Without PERSPECTIVE, Mixing is BRUTAL.

When we lose perspective, we can't tell if what we're doing is helping or hurting the mix. Gregory Scott, Kush Audio's plugin designer and analog snob, shares a bunch of ways we can restore lost perspective or, even better, improve the perspective we already have.
Support the show by checking out Kush's offerings at thehouseofkush.com !

[@zew4ful]

I don't even know what mixing is but I like watching this man talk

[@Suba932]

🤣

[@QuantumOptix]

He's talking about baking

[@3lackwoodmusic]

This needs to be pinned

[@todddammit4628]

Lol I want to know what youtube algo brought you here

[@hamblok0]

Mixing is all about bodily fluids and how they interdependently interact inside the human body as well as outside, presumably in somebody else's body

[@KirbyE]

when my mix needed him the most, he returned

[@TheHouseofKushTV]

I never really left, if you listen carefully when you're mixing, I'm in the back of your mind, whispering random oblique strategies to keep things moving forward. 🤜🏻🤛🏽

[@sandymaryband]

@@TheHouseofKushTV Shit, you are there 😯

[@AndreaCipria]

@@TheHouseofKushTV I see that hidden Eno homage right there

[@frerikdejong]

I'm a conservatory trained recording engineer for 12 years, done hundreds of recordings of classical music. This guy though... gives me so much inspiration time after time. Pretty brilliant.

[@thedome765]

This is the most helpful channel in regards to the philosophy of mixing. I've watched many videos out there but these have definitely been the most helpful. Keep up the great work!

[@mattmorris8761]

I second that

[@Tobez]

It really is

[@joecapricorn24]

Totally agreed

[@poxleno]

He is unreal!

[@mirzaaljic]

I'm not even joking, I sometimes hear your voice giving me advice while I'm mixing. I guess my brain remembers all this cool information and stores it as an audio file somewhere.

[@erikvanzanen]

'Just feel how the attack makes the compressor ride that cymbal'

[@MM-vs2et]

Mine does the same, it compresses the hell out of it though, and It becomes unintelligible

[@joseromanparedes7298]

7:27 This is why we love this guy

[@thewardrums]

What i sometimes do, is i switch from my monitors to headphones, but i don't put the headphones on my head, just leave it on the desk and blast the volume of them a little bit. It's quiet, lowfi, and mono. Great perspective shift, nothing else needed.

[@TheHouseofKushTV]

Hilarious, because I just did that earlier this week for the first time, and by accident. My sound-isolating headphones that I use when tracking drums were across the room on the floor, I turned them up by mistake, and was like 'ohhh, that snare's way too loud!' 🤦🏾‍♀️

[@i-never-look-at-replies-lol]

In my lengthy history of making & recording music for myself...I finally mixed my first song "properly" only recently and I'm so proud of myself! I'm glad I have this channel!

[@silvenshadow]

Hey man, that's great to hear. Big cheers.

[@aaronbolte6391]

Same here! ❤️

[@richey_rock]

All of your videos give me a new/different perspective!

[@ontwerper]

Graphics artists sometimes flip their entire artboard (when working digitally) to learn which parts of the drawn perspective is correct and which isn't. Works beautifully for resetting your brain, so I can really imagine that for audio it works like that as well.

[@colonelw.g.sparkman6931]

This is one swell trick I’ve learned over the years: when checking for symmetry in the stereo image, monitor on headphones. There’s nothing like the old complete separation of left and right that headphones will bring to the table. It will quickly show you which areas of your mix are too heavy left or right. You can make adjustments quickly and move on. Having said that, I would never want to make decisions regarding levels with headphones. Lord knows I’ve been down that path and left a wake of mistakes. When it comes to levels, I always use external monitors.😊

[@TheHouseofKushTV]

Headphones are amazing tools, but can be ridiculously deceptive, totally agreed! I will say that I can fuck up the imaging on them just as badly as monitors, because my hearing (frequency response) is so different in my ears. I really need meters to keep me honest!

[@sm5574]

I heard a song once that sounded good at normal volume, but when I turned it down the mix completely fell apart. Different instrument loudnesses, EQ changes, etc. What I think happened was, the song was mixed at a louder volume and the monitors were adding their own compression (playback systems compress long before they distort -- one reason why louder sounds better), so the mix engineer didn't add enough compression to the mix itself to glue everything together. Definitely, always reference at a lower volume!

