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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | GaryPig@aol.com |
| Subject | Re: The Art of Mixing |
| Date | Thu, 14 Apr 2005 13:34:18 EDT |
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<< Mixing is so subjective. One thing I learned about is "space".
It's imperative that the sounds all have their own space in the mix and not
cover up others within the same frequency area. It can be done, obviously, and
the best example I have is Pet Sounds. What an incredible example of getting
so many sounds on top of one-another(in mono) and still be so audibly
legible.
However, when you hear it in stereo you hear even more instrumentation.
There's just more room in the stereo mix for sounds to have their own sonic
"space". >>
But at the risk of opening that ol' Stereo vs Mono can-o-worms (yet again),
I truly believe that much of the magic of Pet Sounds, instrumentally
especially,
is how Brian wrote and arranged so many parts to play simultaneously
(ie: a banjo and harpsichord line playing in tandem)
with the pre-thought that said parts would ultimately be mixed down to a
single channel.
The result was a new sound -- a "banjo-chord," if it were.
Yet split and panned away from one another in a thirty-years-after-the-fact
stereo mix,
the "clarity" may indeed be newly there, but the magic is gone
(we now plainly hear, "oh! I get it: that's just a banjo and a harpsichord
playing in unison.")
I'm not quite sure it's always a good thing to have such "tricks" revealed
or, as someone once sneered re the Pet Sounds Box (and I paraphrase),
It's like taking apart a vintage car and spreading the parts all across the
garage floor:
We can now see what's under the hood, but that sucker no longer runs.
or,
I guess I just wasn't metaphor these times,
Gary "NP: the Baby I Love You sessions" Pig
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