Learning To Hear

While much of the content here will be devoted to very concrete tools and techniques, I will also frequently delve into the philosophy and mindset behind mixing. After all, mixing is fundamentally a mental process, a gradual accumulation of a million tiny decisions. It would be impossible (or at least very difficult!) to describe each and every one of these, so I think it's essential to instill a mindset that equips the aspiring mixer to fight this battle... Or rather, to flow through the process of making these decisions.

I find mixing to be very meditative. When you're in the right headspace, and you have the vision, the mix will tell you what needs to be done. It really becomes a matter of listening. Learning to listen, however, is a truly challenging process.

The human sense of hearing is taken wildly for granted. In our daily lives, most of us pay far less attention to what we hear than we do to what we see, for instance. Less of our conscious mind is directed there, and more takes place automatically. When people speak, we instantly focus on the language. When we hear a sound, we instantly link it to an object (such as a car, or a dog, or a freshly opened can of beer) without much additional analysis.

Our brains, however, gather much more information from what we hear than we are aware. Your unconscious is keenly aware of tone of voice and inflection when someone speaks, for example. This informs your emotional response to what's being said, whether you're aware of it or not. The sound of a car passing on the street is automatically localized (meaning, you can tell where the car is), the Doppler shift in pitch tells you something about it's trajectory (is it coming towards you, or passing nearby), and your brain instantly gives you a sense of distance based on the volume and ambience (how much time to do you have to jump out of the way!).

So there's a vast amount of information that is available in what we hear that we usually don't pay attention to. With practice, however, you can train your attention and expand your understanding of what you're hearing. This is true when listening to the amazingly complex variety of sounds out in the world, as well as much simpler things, like how a compressor is affecting the snare track.  A great mixer utilizes this understanding to paint the picture between the speakers. So ultimately, your ability to mix is determined by your ability to listen... to hear and process this information that you normally don't pay attention to.

By now, the reason for my choice of titles for this blog ("Zen Mixing") should be clear!