[@lucmermans37]

I just love the way you keep talking about the groove and how important it is. I myself am super passionate about the groove of a song and really feel like a lot of it is lost in modern popular music. What I noticed on a lot of current remasters of old songs is that it might sound fuller and all but when compared to the original mix all of the groove and feel is lost.

[@TheHouseofKushTV]

Agreed! If the groove lives in the midrange, which it did on so many older recordings, then bumping up the smile eq just distracts me from the heart of it.

[@julesalexander2583]

I've missed you! Glad you're back. Keep them chakras buzzing. BTW, I always test my mixes on my wifes car, my daughters car, and my car. Perspective, perspective, perspective!

[@Writtenmirror]

Lord Raiden is back with another bag of gems for all us dwellers of earth realm

[@DerekES]

Who could dislike this, bros dropping gems 💎

[@silvenshadow]

Love this. I heard a story once someone presenting a demo for a big deal. The exec took a cheap boombox and put it at the other side of the room at a conversational volume to listen. He said if it didn't catch his ear like that, then he wasn't interested

[@mirzaaljic]

I wanna believe this story but to me it just sounds like one of those studio fairy tales that people like to tell. Unless you have a reference with a name, place and time when it happened.

[@silvenshadow]

@@mirzaaljic doubtful it really happened that way. Like one of those fish stories.

[@TheHouseofKushTV]

Oh no, it's absolutely true that well thru the 90's, A&R folks, scouts, and music supervisors listened to stuff on cassette on mediocre grotboxes in their office. The idea is that you want to hear and experience the song, not the production, which as often as not was crappy anyway because "demo". Sometime in the daw era we lost the art of the demo and everything had to sound like a record from day one, but it wasn't always that way.

[@unclemick-synths]

@@TheHouseofKushTV I agree. Demos give perspective on which songs are worthy of further effort.

[@cary3428]

@@TheHouseofKushTV 100% I’ve been in industry since 77 and engineering since ‘86. Today in my hybrid room I often encourage some clients to think more “ demo” like rather then straight from my little room to streaming. Which brings me to “ mastering “ services clients request and the little Indy rooms that say they can do it. Not where I come from, don’t get me going on home based “ mastering”. Your philosophy and style is much needed on YT. 🤘🏻🙏

[@ppppatcho]

Yayyyyyyy you're back!!!!

[@wrathofmaitreya3229]

Gregory nails it again. I purposely spend probably a hundred hours on a mix just because it feels good, it's blissful time to spend in my autistic bubble. Perspective becomes very rocky then. Thanks man.

[@monosbeats7398]

Another great video. My own personal list of what i do: - Listen to other music in between mixing. (When rendering. Loading. Grabbing water. Etc) This is something i started doing quite recently. Before i was to in the zone to tune in to anything else. In production or writing that's fine. In mixing you shouldn't get lost. You need to stay grounded. Works wonders. - In Studio one you can save mixer scenes which gives you the ability to A/B/C/D etc. different mixes on a pr channel basis. This way you can see when you messed up. - Audiomovers listen to is a VST that lets you stream your DAW audio directly to your phone. Vocal issues (to loud, harsh) really shines on phones. - Make buttons for soloing bands. (Low,mid,high) - Work with the stereo field in mono. That's a fun one. Make changes that won't change the mono mix to the worse. Then un-mono and have your mind blown by hearing the changes 😂 Really a win sometimes. - Harshness might lurk in the sides. Solo left/right/mid/side

[@spacey_face]

Just played a bunch of Sneaky Little Devil for my friends on our camping trip and now you have a bunch of new fans ;) Just put it on, let it play, and waited for them to ask, "Who is this? This is awesome!"

[@iamdannywyatt]

I don't know if anyone has ever made a comment about this, but I love the tension of the background music on every intro... you know that drum fill will come anytime soon, but the tension is what makes it even more special! 😉

[@bullsquid42]

I'm not a mixer, I'm a designer/artist, and it's endlessly fascinating to me how well these videos translate to other media. Like when you work on a picture, and you don't know what's wrong with it: Flip it around, look at it from far away, look at the negative ... It's pretty much the exact same tricks. And that goes for most of the videos. Just goes to show that art is art.

