The Importance of the Rough Mix
Been thinking on this for a while. I want to speak to the importance (read: the necessity…) of producers + artists spending time on a really good rough mix. Not just 10 or 15 minutes when everyone’s tired at the end of the session, but a dedicated, specific effort in shaping the sound of the production and communicating the artistic vision. Including but not limited to: A detailed fader balance, EQ and Compression choices, spatial FX, and everything else.
That level of commitment + effort accomplishes several things, all of them good:
1. It clarifies the artistic vision for both artist and producer, and helps them make decisions: Is that kick drum punching enough on its own, or do we need a sample? Is that guitar amp righteous, or should we go back to the DI and re-amp? Is that big plate verb cool, or muddy? Should the vocal double be right up there loud with the lead, or should it be tucked 10dB behind? Essentially: Are these sounds going to fit together, and are we making the record that we want to make? A good rough mix will answer those questions on a fundamental level, and then those choices are further refined, polished, and optimized in the mix.
2. It clarifies the artistic vision for *me*. When I listen to a rough mix that’s already sounding great, I *know* where the producer + the artist want their song to go. I can take it on faith that the work so far is purposeful, that the song’s headed in the right direction. Then, I can spend my working time helping it go as far as it can, in its current direction. This gives me my best shot at elevating the artist’s + producer’s vision, and it essentially eliminates the risk of me taking the song in the wrong direction.
3. It forces producer and artist to evaluate their work in a different context than that of the tracking/production session, through a more critical lens. It’s often a bit too easy for things to feel great while tracking- everyone’s listening loud, whichever part is currently being tracked is often turned up even louder, and everyone’s feeding off the collective artistic energy of the moment. All of that’s great, and feeling great during tracking is a *necessary* prerequisite for a great outcome, but it’s not in and of itself *sufficient* to ensure we can then make a great mix. Going to sleep, waking up the next morning, and listening to your rough mix on headphones or in the car, will give objectivity that will counterbalance the (again, necessary) visceral emotional process of making the music.
4. It gets a lot of the grunt work out of the way. There’s a finite amount of time and energy during which I have my best focus and can be most useful to the song. If the heavy lifting’s already done, I can spend more of my time making overall judgments on balance and motion and tone, and my decisions are more likely to serve the music well. (And, the artist + producer are going to be more able to evaluate my work in that regard). If, on the other hand, I’m stuck trying to fix problems for hours, make sounds fit together that just weren’t meant to, that will rapidly wear me out. I’ll do it if I have to, but that’s not the best use of your mixing budget.
5. Along the same lines, a good rough mix lets me focus that finite time/energy on things that the artist/producer *can’t* do, or *don’t know how* to do, instead of spending time on things that they just didn’t bother to do. I can dial in sub energy in a way that’s not really possible in most production studios. I can make half-decibel decisions on treble frequencies or vocal levels. I can fine-tune the M/S balance, or nitpick the differences between four different flavors of saturation.
Many of my professional clients send me sessions that already sound halfway mixed, even before I mix. It’s often misleading to call their work a “rough mix” at all. For their projects, it’s really more accurate to think of their mix work as a production mix. And sometimes, in the best cases, those mixes are good enough where they could be released as-is. That’s a good thing all around, because it means the parts of your production that you are most attached to are now far more likely to remain intact throughout the mix.
Think of it like running a relay race: The more you do up front before you hand off the session to me, the further ahead you are. Technically it also means I don’t have to work quite as hard to get to the finish line on time, and so you're perhaps paying the same money even though I get done faster. But that’s alright. Because it also means we’re further along, that we’ll end up with a better result in the end. There's much less guesswork, so there's a much greater chance I'll be able to serve the song in the most helpful way.