How important is a great edit for a professional mix

Mixing
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Hello guys!

How awesome it is, to have the possibility to ask my heroes questions about what we all love to do… Thanks for giving us this chance and your time!

I am working now for nearly 20 years in this industry. First as a professional musician and now mostly as a live and studio guy.

What I see more and more espacially in the semi-professional segment of this industrie is, that a lot of musicains don’t deliver in recording what we really need for a good mix. A lot of times, I end up in editing this mess, to get at least some good tracks for the mix.

I don’t know, if you guys also have these kind of problems from time to time, as you are working for sure mostly with really professional musicians, who deliver great.

A lot of times I am struggeling with this, because I recognized, that when I have to edit it a lot, it looses all mojo and I end up in overthinking the edit and invest A LOT OF hours in taking care of it.

When I see your mixing sessions, there are only really really clean tracks, perfect timings and so on, which is for sure, really important, for a good mix.

When you get a recording which isn’t good enough in point of timing and also dynamics - how much do you (or your assist) edit these tracks. Or do you give it back, and ask for a better recording? What is the most important thing for you, when it comes to editing, to get really good tracks to mix?

All the best from germany - Julian

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Hi,
Much of the music I receive for a mix I feel the need to mute, nudge, copy&paste and/or speed up/slow down the whole track. When all that doesn’t work I’ll record, cymbals and percussion and sometimes additional KBs and/or guitar. Whatever it takes to get the emotion from the music… for me. (This I’ve been doing as long as I can remember with big label, pro artists, not only semi-pro home recordists.)
I really like tracks that need some work. It’s an opportunity. It gets me going creatively. Sometimes, the worse the recording the more creative I can be if the artist will let me go there. If they won’t that usually tells me I’m not the right mixer for the job.

t

Here’s an answer to a different question regarding troublesome recording which could be relevant…???
Tchad_Blake

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Thanks a lot for your answer!

That’s what I also try to do often and also did in the last years. When I get the tracks, I try to make it as good as I can before I start to really mix.

The only thing, which really stops my work often then, is the budget of the artist/band… :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

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