Drift

The studio has taught me that a tiny drift over enough time can lead to big problems.

It’s important to revisit your recorded mixes the next day after a mixing session. The reason is that in long mix sessions, you can tend to drift away from your sonic ideal – through tiredness, overcorrection, or just getting overused to the mix. You might find, say, that your EQ is completely out of whack, or the balance of the drums and guitars is all wrong, or that you’ve added WAY too much reverb by adding an extra 1dB every half hour for three hours.

Fresh ears, the next day, invariably tell you everything you did wrong the day before. Usually, there are easy steps to take to correct the errors.

I think we can drift in the same way in our teaching – our center shifts, step by step, until our approach is distant from where our intentions were. It’s important, then, to take the “fresh ears” approach. Take advantage of a break – Spring Break, for instance – to refresh your viewpoint and readjust what you’re doing going forward.