Elements of Mixing Seminar 2

New Promo video for Elements of Mixing seminar May 25th in New York City.

Selective Focus

Much of what I do as a mixer over the course of developing a finished mix for a song is what i call Selective Focus. It's basically a glorified term for paying attention to one thing, or maby two things at a time while listening to playback. When I begin a mix, I always start with all the faders at unity and I start to sort of clumsily put together a perspective for the song, moving elements like bass, drums, guitars, and keys into a rough perspective. From that point on, I begin "shaving" off elements either by doing individual fader passes on the part, say the lead Vocal, while also paying attention to other tangential parts, like say a piano accompaniment on guitar lick that supports the vocal. I have always closed my eyes while riding things because it eliminates many of the things that might be getting in the way of my concentration.
it is a technique that sort of came to my by osmosis, I just found that once I began closing my eyes while focusing that it was easier to "see" the image of the element that I was riding, in this case the lead vocal. Once I have a decent balance on the lead vocal, I sortof place the backgrounds in the back of the mix and then begin the process of bringing out the elements that I feel are important to the listener.

Obviously, if the band or performer play guitar or piano or other lead instrument, that instrument is going to take nearly top billing next to the lead vocal. I think about the Edge and Bono, or Tori Amos and her piano playing, or James Taylor and his acoustic guitar. These elements do a contrapuntal dance through the course of the song. The current project I'm working on for Geffen records is a 19 year old operatic tenor, Griffith Frank, who is the son of legendary synth-pop R and B genius David Frank, who's band The System, had a string of hits in the 80's. David wrote nearly half the songs on the album, and plays piano on quite a bit of the record. In addition, there are some amazing orchestrations by Jeremy Lubbock, who I believe is one of the greatest living orchestrators. Part of my job is to navigate the constantly changing relationships between Griffith, David, and the Orchestra, all of whom may move into center stage at any moment for a beat or a bar.

This is where my technique of selective focus comes into play...I decide before I begin a playback of the song to focus my attention on one or two things at the most.
In this case , maybe the lead vocal and grand piano, who are doing a musical dance where the piano, if well excecuted, is nicely playing in the cracks around the vocal.
I close my eyes, get my ears squarely between the monitors and I focus my concentration on the two things Im thinking about, with my fader on whatever I'm riding. Once they get into wht I believe is a good perspective, I continue with the process with the next supporting instruments until everything is in good perspective.

I usually do this process many many times before using any EQ or COMPRESSION or other processing, particularly with liverecording that are phase sensitive, like Orchestras, Pianos, and Drums. Many mixers are happy to dive right in EQing the drums individually before getting a proper balance and perspective. The problem I have with that approach is that it immediately begins messing with the overall phase of the kit which makes it harder to "see" the images. The same happens with any stereo image when EQ is employed, because EQ is by definition accomplished by altering the phase. This is why many legendary recording engineers use little or no eq when recording live instruments. The same applies to mixing. Not so much with a mono instrument like a guitar, but definitely with multi miked things like drums and orchestra.