Over the past 2-3 months, we’ve kept our doors closed (and handles sterilised) to performers and it’s been odd to not have musicians milling in and out of our studio over that time. However, the work certainly hasn’t stopped, so over the next few weeks, I’d like to create from posts going over a few things I’ve experienced regarding what Audio Work looks like when we aren’t all in the same spaces. First up…
Remote Mixing
This process actually works great and in fact, it’s even proving to have some advantages over mixing in attended studio sessions. Here are a few observations I’ve made from doing more of this work in isolation.
Previously, mixing would often involve an artist in the room, looking to make suggestions, provide feedback and identify issues as they hear them. Now, I’m going to let you in on a little secret here - at least 75% of the mixing process is SUPER BORING for most artists. There’s a reason you’re a creative soul and not the kind of person that will happily spend 15mins listening to the same looping section of a solo’d kick drum.
Feedback
I’ve found that the feedback we get from artists via remote mixing (using our online portal where you can timestamp your comments, compare revisions and upload reference files) is so much more concise, clear and focussed than the fatigued stream of consciousness that can be the result of 8 hours of listening to one song. When you’re listening objectively to a “finished mix” and seeing the big picture, you don’t need to obsess over the tiny details because we’ve already tackled most of that. All that remains by this point is to ensure the broad strokes are right and that the mix is representing the song properly as the sum of its parts.
Collaboration
This isn’t to say that it’s not possible to have a “virtually attended” session though and there are times this is absolutely the best way to go. This is where we host a video call with the production team whilst also providing a stream of full quality audio from our Pro Tools session via a simple link which can be opened by all of the participants in any browser. We’ve done a bunch of these lately and it’s been incredibly useful being able to bring people in from Nashville, New York, London and of course, Derby to work on songwriting and production together. These kinds of sessions where ongoing exploration is a crucial part of the process work in pretty much the same way as they might have if we were all in the same room, with the exception of all being responsible for our own coffee supplies.
Perception
One real advantage I’ve found during both unattended mixing (where a client listens to a mix after it’s uploaded, provides notes for revisions, etc) and real-time collaborative meetings, is that everyone is listening to the audio on a variety of speakers/headphones which they are familiar with! It’s like getting 4 or 5 extra sets of monitors in the studio to evaluate how well the mix “travels” in different playback scenarios. If a client says they’re not hearing enough bass, it might be that they’re listening on some old Apple earbuds, but hey, a lot of people still listen to music in exactly that way, so we should always strive to make it sound as good as it can regardless of the investment in speakers, headphones, subwoofers or gold plated, oxygen-free, £4000 digital cables (don’t buy these)!
Conclusion
If anything, I think we’re all getting better at distanced communication and saving ourselves a fair bit of time and stress in the process. Producing great audio is all about making the best decisions and implementing them quickly without compromising on results. Being able to collate the experiences of multiple people, listening to the playback systems they normally use to enjoy music on, has been hugely valuable at reminding me that we’re making music to find audiences everywhere.