Mixing Secrets

PART 4

Sweetening to Taste

Once you've achieved a good balance, you're effectively on the home straight. Even if you do nothing else to the mix, your listener will at least hear everything on the multitrack clearly and at an appropriate level, and that should guarantee that the quality of the music comes across. Nonetheless, there are lots of bonus points to be gained in most productions by adding further “sweetening” effects to an already creditable balance, the aim being to present the recorded material in a more flattering light. As Lee DeCarlo explains, “Effects are makeup. It's cosmetic surgery. I can take a very great song, by a very great band, and mix it with no effects on it at all and it'll sound good, but I can take the same ...