Mixing: Organic Vs. Processed

One of the great tensions we feel as artists in the mixing process is this: How processed a sound do we want?

If you listen to older tunes, think Beatles or Rolling Stones, there were no computers to massage timing or tune vocals or automate every last breath and part. Those older tracks sound raw and unpolished by today’s standards. I took a spin through “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” recently and was stunned to hear the out of tune vocals, out of time hits, and several other “imperfections,” that would never, ever be allowed to stand on a current major label release. This is not to take anything away from The Beatles, it’s simply a reflection on how technology has changed our perception of how music is supposed to sound. Many argue that we’re choking the life out of our music by fixing all the imperfections, that it’s the imperfections themselves that make it musical.

Another common misconception is that processed mixing is only limited to hip-hop or electronic genres. Take any spin through most modern rock or pop tunes, and I could point out dozens of places where, once your ear is dialed in, you can hear the post-production. I have a friend who a story about a friend of his who worked on Shania Twain’s “Up” record. Now, to be fair, Up was a double record, with all the songs getting a pop and a country treatment, but according to someone who worked on the record, they had the computer count the number of manual edits made in post production, and the number exceeded 1,000,000. One million edits. One million times did a human being go in and “fix” something. These records sound “perfect.” There is nothing out of place. Are they great records? Dunno. That’s in the eye of the beholder. This story might just be lore, but the principle remains.

Even in the singer-songwriter genre, there’s no rule of thumb. To illustrate this, let’s take a look at two artists I greatly enjoy, and share a similar marketplace for their music, but whom have taken very different approaches to creating their music. We’re gonna look at Sara Barielles and Ray LaMontagne.

Take a spin through the iTunes demos for a sec, Sara here and Ray here.

What did you hear?

I hear Sara’s voice much hotter in the mix. I hear doubled vocals and more BGV stacks. I hear her voice more compressed, and brighter. I never hear her go out of tune. Every singer goes out of tune a little, I don’t care how good they are. I hear a shallower mix, with everything sounding like it’s on a flat plane.

What are the benefits of this? Well… for one, I think her record sounds great in the car. It’s loud, and bright. It cuts through and you hear it. I think it’s modern sounding… very now. Younger ears will be instantly comfortable with this sound. What are the downsides? Well, I don’t think it’s going to age terribly well, and keep in mind I like this record. I don’t think this uber-produced, uber-mixed sound is as musical as it should be. It’s all so… well… perfect.

On Ray’s music, I hear a softer, more pillowed sound. I hear vocals that fall further back into the mix. I hear drums that sound like they just have less processing on them. Drums just don’t have an equal balance between them without amplification and tweaking. I hear out of tune notes, and fewer overdubs. On at least one song, “Three More Days,” I hear the band picking up speed as they go, which tells me they weren’t tracking to click.

On the downside, I can tell you that Ray’s music doesn’t work if you have the windows down and you’re on the open road. Even if you have him cranked, the balances, more in their natural state, and you may find yourself reaching for the volume knob from passage to passage, as the mixing engineer has let the dynamic range vary even within individual tracks.

The other downside (or perhaps perceived downside) is that Ray’s music sounds “older.” The upside is that I think it will sound great 20 years from now. This is music to put on a great sounding pair of speakers, have a glass of wine (or even just a glass of tea), and chill out.

This brings us to The Dailies. We’re attempting to strike a middle ground. We don’t want you to “hear” the mix. We just want you to hear a great song. We’re not totally prepared, like Ray, to exist in a sound that would have felt perfectly at home in 1972, and again, that’s not to take anything away from a great artist whose music is relevant to me in this day and age.

Conversely, I don’t think we’re prepared to take it out to the bleeding edge like Sara did. We’ve tried to have our “Production moments” happen sparingly. For example, if you remember the song Signal Chain, Brian has put these huge, gorgeous delays on the chorus vocals. Are they organic? I dunno… Do they sound cool? You betcha.

On the last record, we had to use technology to fix the mistakes we made in the recording process. They weren’t the kind of mistakes that were good mistakes. They were bad mistakes. This time, we made fewer mistakes and are trying to use the technology to simply bring out the right bits of tasty goodness at the right moments. You will be our judges…