Thoughts during mixing

[Last]

Sometimes while I mix(actually quite often)I for whatever reason focus on a sound or texture in a specific context and it triggers vivid flashbacks to various times and places in my life.

I dont mean the usual,o yea,I got my first kiss during that song kind of thing,I mean virtual transportation to a moment triggered by a specific sound or combination of sounds.It used to freak me out because I would spend days for example brooding over a specific day in pre-school,or a conversation with a receptionist a few years ago or whatever,until I finished the song and put it away.

I have learned to latch on to these now and use them as a kind of guage for the direction of the mix...kinda like paint by memories lol...."a little less hide and seek in spring'78 on the snare and more college hamburgers on the guitar,and a lot more of the girl I ditched in kindergarten on the reverb there"

I was wondering if this is weird or if anyone else has this experience also.I think its not un-natural for people who are focused on the audio side of the world to have much of their brains set up around it.Of course it plays hell on comunication if you have worked alone for a while and then have to work with another engineer [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[Roy Howell]

I can absolutely relate. There are certain soulful places I can go when I'm playing slide, for instance.
When I was a teenager, I saw 'Of Mice and Men', and I felt so sad when the character George had to shoot his friend, Lenny. I went to my room, and listened to 'Fool on the Hill'/Beatles, which has this clumsy, but beautiful flutelike solo. I listened to it over and over. Well, I held on to how I felt at that time, and believe me, it works.

[Captain_Pants]

-Roy, Of Mice and Men was one of (in my opinion) the greatest shows I have ever seen. It really gave me a good insight into theatre. Just thought I would stick that in there.

Onto the original question. I dont know if certain sounds take me mentally to places as much as the whole feeling of the song. I do know of one certain sound that will always take me to a place. It was about 4 years ago. I was messing around on the synth looking for a sound, and at the exact same second I looked up at my cat, just staring out the window into the rain, and at that moment, this perfect sound and chord progression came up. It was like an old Shakurkah(sp?) flute sound. Whenever I hear that, it will take me to that place. Well, Ive Led Zepped and rambled on...

=-Ben

[Okion]

"I was wondering if this is weird"

Uh..yea..it is, ....

however, I do the same sort of stuff. Anything that is creative and requires consentration does this.

The only problem is you can get maried to your work this way.

With Art and Music, I don't think this is always a bad thing. Actualy I never think that it is, with anything.

But this allways get's me in trouble.

My biography should be subtitled, "does not play well with others".

[Gr0und_Zer0]

Well, when I'm mixing on my own, I think things like:

"Hm... Q could be better on that frequency... Damn she's a nice girl. That reverb sucks! Let's increase the predelay time. Where was I last weekend? Got to do some more research on compressing/expanding, cause I don't understand why that snare track sounds like **** . I can't get it right. Boost at 12kHz... Should I switch to Cubase SX? When I'm finished bouncing this song to disk I'm gonna call her and ask her out. Ah, gotta take a dumb!"

Something like that! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] .