getting in the zone...

[LazyE]

i was just wondering what you guys do for getting in the mood for mixing?

by that i mean that we`ve all planned to take a day from work to spend time on our music, or set asside some time to get well into it but only to find that it just doesnt happen for some reason writing and recording music and mixing for me seem to happen when it happens rather than happens when i want it to happen?

i have lost count of the times i have decided to `get stuck in and finnish a song` only to realise that i`m sounding shit, my ears are off and my mixing is going further down the shitter every click of the mouse!
then theres the flip side when yu sit down for five mins and everything slots into place , you have sonic whale to dog range hearing (like fhumble lol)
and are able to mix , sing, record or whatever to a high standard.

i find if i`ve done a bit of exercise or been up early and been out working i tend to fare better than waking up on a pre determined day to do music.
i also find (and i`m not advertising getting pissed is good) that i work well with a hangover! maybe cos i`m more chilled out and usually quite manic.

was just wondering if you guys had any rituals or habits you like to do to get in the zone for that zen like mix?

come on, admit what strange compulsive dissorders help you mix well. i have a mate who is a bassist and before he records he likes to polish his bass first as he says it makes it happy!

[bozmillar]

I like this one. For me, it almost seems random. I don't think there's really much I can do to make myself feel creative. In that case, I've found that the best thing I can do when I'm not feeling creative is to not even try. For me, learning to recognize when I wasn't doing any good was the best thing that happened to my music.

If I sit down and try to write a song with the guitar and nothing good comes out, I can either switch to a different instrument and try again, or say screw it, I'm not recording, I'm just going to play the guitar for fun.

It sounds weird, but not giving myself any goals has been the best thing for my music.

[Radukku]

Since the Slate cup thing began all I need is the new tracks downloaded and someone to drag me off the computer...
When I mix everything else is when I have time and am in the 'mood'...I definitely can say I am NOT burned out nor bored...
...still so much to learn!!

[brandondrury]

i was just wondering what you guys do for getting in the mood for mixing?

It's amazing how a mix sounds exactly like my mood. I've seen it too many times. You can quantize my mood into "good" or "bad" in this case.

Unfortunately, I rarely have much time to choose when I mix. I just have to mix because of deadlines. The cool part of that is that since I've finally found a way to rationalize ditching the 250 things I feel I SHOULD be doing, I can actually relax and do my thing. I dig that.

When I know my mood isn't supportive of the task at hand, I abort pretty quickly most of the time. Coffee is a great way to put me in a good mood. It's a shame it's so short lived.

Brandon

[Firedance]

I absolutely always make sure there are no background lingering annoyances - e.g. If I feel I want a shave, feel a crap brewing, feel a bit hungry etc, I sort all this out beforehand.

Then, I simply wear loose fitting clothes and get slightly inebriated. Really. Two or three cans of beer guzzled greedily, then I'm in sipping mode and I'm ready to go.

Consistently, alcohol in relative moderation has been my most inspirational drug - forget everything else, it either made me too fast or too slow.

[DLChuckles]

I wish I had some ritual that would get me in the mood. Lately, I've been totally burnt out on mixing. I think it's because I consider it to be my strong suit when it comes to music making. My mind is wired to try and have everything be balanced. Since I see mixing as needing the least improvement, I have no desire to do it anymore. Right now, I just really want to do the engineering part of making records, but I have no musicians to work with. I know plenty and of them, but they all either hate recording (most of them), are lazy as hell (lots of overlap), or are to busy. so If I want to be able to play with microphones, I gotta play the instruments myself at the same time. Separately, I love each activity (playing instruments, less so), but I hate doing both simultaneously so effing much!

Anyway, I realize I still need to spend as much time as I can practicing all aspects of this stuff so I'm going to try and figure out something that triggers the desire to mix or even track things myself. Thanks for bringing this up. I hadn't thought about it before, but I think I needed to.

[PunkGuy]

For me it is not doing too much in one day. If I'm going to mix I really need all the raw tracks laid out before me, ready to go without having heard them already that day. That way I can let the mix speak to me rather than trying to tell the mix what it should sound like (to a reasonable extent of course.)

As the guitarist, drummer, bassist, vocalist, producer, mixing engineer, gopher boy, and janitor I find that doing too much in one day not only results in sloppy parts that don't sit right, but when it comes to mixing my brain tends to go into logic mode and ignore what my ears are trying to tell me. It's a big temptation for me to record the drum track and then say to myself, "I might as well get that initial compression and level adjustment out of the way so it's done." That sabotages my mixing. So I really get in the zone by not getting into the zone... until the zone is ready in all it's raw glory.

I hope someone is able to make sense of what I wrote, or maybe I really am crazy.

[Big Al Rocks]

...i have a mate who is a bassist and before he records he likes to polish his bass first...

This sounds like a euphemism to me!