[@noblen6049]

Right? I'm here for mixing but realized fairly recently how much of it carries over to other creative things like photo/video. The ideas of balance, cohesiveness, and maintaining a true perspective have been very useful in many situations.

[@jasonmatthew8650]

I also do the same with drawings. I’m curious though, if you don’t mix why are you watching this vid

[@bullsquid42]

@@jasonmatthew8650 i find them quite fascinating and relaxing at the same time. Like, I know enough about audio editing to understand the vocabulary. But because it's not my field I don't feel the pressure to be productive. Just a nice chill way to think about the artistic process.

[@HumanBeingWithFeelings]

The more you learn the more difficult it gets to find good quality channels that have useful information, this is definitely one of them and I'm so happy I found it.Time to level up! :D I got very discouraged when I found out my hearing range is not quite up there where it should be for my age (missing 1500 Hertz or so of what I'm supposed to hear) and specially one of my ears is more limited than the other. Finding out about it really affected me psychologically , and seeing people who are very good at it, like yourself , having kind of similar issues and proving that we can rely on visual tools to compensate for it somehow is really uplifting. So a big THANK YOU for that and for all the good content on your channel (that I'll be devouring) You're a star!

[@vegasunderwater]

Been home recording since the days of splicing tape. Love this channel and the content. SUCH great advice and philosophies on this art. Thanks for the new upload!

[@Bthelick]

I would advocate the use of a cloud service like google drive, then you can quickly check any mixdowns on a phone, Bluetooth speaker, tv etc, also you get to walk around of move to another room whist doing that. Also I do the low playback level trick.

[@TheHouseofKushTV]

I use dropbox for exactly that.

[@BLOODLVL]

@@TheHouseofKushTV It's so nice coming across a mix unexpectedly in your drive or dropbox. Get a totally fresh perspective.

[@jjohnwords2873]

I do this with Google drive. Regular. I need to hear that on my phone... Especially for translating bass. I usually have a secondary bass which is just low mid range and push enough that you can hear it on these kind of things (my style of music is my sub heavy)

[@wilpharma16]

God himself did the acoustics of that room. Like. I watch these videos not just for the amazing info, but the amazing sound.

[@wrudzworld]

I get a dopamine spike every time I see a new video from my guy Greg!! Thanks a million for your perspective bro....very helpful!!

[@umanoid1523]

Great idea. I use a bunch of crappy speakers to do a mix check but they’re all nearby. One of them is a Bluetooth speaker which i could try moving to another location. I never considered swapping but it makes sense. When I’m drawing , illustrating, its good to flip your drawing to see wonkiness.

[@maxsink]

turning my head down while watching this video blew my mind

[@evidenz111]

Listening quiet does so much. Amount of times I mix music out loud at 3am, and keep turning it down till barely hear it. Next day things really bang, usually few clicks away from finishing mix.

[@baldmandoom]

Last night I was talking with a friend who mentioned a lot of graphic designers have a keyboard shortcut set to temporarily mirror things they're working on, just to get another perspective. I knew about downmixing to mono, other monitors, etc but I never thought about swapping channels, this is a great tip as usual! Thank you

[@Bthelick]

when I first moved up to good monitors (Adam S3) in a proper control room, it still took me years to realise that being able to hear everything so clearly means you can't balance any easier! as you now think everything is loud enough because you can hear everything! you need all the tricks in the book. cheers for that tip.

[@vitalymatveev1084]

Thanks, Greg, spot on. As it usually is )))

[@freesouljah]

Top notch advice, as always!! 🙌

[@siangmingalexlau8220]

That "leaning forward and looking down" trick works for me when troubleshooting tweeter problems in home audio systems. Glad that you brought it up!

[@wjniemi]

Love it. Thanks, Gregory!

[@handbookofmagic]

Great episode, as always!

[@ThomasHartStudios]

Great vids. Keep em coming !!

[@ScarlettTheViewer]

Your advice has been so helpful for me. I'm trying to be somewhat competent in writing, recording, mixing, and mastering my own music. It's tough for sure

[@alinenunez4270]

I would suggest to someone master. Your music perspective is everything when It comes down to music mixining and mastering

[@TheWstawNazwe]

@@alinenunez4270 i agree, feedback from somebody competent in audio production field is crucial before release, your music will be better, faster ;)

[@limitisillusion7]

I progress very slowly, like stupid slow. I can sit and hum melodies into mics for hours and might not come up with anything. But it does always come eventually . Ill skip around to different songs if i feel stuck.

