Can’t “match” my OTB mix

Regardless of ITB vs OTB one thing I think is really true is that fast mixes, where you’re shooting from the hip, making decisions and not overthinking things, often sound better. We very quickly loose reference and our ears/brian is so damn good at compensating for everything.

THIS

Spent years doing hybrid mixes and when I went totally ITB, my mixes improved.

Not saying the ITB change was what did it, but I think the change of workflow did.

Moving much faster, spending far less time auditioning hardware and tweaking small amounts that ultimately don't mean anything.

I will say that tons of hardware taught me a lot that I use in my ITB mixes, and that's probably why they're better, I know how to use the tools at hand and move a ton faster.

I had a console long before I had a DAW, so for me, it's always been in the picture.  It's not a majorly colorful console, but it has a sound.  When I added PT I decided to learn it and use for all the things one wants a PT for (esp recall).  Since the console was there, I use for summing and for mix bus inserts.  I used to use more outboard FX, and I'm thinking about a rewiring job to aid that.  So I think we're in similar lands, and I do think it helps. Or it makes me feel good that I use the console for something beyond tracking. 

It's quite wise how your phrased this. 'Feeling satisfaction' rather than 'delivering objectively better mixes'.

For me at least, when the hardware gear is special and simple in it's purpose I get tons of satisfaction from my mixes. When ITB I'm decidedly dissatisfied. I can't claim that my mixes are any different in quality. But, I work on a computer all day and the very last thing on the planet I want to do is create music on a computer as well.

And, I'll submit that getting satisfied with our mixing process (even if not the mixes themselves) ultimately helps make better mixes than one which frustrates us. It's a bit like the question of what exercise works best for someone to lose weight? Answer- the the exercise they enjoy and will stick with.

I started ITB back in.. 1998? I was an early ITB guy, but also saw right away plugins were a money grab. The first plugins I knew of had no GUI’s just some sliders. Everyone said they were terrible, but they worked fine to me! I felt if talent was there, then who cares?. But as soon as they made them with graphics like analog gear, engineers got hyped on them. Just combine a distortion plugin with an EQ shape, compression plugin, parallel processing or multiband, cover it in a pretty graphic= $$$

I could tell this is what many companies were doing, so I would make my own chains using boring stock plugins and free plugins, use parallel routing to create my own “LA2A” or “1073” or whatever sexy plugin of the day was. The more I did this, made my own recipes, the more I felt how fake it sounded. And also the more fake I noticed the expensive plugins sounding, just like my recipes. And at the time, lots of studios still used SSL consoles and was mastered on analog gear. So all plugins sounded like trash compared to any major release.

But then 2008 busted all the studios.. and in the recovery, ITB could be done on a MacBook, by anyone with ears. And then streaming music killed all music sales.. which allowed anyone at home using plugins could now be famous on social media. The craptastic ITB sound was now becoming norm, and the dense analog sound was old hat. The hollow lower mids and raspy top end became the hot thing. But also.. they could send that mix to a mastering guy and they’d run it through tubes and etc and give it a much improved song signature.

So sure the pros can work ITB and be happy. Headphones won’t reveal the difference much. They can let mastering give it some analog magic, or go straight to streaming community who will eat it up anyway, or not. No cost to throw it out there, no huge loss if nobody cares.

So yeah.. it’s been a 26 year battle in my head, lol.. never want to give up on ITB, never happy with it either 😂

Definitely I think a really talented mixer can make almost anything work. But if you’re gonna be comparing your mixes with professional mixers mixes (as I have) you’re gonna find differences that don’t necessarily come down to mix choice but rather come down to how it was recorded. Like, you can make a vocal recorded with a shitty mic shitty room work and sound good, but it won’t sound like a vocal recorded on a Elam 251 at sunset sound. Doesn’t mean your mix doesn’t pass the bar, just means you shouldn’t chase your tail trying to make it sound like the Elam 251 recorded at sunset sound, because you’re wasting your time.

I remember hearing a Weezer mix before Serban Ghenea mixed it, it already sounded fantastic and 95% of the way there, and people were praising serban for his genius work. The mix was already there, serban is obviously one of the best ever, but it's insightful to see what he was working with before he even lifted a finger. Anyway i think the higher quality the stems the less necessary outboard becomes. doesnt mean the same mix wouldnt be better from some outboard but pro mixers getting pro sessions from pro producers recorded in great rooms will be more likely to get a great ITB mix than someone mixing things ITB recorded in a garage, it was important for me to connect those dots so I wasn’t just thinking I was coming up short cause I sucked at mixing, it may just be the recordings

very often the first level mixers also have some outboard on the mixbus. and the mastering engineer as well. so we cannot name them 100% itb mixers/mixes. and mostly those few mix/master-chain gear sums up quickly to over 10.000€ …
so are we comparing that to a typically project-studio itb plugin mix/master? apples vs oranges …