Today, I feel we really clicked as a group to mix a song. Our instructor Ariel gave us a lot of space to work together and the ideas and discussions were plentiful and on point. The track was solid and gave us a great starting point. I think whats most exciting is the opportunity to get creative with the mix not only in terms of setting various parts in their respective places in the mix via volume, panning, compression, limiting but also providing some real personality to the track by using delays, filters and other time based modules. We spent about 3 hours working on it, and ended by taking one of the key parts and via a creative use of plugins, especially DevilLoc and Crystalizer getting a solid dubbed out effect that cemented the whole piece.
A key lesson today was to know BEFORE you add a plugin what it is you want to do with the element you are working on ( bring it up in the mix, bury it, design it) and to understand what the plugin will do in order to get you there. Even more important is to know when to stop, recognize you ae going up the wrong path, re-group and try something else.
The excitement and emotional feeling you get when a song clicks together was palpable today in class. It's one of those feelings that reminds you just how much joy there is in creativity and why its worth it to go through all of the struggles to do it. .