The Art Of Mixing Bands You Don’t Like: Maintaining Objectivity
Can't get your head around certain music genres?
Whether you’re an engineer at a studio or a local venue doing FOH, mixing bands you don’t like is something you’ll be confronted with sooner or later.
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No matter how much you broaden your music taste, there will always be genres that don’t quite resonate for one reason or another. Perhaps the arrangements are overcrowded, or the aesthetic doesn’t agree with your musical instincts. However, mixing bands live or in studio is a job at the end of the day, and it’s about giving your clients the best result you can regardless of the music style.
Furthermore, dealing with musical material that is outside of your stylistic wheelhouse can make you a better engineer. You can improve your techniques, widen your sonic comfort zone, and become more professional through working in music scenes you wouldn’t usually delve into on your Spotify playlist.
Mixing Bands You Don’t Like: Separating Taste from Craft
The first obstacle is a psychological one, because when we dislike a particular genre, this bias tends to influence our decision-making process in one way or another. Our annoyance with certain elements may lead to them being overshadowed in the mix, or we can lose the emotional intent of the song, which is crucial.
The key is to reframe yourself as a translator of the music rather than a critic with a thousand unfavourable opinions. Whether live or in studio, your task is to channel the band’s vision from the rehearsal room or demo and turn it into a listening experience worthy of their audience. To do this, you’ll need to remove your personal genre preferences from the equation and focus on the quality of the clarity, depth, balance, and translation of the mix.
One exercise that can help is to single out an objective for each song, improving areas of the mix such as:
- Vocal intelligibility
- Low-end articulation
- Dynamics and overall impact
Tip: With a focus on tangible enhancements, your decisions are rooted in techniques within the structure of the mix instead of opinion.
Mixing Bands You Don’t Like: Defining the Artist’s Vision
When you have no natural allegiance to the music, the foundational qualities like clarity become essential. To align yourself with the band’s vision for a particular mix, start by having a conversation about:
- Their favourite reference tracks
- Where the song’s emotional core lies
- What are the most crucial elements in the song?
This takes a lot of guesswork out of the process, which prevents you from leaning toward your own aesthetic when mixing. Moreover, you become far more invested in the process, and it moves towards establishing trust with the band.
Tip: Before you start mixing, create a mix brief with a summary of the band’s priorities. This becomes a reference that you can revisit whenever you feel bias or fatigue creeping in, to refresh your perspective.
Mixing Bands You Don’t Like: Let References Be Your Guide
When you’re working in genres outside of your usual comfort zone, reference tracks are an invaluable tool for keeping you aligned with the expectations of a particular style of music. They provide a tonal and structural blueprint to work from.
When referencing, focus on:
- Balance between vocals and instruments
- Low-end definition and weight
- Brightness and transient characteristics (aggressive vs gentle)
- Spatial character and reverb types used
Tip: To avoid loudness bias, match the levels between refrences and switch between the tracks frequently. This will keep your ears refreshed and help prevent you from working toward your own personal taste.
Mixing Bands You Don’t Like: Methodical Process, Not Inspiration
When you connect with a song, the creative energy naturally flows. When you don’t, you can rely on the structure of a trusty workflow:
- Static level balance
- General cleanup (editing, noise, and phase issues)
- Tone sculpting
- Dynamics shaping
- Spatial processing
- Automation and overall enhancement
Tip: With a defined work structure, you can guarantee consistency even when you aren’t feeling particularly inspired. A step-by-step process also avoids decision fatigue, helping you focus on executing the task at hand.
Mixing Bands You Don’t Like: Find Something You Like
While a particular genre might not be your cup of tea, there’s always an aspect you can connect with. It could be a groove element, a lyric, a sound design decision, a gear choice, or a nuance within a performance. Seek, and ye shall find!
This shift towards connecting with the song emotionally, even to a small degree, will improve your decision-making while mixing. Rather than cold and technology error correcting, you can focus on highlighting musical moments.
