The 10-Minute Mix

In a world of clientless mixing sessions and bedroom studio hourly rates, where time is measured by the accumulation of pizza boxes rather than in dollars and cents, some music producers and mix engineers spend days, sometimes even weeks, settling on a mix. But what would you do if you only had 10 minutes?

I’d like to preface this article by suggesting that most studio mix and tracking engineers, producers and recording musicians mix on-the-fly, at speed, all the time, whether they’re aware of it or not. Live and broadcast engineers do it constantly, of course, but the gulf between them and everyone else is narrower than you might think.

When you consider the number of hours it takes to setup a typical live show, for example, including all the foldback mixes, console effects, tonal shaping and basic balances, when all that is compared to a recording or mix session, in many ways they’re very similar.

After all, a live mix isn’t measured simply by the duration of a song’s performance on stage – it’s all about the prep: setting up gain structures, effects, tones etc.

So, if you’re a studio mix engineer, don’t be fooled or sell yourself short. Studio engineers and producers pull quick mixes together every day while catering to a diverse array of needs, from headphone mixes and experimental arrangements, right through to rough ‘take-home’ mixes for clients. The only difference seems to be in the perceived value of these mixes. In the live realm, fast mixes are valued implicitly – obviously – given their critical importance. A mix happens in real-time, so there is no second playback in the live and broadcast realms – but in the studio, real-time mixes for headphone monitoring, quick mixes for clients or general playback in the control room are generally regarded as secondary… inferior in almost every way.

For whatever reason, in a studio environment, particularly when it comes time to printing ‘The Big One’ – that monster mix you hope everyone’s ultimately going to hear – studio professionals seem unanimously convinced that time constraints should never apply to them, and that every good mix should inevitably take at least a day… sometimes a week, the general vibe here being: “Time constraints cramp my style, man…”

Not always, they don’t. Sometimes they’re downright liberating!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I know full well that most studio mixes can go deep and often take at least fourteen pizza boxes to complete. Some involve many hours of screwdriver work and experimentation, involving everything from advanced editing (and in some instances wholesale song restructuring) to elaborate EQ, dynamics and effects manipulation, all of which is then invariably automated either a little, or a lot. Make no mistake, some of the great studio mixes do indeed take days, and unlike most live mixes, they form a permanent record (hence the name): duplicated, disseminated and scrutinised from that moment onwards… sometimes for years. This, understandably, adds a layer of expectation that cannot be underestimated.

But what if, despite all that, you had to mix one of these more complex songs (excluding the editing, arranging and re-arranging) in 10 minutes? What would you prioritise then, and what would you forego? Obviously, devoting nine and a half minutes to the kick drum EQ is out of the question at that point…

Trust Your Instincts

The main purpose of a 10-minute mix in a studio environment is to force yourself to evaluate a song’s key elements, balancing these instinctively in real-time, without concern for the minutia around things like EQ or compression setting on multiple instruments.

If you’re in the middle of a song production, chances are you’ve already applied some EQ and compression where necessary anyway, as you would have done live during soundcheck.

It’s about working at pace, instinctively and reactively, with a single-minded devotion to the song coming out of the speakers and nothing else.

So, if the kick drum sounds fine, and the electric guitar does too, don’t waste another second on them. Whereas in the studio, you might normally delve into fine-tuning these elements for hours on end – occasionally achieving great things, at other times spinning your wheels – in this situation, it’s a luxury you can’t afford.

Balancing the mix is what it’s all about, first and foremost. And this is not a static, one- time process either; it’s a constant, real-time reappraisal of the sound coming out of the speakers. It’s hands on… the whole time! Now is certainly NOT the time for checking your phone or talking to a punter. It’s making sure that the key elements of the arrangement – which, under normal studio mixing conditions you might have highlighted last – are attended to immediately, often simultaneously. There is no ‘later’ in the 10-minute mix, only priorities from the top down.

For many engineers, this often means working in reverse order, from highest priority to lowest, rather than from left to right, or rhythm section, through guitars, keyboards and other instruments through to the cherry on top: vocals. In a 10-minute mix, if you think the vocal is the key to the song (which it nearly always is) focus on that first, not last. If you really need to spend several minutes on one key aspect of this vital component, particularly if it also involves solving a technical problem here, do that now. From there, work down the list, all the while striving for overall balance.

You may not get far down this list of priorities in 10 minutes, of course, but in some ways that’s the point. Most punters are only listening to the key elements anyway, not whether the vocal reverb is 3.8 or 4.02 seconds long, or if the high-pass filter on the second electric guitar is set at 60Hz or 170. Moreover, they’re only listening to that ghastly hi-hat if you have it grossly unbalanced in the mix in the first place!

Essentially the process is about considering two things: what are the most important elements, and if there’s something creating a distraction – a noise, excessive dynamics or effects in a key element, or something missing entirely – how do I fix it, and fast?

To me, great live mixes prioritise these main elements with deftness and skill, all while producing an overall sound that’s immersive, compelling and seemingly effortless. They’re not rough, nor are they ill-conceived. On the contrary, some of the best sounding audio I have ever heard – and indeed some of the best mixes I’ve done myself – were live mixes.

Time’s Up

But hang on a sec: what is the point of all this, you might ask, when there’s no such time constraint in the studio?

Well… because there is! There are time constraints everywhere in the studio, even around ‘The Big One’, and it’s crucial for recording and mix engineers to appreciate this fact and learn the art of mixing at pace, particularly if you’re charging a client proper rates for your time and professionalism.

An Argument for Faders

If you’ve recorded things well and avoided disasters in the main, a decent 10-minute mix should be relatively straightforward if you put your mind to it, and more importantly, ascribe value to the process.

A decent rough mix to accommodate that new overdub session is a valid mix, a headphone mix is another vitally important one that can make or break a recording session, as are any rough mixes you send home with the lead singer. These might not be ‘The One Mix’ to rule them all, but if you’re on your game, it should sound good enough to be largely indistinguishable from The One – at least to the ear of a punter.

To some, this last point might sound like heresy, but often it’s true. What we hear and appreciate as ear-trained audio engineers, is mostly lost out there in the big, wide, noisy world.

Where I think studios have generally missed the mark in relation to all this is in respect of the demise of the recording/mixing console, be it analogue or digital. One of the best ways to slow things down or get quickly lost in the details of a mix is by having no console in front of you when you work. Hands on faders might seem like a quaint notion to some, but faders remain the most effective way to perform multiple balancing tasks simultaneously. That’s why live consoles still sport them, by and large, and live engineers can’t be without them. Last time I checked I had 10 fingers, but my mouse has only one cursor. Balancing four, eight or 10 discrete channels of audio with a mouse is no replacement for faders when time is of the essence.

On Your Mark, Get Set…

So, consider the 10-minute mix an experiment, if you like, or a theoretical exercise. It will probably influence your general approach to mixing in at least two ways. Firstly, it will hopefully encourage you to get things done more efficiency, or at least question the value of a week-long mixing session. It will emphasise the value of fresh ears, particularly if you later A|B your 10-minute mixes against the final mix masters. And lastly, but by no means least, after you’ve done a few of these mixes on-the-fly, you’ll come to realise that you already know a thing or three about this rapid-fire mixing caper, that actually you’ve been doing them for years without ever paying them much attention, and perhaps now appreciate how valuable this skill you possess truly is.

Andy Stewart owns and operates The Mill in the hills of Bass Coast Shire, in Victoria. He’s happy to respond to any pleas for recording, mixing or mastering help… contact him at: andy@themill.net.au