of profession you’ll need thousands upon thousands hours to become a master at what you are doing (don’t believe anyone who will make you believe otherwise).

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#16

My solution was to develop a workflow around improvising a stereo mix and sending it to be mastered. I doubt I’m spending more money than when I was in a software upgrade and plug in phase. To this end my mastersounds mixer has been a key investment. I work to its strengths. And now I can let stuff go and move on to the next project.

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#17

Got stuck in this loop for years.

What worked in the end was to do one final round of mixes for everything, let it breathe for a bit, do the mastering and release it into the wilds of bandcamp. Now it’s too late to go back and keep tinkering. Would’ve preferred to pay for mastering but $$ were a wee bit tight.

Next project I’m going back to some really old stuff and seeing if i can salvage any of the ideas while rerecording parts as needed. Ill do the mixing in a single stage again rather than as i finish tracks, with a deadline for completion. Then off to the mastering engineer it goes!

Edit: something else i found helpful was to move the computer out of my bedroom and into the dining/lounge area when mixing. Gave me a much better acoustic environment to mix in. But paying for studio time for the next one would be even better.

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#18

Print it and move on.

I’m honestly at the point where I’m thinking I’ll just pay for mastering on anything I want to put out as seriously.

To master properly you need to have a proper space and invest a lot in treating it, then you do need some pretty high end tools which are also not cheap. I am talking about mastering properly not just smashing something through ozone.

Then of course you need to build the technical skills which realistically is going to take many years. Honestly I would rather spend time on making my music as good as I can.

I have a soft spot for analog gear, it sounds great, looks great and I just enjoy working with it. For the price of one mid tier piece of analog mastering gear I could get about 60 tracks mastered which is probably 6-7 years worth of output for me.

And that just 1 bit of gear. If you factor the cost having a reasonable space (unobtainable for me realistically right now), treating it properly, getting the requisite bits of kit, actually knowing how to drive them, its just not worth it.

For me print the mix and move on, if you think its worth it get an experienced pro to master it, which is really not that expensive.

I always try and remember that some of my favourite music was recorded in a way that is quantifiably bad, and some of my best experiences with music were in terrible listening environments.

Particularly with electronic stuff it is just too much work to be the composer, musician and technician imo.

Another plus about having it mastered seperately is you can get independent feedback on the mix which is going to help you get better at mixing rather than sitting around second guessing yourself.

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#19

Get someone else to master your work. Then get it out there immediately.
Letting go of that obsessive need to polish was driving me insane. So I just gave up. Stop analysing. The mind will always find something wrong. Let someone else do it. Problem solved. Much happier for it. Get more music finished too!

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#20

What I do nowadays.

Get a great mix going, record to audio with some decent headroom, make slight adjustments (volume automation, cut / paste sections), and after that move on. I’ve always felt the most excitement from ending one project and beginning a new one. I just get the mix as good as I can and record a stereo track into my DAW. The endless mastering, polish cycle always seemed to yield worse results the more iterations I made. Ain’t nobody got time for that!

I may use a compressor / limiter on the master but that’s about it. If you want a great master, get in touch with an engineer.

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