Tip: Approach with curiosity, rather than admiration. A song doesn’t have to be your favourite to develop an interest in the musical mechanics.
Mixing Bands You Don’t Like: Don’t Over-Correct
When mixing, a trap we often fall into is the cycle of constantly trying to improve and enhance the song through moving it closer to our own personal preferences. This could be quantizing a groove that’s intended to be raw, making the mix darker when you deem it harsh, or simplifying an arrangement you think is too dense.
Keep in mind that the artist’s true authenticity always wins over your personal taste. When a band’s identity is captured on a rough mix or demo, use it as a template. Your enhancements should elevate and clarify the existing material, not redefine it.
Tip: Whenever you have doubts, simply ask yourself: “Does this decision serve the artist’s intent or my own comfort?”
Mixing Bands You Don’t Like: Transparent Communication
When the time comes to suggest changes, keep your feedback on the descriptive and objective side rather than being judgmental. Instead of saying “the guitars are too messy”, focus on the solution. “If we rhythmically tighten up the guitars, we’ll increase the overall impact of the chorus.”
Always use the tone of suggestion rather than the authoritative, as this comes across as a team member rather than someone critical. Good communication can turn a challenging clash of styles into a smooth and productive working relationship.
Mixing Bands You Don’t Like: Managing Your Energy
When you’re mixing songs you don’t personally enjoy, it can start to feel like a draining office job really quickly. However, you can avoid the slump through the careful structure of your sessions:
- Work in short, focused time blocks
- Take regular breaks to rest your ears
- Don’t only mix music you don’t enjoy! There must be some projects you do connect with in between.
Tip: With fresh ears, you can remain objective, which prevents the process from becoming mechanical or the mix becoming lifeless and uninspired.
Mixing Bands You Don’t Like: Think Of It As Upskilling Yourself
In every music genre, regardless of how unfamiliar, there is something new to learn:
- New arrangement standards
- Different vocal processing styles
- Alternative approaches to low-end or dynamics management
- Genre-specific production aesthetics
Exposure to a wide scope of musical styles can turn you into a faster and more flexible mix engineer. So many producers and engineers find techniques in less familiar music styles that become fundamental in their workflows.
Tip: Always think of it as training yourself rather than doing a chore.
Mixing Bands You Don’t Like: Know When To Pass
Regardless of the size of the project, there are times when the stylistic mismatch is so great that it will reduce your ability to do your best work. Perhaps you can’t get your head around the band’s vision, or you still feel like an outsider in the project, despite your best efforts.
It’s always more professional to step back than to try to push through without complete belief in your abilities. Rather than delivering a mix you can’t proudly add to your portfolio, simply recommend another engineer who you know fits the project better stylistically. When it’s framed around the best outcome of their projects, your clients will always appreciate honesty.
Mixing Bands You Don’t Like: Focus on the Outcome
In the end, your reputation and career are built on results and the success of outcomes rather than personal taste. Whether the song makes your private top 10 or not, creating an amazing mix that truly serves the artist leads other clients in your direction.
More than that, there is satisfaction and personal growth knowing that through your professionalism and skill, the project was elevated to a higher standard.
Mixing Bands You Don’t Like: Discomfort becomes Resiliance
When tasked with mixing a band you don’t particularly like, it becomes more about perspective than simply enduring the process. It’s important to shift from seeking your own enjoyment from the project to seeing how much value you can bring. In time, this elevates your skill level, as taste takes a back seat on the journey toward excellence.
Also, you’ll find that your music taste naturally becomes broader through the work. As we expose ourselves to new styles of music, our previously rigid preferences can be softened as we have a newfound appreciation of the art form.
Conclusion:
Loving the song you’re working on isn’t required to love the art of mixing. Through objectivity, clear communication, and good use of techniques, you can create mixes that blow your clients away and elevate the artist’s message. After all these years, music is still about relationships and collaboration. So the ability to put your personal taste to one side is essential in the process.
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