[@limitisillusion7]

But ive got no excuses. Ive got all the equipment in my basement and if i grind, good stuff turns up.

[@ryanprice9841]

This is the kind of information i was looking for. Thank you so much for sharing!

[@c0ns1d1ne]

Always interesting, always useful. Thanks!

[@ViktorNova]

Amazing as always. Thank you for sharing your wisdom!

[@zackperkins6107]

This is like therapy to me. Great stuff man!

[@acupuncturmusic]

Thanks, mix Jesus

[@billtanno8960]

As always.. some of the best content on the internet. Thank you.

[@HardwiredMusicMaker]

As always, great thoughts - love the speaker swap idea

[@jasonmatthew8650]

This guy has such great tips and it’s relaxing how chill he is.

[@jeremyholcombe3202]

Great stuff Greg. Thank you very much. All the best to you and yours.

[@BorisBarroso]

As always it's great to have new perspective

[@blackvelvetbutterfly7504]

Yay I'm happy you're back. Was wondering when you were going to drop the next video. Interesting topic as always.

[@alinenunez4270]

Glad you are back. Thank you for your awesome tutorials

[@jeffrodvold3524]

I love is philosophical approach to a technically challenging concept.....Gregory your part guru part cult leader but completely real and authentic.....love your mindset.

[@DuceIRae]

great video. been mixing and making music for 20 years now .. just earned my sub. thanks for the good video

[@jasonmadden3615]

Thank you so much for keeping up your videos. The thing I love about them is that you are always talking about perspective. It always reignites my love for mixing.

[@radorado666]

Another great video, awesome advice. Thank you, Gregory

[@BlanktonMees]

Thank you! It helped a big time. May the force be with you :)

[@Sokolemon]

Love it, great advice Gregor!

[@mrnelsonius5631]

I thought I was a weirdo for switching left and right channels! For me it’s a “dirty hack” for the problems in my room. I know what the problems are, just not in a position to completely fix them in my home studio. So when I’m doing late stage mixing I have a utility plug-in end of chains to check mono compatibility (and general balance without the stereo trickery), and after that I swap channels. It’s saved my mix so many times! I also wont send a track out until I’ve referenced it in my wife’s 2011 Subaru Outback. It’s gonna go soon and I’m going to be without my crappiest but most helpful reference!

[@jwilliams6976]

Once again more great advice on engineering beyond the usual. The nuances that are so very important, much thanks

[@Kevlexicon]

i think mixerman's book mentions that high freqs are more directional, lows are more omnidirectional. and for music to be played in an average/below average mixing environment, he recommends focusing on the midrange and not letting the dynamics go past like 4dB between parts. coz u wont hear em on garbage speakers. recommends using diff technicques, panning, balance, depth/reflections, to provide contrast, without super dramatic literal dynamics changing (in terms of dB level.) more about the perception* of dynamics/contrast

[@Tobez]

Every video of yours has me walking away inspired and with a fresh perspective. I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts with us, Mr.Kush-man

[@kshep39]

Always great stuff Gregory. Going to try the left/right swap for sure, never really thought about doing that before

[@NotAshamedOfficial]

I do a lot of these, but some new things here as well! Great info as always!

[@richardtyler5076]

Brilliant as usual

[@varunmehramusic]

It's like you're speaking directly to me. Like exactly the things I want to understand. Just can't thank you enough for the "PERSPECTIVES" you give

[@rdropcuff]

kush, your "perspective" is incredible. this is one of the best channels on youtube and I am so grateful to have found it. this was probably my 30th video of yours since i found you in the winter. great content. ty, keep it up.

[@inmemoryofin]

Excellent video, thank you

[@roberteismann1929]

Thanks for the continuing enlightenment Sensei Gregory.

[@cymbals1111]

Hey Gregory, I really enjoy watching your videos. I may just spend an entire week watching them from the start until current.

[@johnsammers]

I love the fact you mix with your mind Gregory. Thanks for the great teaching.

[@AdiVAbdulsky]

Gosh how I just adore listening to Your perspectives. You coming from soooo 'different' angles on so common 'industry-wide' things. Thank You again, sir :) *bows*

[@drawnfromapathy1551]

A seemingly endless vault of valuable tidbits to teach our brains how to listen. One of my favorites is listening from another room entirely. Thanks again for doing what you do.

