New Year, New Workflow? · Mastering.com Members Club

New Year, New Workflow?

WARNING: Long-ish philosophical post ahead.

I've been watching interviews with famous mixers over the holidays and got to thinking about how much recording has changed since I started in the 80s on analog gear. The hardware (or lack thereof) forced you to work in a more organic way than we do today. Musicians AND engineers had to have more of a "performance" mindset. You, on both sides of the glass, had to deliver the goods when the red light went on.

I'm not sure that the current, almost limitless, power of modern DAWs is a always a good thing for the music. Are we (musicians and engineers) using the power of our DAWs as a crutch? Is the chase for perfection sucking the soul out of the music?

Let's consider life in the (good?) old days of mid-level analog studios:

Analog tape decks provided either 16 or 24 mono tracks. I started with an 8 track. You needed to plan how to fit the arrangement on the the available tracks and the order they needed to be recorded. There wasn't room for every mic to have its own track so you had to commit to a live sub-mix (drums, backing vocals, multiple mics on a guitar cab, etc). Punch-ins required a small gap on either end of the bit you were fixing. Screw up the punch and you have to fix the track you stepped on (cue unhappy client) as there is no "undo". Printing effects and processing to an open track of tape freed up the hardware resource for other tracks. No dragging parts onto the grid to fix timing. No vocal tuning. No comping.

Your analog console had no automation, so doing a mix required memorizing a carefully orchestrated sequence of moves (fader, pan, EQ, FX, mute, etc.). It was not unusual for a track to have multiple instruments on it in different sections of the song (leave no tape unused!). To do a mix you played the console live like an instrument. I can think of several mix sessions with half the band learning mix moves, and who had to physically move where during the mix as we danced around each other at the board. You had limited amounts of rack gear (compressors, effect units, etc.) to patch into console. Plus, you had to commit to the mix before the next session because the board and your outboard gear didn't have any way to save/recall the settings. You could try to document every setting as a backup, but that was a huge amount of work (no taking photos with your phone). At best, I would finish a mix at night, leave everything running overnight, then check it with fresh ears the next morning.

So what workflow changes or limitations might we impose on ourselves to encourage fresh solutions? Here are some ideas:

* Only use the stock plugins in your DAW

* Use plugins that you don't normally use. Avoid your tried and true favorites.

* Try out a new DAW with a decidedly different UI/workflow. Most have free trial periods.

* Try to capture whole performances rather than creating a bride of Frankenstein track with hours of tedious editing.

* Let tracks be human/a bit imperfect. Emotion, not perfection, is the goal.

* Force yourself to use less tracks. Each track needs to pull its weight, so level up your arrangement skills.

* Make decisions when tracking because you can't (won't allow yourself to) fix it in the mix.

* Limit your use of plug-ins to simulate limited hardware resources.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we ignore 40 years of technological advancement, and paying clients get what paying clients want, but perhaps some self-imposed restraint and/or forcing ourselves to learn new tools and techniques might teach us how to do more with less.

Thoughts?

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