Unheavy Music!

Since we've been mixing and mastering for our clients, we've noticed a pattern evolving in the type of music we typically work on. At first it was hard to categorise, as we cross a variety of genres, but there always remained a commonality between our clients' tracks. So eventually we came to the conclusion that we specialise in unheavy music. There are other studios out there that specialise in heavy music, including metal, rock, punk, and all of the sub genres; heavy music is mostly easy to identify, and asking almost anyone on the street what "heavy music" means will almost always get a pretty accurate representation; loud, distortion, thumping, shouting, are all examples that immediately give without much thought, along with all the bands that you might associate with the "heavy" label. Although we realise that people might not necessarily identify with the term unheavy, it's one that seems to describe the vast majority of the artists we work with. Whether it be classical score and epic, or singer-songwriter, alt-country, or many of the other genres that rely on clarity, and shine to reveal and enhance the natural essence of an artists music. So if you have unheavy music that needs mixing, now you know we're here for you! Do you think that unheavy is a label that speaks for itself? I wish you all the best on your musical journey.

Image provided by Ilya Gorborukov @ilyagorborukov

What about the notes you don't play?

I've briefly mentioned the subject of this in other places before, especially when talking about orchestration and arrangement. I think this is something that composers often overlook when sending their pieces out to be mixed. Mixing and orchestration are stablemates, they are in many ways similar, but they take place during different parts of the audio process. In mixing, a lot of our work is spent, not only enhancing what should be emphasised, and accented, but equally important is the work we do deciding what should be suppressed, or even removed because it doesn't serve the song. Another correlation is that it's likely the same time, effort, and attention to this will be required no matter where it happens. That is to say, that the more time you spend on the front end during composition with careful planning of the orchestration so there is breathing space for everything and all the parts support each other well, the less time the mixing engineer will be required to spend making these same artistic decisions. This is what the title is referring to. I love complex, well written pieces of music, but sometimes it's easy to get carried away and build layer upon layer of our favourite instruments, until we end up filling all the available space, and we end up suffocating the idea that we began with. If we leave space, room for the piece to breathe, and space to highlight the interaction between the sections, it brings life to the music, and ensures that your creation remains true to the original concept you imagined.

Chapter 7 of the Tao te Ching says:

Thirty spokes unite at the single hub;

It is the empty space which makes the wheel useful.

Mold clay to form a bowl;

It is the empty space which makes the bowl useful.

Cut out windows and doors;

It is the empty space which makes the room useful.

Are you leaving enough space to ensure the utility of your creation? I wish you all the best on your musical journey.

Image Courtesy of Erica Tan - https://www.instagram.com/ericatan5566/

It's More Than Just Playing

Here at P25 we have the opportunity to work with some amazingly talented musicians and composers. Clearly they all practice, some work harder than others, some are driven, others prefer to see which way the wind blows them, but they all have one thing in common; practice. But there are different kinds of practice, and one of ways we like to work on serving our clients better is with deliberate practice. This is something that has made such a huge difference to the way we mix for our customers that we thought we'd share it. We all have those times when we just pick up an instrument and play it, just for fun. We run through some of the tunes we know, drop some extra chords or some back beat in there but just generally just have fun. Then there's the other kind of practice, which is deliberate practice, this is a special kind of practice, as discussed in books such as Peak by Anders Ericsson, where we choose, a very specific skill to work on, which could be a new scale, or learning intermodal chord substitutions, or a new EQ technique. We then study that technique specifically until we get it down, and learn it so well that it becomes a part of our technique toolbox that we can call on at anytime. By making time for deliberate practice as a part of your regular practice routine, you always can be sure that you're reaching outside of your comfort zone and growing as an artist. Growing as an artist means we are in greater demand for our skills, and are generally more fulfilled, and with a larger toolbox of techniques can better express ourselves in our art, and that's something all artists want, isn't it? We wish you all the best on your musical journey!

Image by Jallen Fosati - https://unsplash.com/@jallen