Producing and Mixing

a producer is generally the person who has overall responsibility for the whole recording, mixing, etc., process. sometimes song selection and arranging too. maybe even songwriting. the producer is the big boss man, the final authority. but in practice, this can mean any number of things. some producers are hands on all the way, and might also serve as recording or mixing engineer. some producers are very hands off, leaving all the dirty work to the band and various engineers. some bands don't have producers. totally depends on the situation.

in sum: mixing is a specific task. producing is a general responsibility.

apologies for whatever part of that was blindingly obvious.

For example, if the CD is expected to be played on low-end equipment, he will EQ down much of the low and high end, boost the mids and apply high compression levels to make it sound best on those systems. For CD's expected to be played on high-end equipment, lower compression levels and more detail in the lows and highs will be applied.

For vinyl, he will decrease stereo separation (CD audio allows totally independent L & R channels, the physical limitations of vinyl playback only allow limited difference in volume/frequency range in L & R channels) and adjust compression to the width of the grooves and playback speed (45 rpm & short running time per side = wide grooves = higher possible sound levels, and vice-versa).

Just read Mark Yarm's grunge book and was reminded how much of the sound and success of Nevermind was down to Andy Wallace - for all Butch Vig's great work it didn't come together until the mixing stage. Also, with the Achtung Baby reissue, how much the sound of that record was defined by Flood ("dirty but expensive" as someone put it on an old AB thread) rather than Lanois and Eno. Are there many other examples of mix engineers being more influential than the producers?

unsung heroes

I pay close attention to songwriters and producers but rarely look at who mixed an album, despite having been told that the "sound" of a song or an album can often be attributed to the mixer. It is rather crazy that someone like Manny Marroquin has never been mentioned on this board (at least not based on a simple search) despite mixing an unbelievable number of ilm favorites (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manny_Marroquin#Discography). This can't be a coincidence, right? Are there certain mixers that any of you "follow?" Any explanation for why this critical part of how a record gets made is so infrequently given its due?

It's important to be sure, but all of the real musical & creative decisions have already been made by the time they get to it. Especially in a pop context, they're not producing or present during the recording sessions. They're handling the EQ, compression, balance, etc to make sure that what's already there sounds as good as possible. So it's important, but an incredible mix of a terrible song (or a song you don't like) is basically nothing. Would you listen to a record based on who mastered it, or watch a movie for the sound mixer?

That said there might be some exceptions...I like Shawn Everett's mixing and he generally works on interesting records, so I might check something out that he worked on. But he's also often involved as an engineer and producer throughout the making of the record (and those are the records he's most closely associated with). Or I might check out a jazz record that Tchad Blake mixed because that promises something novel. But most people aren't going to care about the specific sheen on a pop record, which is always going to have pros working on the mix.

I also think pop mixers are different from A) the old days, where someone like Teo Macero or Rudy Van Gelder would engineer both the recording and mixing (and a lot more mixing was done as part of the recording process), or B) the newer model where "producer" means someone making all of the music electronically, who is often (but not always) mixing as part of the production.

And also the job of someone like Manny is *not* to put a personal stamp on it, just to elevate what the producers did. And maybe someone like Shawn Everett is an outlier, in that he became known for an idiosyncratic approach, and then people started coming to him because they wanted a more transformative mix?