Next Time You Mix, Close Your Eyes

I want you to try something next time you sit down to mix. I want you to close your eyes. You might be thinking, "why would I close my eyes?" But you see the point is not your eyes, it's your ears. In the digital age of mixing, we've gotten so used to seeing our plugins work that we've started to rely on our eyes more than our ears. In music, this can be disastrous.

Why should I not use my eyes? 

Firstly, I wouldn't say to completely quit using your eyes. It would be silly to do that. We need to still rely on what we can to get a good mix. Sometimes visuals help us to understand what is going on. However, our ears need to take top priority. If we only use our eyes, we can be tempted to think that the sound is changing when it may not be. 

Let's say you are using a graphical EQ plugin. You are listening to the track and it's sounding like it needs some clarity and punch. At this point you'll probably want to add a high shelf or boost some around 2khz. So you grab your node or the knob and start pushing that curve up. If you use your eyes, you may start to see a huge curve before you get the sound you like and then you start backing off. If you use your ears, you won't quit boosting until it sounds like you want it to sound. Your eyes can fool you. 

Always let your ears have the final say. 

I'll be the first to say that I probably use my eyes too much. I love the way some plugins look and I like to see things at work. I like to watch my level meters bouncing up and down and sometimes it actually helps me to a better mix engineer. However, when making decisions I have to remember to let me ears get the final word. If it doesn't sound good, it doesn't matter what it looks like. People don't look at songs, they listen to them. 

Next time you sit down to mix, try closing eyes and your mixes will improve. 

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