Adaptable Mixing

Do you still listen to the radio?

I do. But not near as much as I did say, five or ten years ago. I mainly now listen to music on my iPhone or computer at home.

So what does this mean for us as mixing and recording engineers?

Well, one thing it means is that we need to make our mixes more adaptable. Let me explain.

When your audience is primarily listening to the radio, they are more than likely hearing genre specific music. There are rock stations, hip hop stations, country stations, etc that focus their music primarily on a particular genre. So if you were mixing a rock song, you knew that more than likely that song would be played before or after another rock song, or at least a song pretty close to it.

However, today that is no longer the case. With more and more people abandoning radio and listening primarily to their own mixes, the genre continuity is disappearing. What this means is that our mixes need to be able to flow seamlessly from one genre to the next. If they don't, they may stand out in a negative way. This is why we need to make our mixes adaptable.

So how can we make our mixes adaptable?

One way you can make your mixes more adaptable is simply to think ahead when you are mixing. As you are EQ'ing your kick drum, maybe pull in some reference tracks from a few different genres and find a sound that you think fits seamlessly with all of them. Now, obviously you don't want to make it sound like a genre it's not. The goal is to make the transition more seamless and less brunt.

I believe that by doing this we can stay ahead of the curve, or at least with the curve in an ever so fast changing industry.

So next time your mixing, think ahead and try to make your mixes adaptable.

Mixing - Editing - Mastering