10 Mixing Tips in 10 Days: Day Nine - Limiting Yourself

Hello and welcome to day nine of the 10 Mixing Tips in 10 Days series! This has been fun and there's only one more day left in the series. I'm sad, but it's okay.

Today we're going to talk about something super important! This is less of a mixing technique and more of a personal and psychological technique. I want to talk about limiting the amount of plugins you have as a mix engineer.

Mixing Tip:

Limit your plugins as a mix engineer to improve on what you already own. 

So what do I mean when I say, "limit your plugins?" I simply mean don't get overwhelmed with too many choices. I've seen far too many mix engineers have twenty compressors and twenty EQ plugins and they can never decide what to use and when. They are okay at using a bunch of them but not great at any of them. You do not want to be in this position. 

When we have too many choices we are less likely to spend as much time on the individual options. We want to try out everything. One day we may be using our CLA compressors and then we decide to switch to some waves plugins. We are tempted to hop back and forth, always questioning what sounds good. My suggestion to you is to stick with just a few plugins and master them. Learn them in and out and how to use them on any kind of track. Don't try and be a jack of all trades but learn to master a few things. (This same advice goes for hardware as well.)

Now don't get me wrong. There are certainly a lot of great plugins out there that are very good for specific scenarios. And let's face it, it's fun to try out new plugins. I love getting a sweet new compressor that I just can't wait to slap on a vocal and see what it does. However, as we constantly get new plugins we start to think that we can get better sounds by focusing on externals instead of internals. The externals are things like plugins, hardware, microphones, software, etc. The internals are things like your ears, personal skill, and experience as an engineer. 

It's important that we learn how to do great with limitations. Every great mixing engineer could probably do an amazing mix with very little plugins. This is because they have the internals right. They aren't banking on particular plugins and externals to get them what they want. 

So next time you are in your DAW, try limiting yourself to two to three plugins. Spend time learning them and using them on different tracks and really begin to master them. Over time you will start to depend more on your individual skill and hearing than external factors. 

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