Mixing With Fresh Ears

On the first night of the mixing process, Peter and I were alone in the studio. There were a lot of things we needed to discuss, and since I had decided that on this album, I was going to be actually doing most of the the mixing myself, I needed Peter to familiarize me with many of the controls and the new tools that were available to me at the studio...since it had been over a year since I had last been there to mix...and because the studio was in a constant state of being upgraded. At that time, all mixing of multitrack recordings had to be done manually...and with twenty four sliding volume faders, it soon became obvious that there would times when we would need two sets of hands on the controls, and Peter was much more experienced at working with this equipment that I was. I was glad that he was very agreeable to allowing me to have a free hand to do what I wanted...but I was also very appreciative of his skills...his ear and his experience were invaluable in helping me to pull the sounds out of the dry recordings we were starting with. We communicated very well on many levels...and although some of the musical goals we talked about were abstract, and were sometimes difficult to put into words...Peter always seemed to know exactly what I wanted. In the years since...the invention of computer-controlled motorized faders has greatly simplified the process...but back then, not moving a fader or dial enough, or too much, at any given moment...meant the "take" had to be done again. There was a lot of trial and error in the beginning of the mixing sessions...but like anything else...the more one does something...the easier it gets.

Drum mixes are always the first thing that are adjusted during a mixing session. We used ten different tracks on the drums alone, since each drum or cymbal essentially had its own microphone. We adjusted the EQ's on the bass drum first, and then continued that process on all the various drum tracks on the recording...the snare drum had two tracks, one for the top and bottom heads on the drum, and those heads sound totally different from each other...which enabled us to blend the two snare tracks to get just the right sound...and then we moved through all the various toms, the high hat, and finally the overhead condenser mic tracks, which picked up the various cymbals. We experimented with compressors on some of the drums, too...and also applied effects on some of the tracks. Since it was the very first night, and since all drum sets are different, and are tuned the way the drummer who is playing them wants them to sound...Tommy's drums were very different from what Barry's had sounded like in the original band sessions (and how Gene's would, when we got to the songs he had played on... and I knew that a different formula would have to be created for Gene's drums, since he had played on the majority of the songs on this album, and I wanted the drum sound to be as consistent as possible for the entire album). We spent a lot of that first night getting a "formula" that we could use as a starting point for all the drum mixes that would follow...at least for the songs Tommy had played on, and after six hours...I noticed it was getting difficult to hear things the way they really were...partly because I liked to mix at fairly high volume...and after a few hours of doing that, the human ear loses the abilty to hear some of the higher frequencies. Our ears just didn't hear things the same way as they had when our ears were "fresh." We got a mix that we thought we were happy with, and decided to call it an early night...and start again the next day. When we returned on the following night and listened to what we had mixed the night before, we both realized that with "fresh ears," we weren't happy with what we had...things sounded different than thay had the night before, even after six hours of work. I learned that fresh ears are crucial to hearing and mixing...but the good news was...that the more Peter and I worked together...the faster we got at being able to "dial in" a good sounding mix...and eventually, we got it right. I also found that on each successive song we worked on...the entire process got faster and easier.