DKA
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
Steven,
One of the biggest questions I've always had concerning professional surround mixes is the differences in approach which exist among mixers. Listening to many of your mixes, it is clear to me that your approach favors the isolation of a vocal, and some light and pertinent instrumentation, in the center channel, allowing for greater differentiation in the soundfield, whether the track is one with with denser instrumentation or a sparer mix.
As someone whose main hobby is to try to build surround mixes from stereo, it perplexes me when I hear a professional surround mix doesn't try to accomplish what you seem to be setting out to do but, rather, seems to just widen the soundfield without any real differentiation. I feel like those mixes (which include some recent biggies such as the Pink Floyd Guthrie mixes, all of the Rush mixes, and Bowie's "Station to Station," amongst others) completely miss the opportunity to provide the listener with any sort of new, or worthwhile, listening experience. Even when working from stereo, I can extract more actual separation and differentiation of instruments/vocals than these "from multitrack" mixes are offering.
My question(s) is/are this: Why do some professional mixers prefer to work in this manner? What is your feeling on mixing in this manner?
Thanks for taking the time to take some fan questions.
DKA
One of the biggest questions I've always had concerning professional surround mixes is the differences in approach which exist among mixers. Listening to many of your mixes, it is clear to me that your approach favors the isolation of a vocal, and some light and pertinent instrumentation, in the center channel, allowing for greater differentiation in the soundfield, whether the track is one with with denser instrumentation or a sparer mix.
As someone whose main hobby is to try to build surround mixes from stereo, it perplexes me when I hear a professional surround mix doesn't try to accomplish what you seem to be setting out to do but, rather, seems to just widen the soundfield without any real differentiation. I feel like those mixes (which include some recent biggies such as the Pink Floyd Guthrie mixes, all of the Rush mixes, and Bowie's "Station to Station," amongst others) completely miss the opportunity to provide the listener with any sort of new, or worthwhile, listening experience. Even when working from stereo, I can extract more actual separation and differentiation of instruments/vocals than these "from multitrack" mixes are offering.
My question(s) is/are this: Why do some professional mixers prefer to work in this manner? What is your feeling on mixing in this manner?
Thanks for taking the time to take some fan questions.
DKA