Re: Some truth about investment and growth
I have one assistant and I actively pass on studio tactics to him. In this day and age no one driving, moving and deploying gear as a fulltime job is gonna get any real mixing experience on the job. And here lies my other pet peeve. If you call yourself a mixer you need to PRACTICE!! No one gets better at anything without practice. So if guys/gals never mix except on the job how do they get better. Simple...they don't!
I see guys every week that have been mixing the same band on the same gear for 5,10,15 years!! These. Ands must be the best sounding bands on earth right? Guess again. The worst thing is that old bad habits that don't get fixed get passed along. I am not expecting anything but real mixers are like great ball players. There aren't that many for all the reasons jus stated. IMO...any live mixer that doesnt have studio access on a regular basis is cheating himself and everyone else. My current thrust is trying to sell that quality skill set as part of my small company package. Some people care, I now have a small core of clients that won't hire anyone else and much of that is the result of exuberant positive feedback from bands. A few weeks ago I did show in a local club that is at least the 2nd worst sounding room I have ever mixed in. The band was over the top about how good they thought it sounded. The lead singer stopped my on my way out and said...
"you just get it man...you get it!"Also, if a wannabe mixer doesn't know how to creatively use comps, gates, delays, reverbs..etc and blames it on the fact that the club won't supply them should Invest in themselves or not take offense when the obvious is pointed out...things that need to be done are not being done... Why should that fly when there is an obvious alternative? Geeez...I must own 20 reverbs! So I know how to make reverbs do what I want..isn't that part of the job?
Anyway, I would value advice on how to market the quality of a good mix engineer over a new line array with truck drivers operating them. I mix music everyday and always learn something useful. I spent 2 hours tonight changing a snare reverb...within the context of a mix just to get a better grasp of how highpassing and predelaying in time with the music canclear up the sound of the other drums in the kit. I helped my assistant Sat night with a 5 piece country band and showed him how sculpting the kick immediately resulted in clearer vocals.Crap, a lot of times I make mixing moves based on what I know should happen as general practice... Things like frequency layering and knowledge of different instruments fundamental frequencies and specific overtone characteristics.
Gotta sleep... I apologize for any misspelling my phone let slip or created on its own!