[@Rhythmattica]

I always swap L/R channels.. Actually in some cases automate it as part of my mixdown... Its suprising how the subtlety is a great mix tool. Love this channel.. Keep on Kushing.

[@bradzillarocks]

Stuff that seems so obvious once you hear it is what makes this channel so great. You're a guru, UBK.

[@claudiuseredinschi9043]

Congratulations for all yours professional advices...

[@spazimdam]

Ah another excellent tidbit from Gregory. Yes perspective is everything when it comes to mixing. Those are all very useful methods you've outlined for perspective shifting. I have used all of them, especially mixing at very low volume. Gives you a whole other interpretation of the mix. I really liked how you explained the physics of why this is so. People would do well to try these things. Cheers!

[@realityonx3063]

Sometimes what i do is flip headphones simply or listen to only one side and keep my one ear free

[@wrathofmaitreya3229]

Epic how the brain works. I'll often go sit in the next room. How the ears make sense of the sound, the brain looks for a focus.

[@chinmeysway]

Oh duh haha great idea!

[@KC-lg8qf]

Great advice as always

[@AKAtAGG]

I'm just about to start mixing an album for a new band and this video came along at the exact right time. Love your work.

[@hummer222]

The timing of your videos sometimes blows my mind more than the informative content. I'm in the process of mastering a song and testing on different speakers. You're a heaven send UBK thank you once again for saving my mixes.

[@demo428]

Oh fuck new kush video here we go boys

[@dirkchurlish4074]

Greg, you should do a video where you just get 5-8 different drum sounds out of your API-2500. I love compressing stuff with you.

[@timothydrewfilms5272]

I just need to say that you have been instrumental (pun intended) in helping me develop as a mixer. You've completely changed how I think about mixing and it's made a world of difference (and MUCH better sounding mixes!). So I just came here to tell you that I love you

[@TheHouseofKushTV]

Right on! 🕺🏻

[@OdoSendaidokai]

Very interesting and eye opening to look for habits one developed over time, like you explained with lowering your head and better noticing higher frequencies. Thanks so much again for your thoughts and insides. 🌻

[@jordancooperlalala]

I love these videos. Ok, I still consider myself an amateur, but this is what I do: I primarily listen through Focal CMS 65s when I'm in super professional mode. I casually listen on my Bose computer speakers normally when tracking, little fixes (these are very crisp, high treble, etc, but I'm so used to them, I get a good idea of how things sound.) I listen on my Yamaha 5.1 surround system in the living room (this really shows me problems and UNDERWHELMING mixes.) I listen on earbuds walking around outside. I listen on my phone without earbuds, just the phone in my hand. I listen on studio headphones that tend to be more bassy. I listen in the car. If I don't make a :/ face when doing all of these, I think my mix is finally ready...

[@neolyth]

yes greg, exactly that, i use many of these techniques. perfect advice for all viewers. recommended to listen to this guy.

[@zaptronic]

It's not so much *physics* as it is *psycho-acoustics*. We talked about that over on your excellent "how to hear compression" video. Amazingly, many human senses work the same, like vision. "Transients" in vision is specular highlights (like reflection pings in the chrome of a car), and on a sunny day, you don't perceive them as how bright they really are, but in near darkness, it becomes way more obvious how much brighter the specular higlihgts are than anything else. Hearing is the same. This is very similar to monitoring at different levels, just as visual effects people can tweak an exposure slider to see their "mix" in different "volumes" (brightness)

[@jorgepeterbarton]

We have built in multiband compressors. In fact they work like tuning a drum, muscle decides how taught your eardrum is much like the iris opens in the eye. But like a drum it affects frequency too! And like vision also in the dark we basically lose our colour vision as cones see colour but rods have a much more sensitive range.

[@theleviathan89]

Your lessons are very helpful. Thanks!

[@KUMStudio1]

Hi Gregory. I found your channel yesterday and I found that your tutorials are AMAZING! Exactly what I need! Thank you so much!

[@AnimusInvidious]

All great suggestions!

[@reachingplanets1]

Always amazing

[@andrewsrea]

Love your videos and find truth in your content! I've been mixing on one set of speakers at about 80dB, avoiding 'blasting' volume and listening to rough mixes on consumer-grade audiophile (Denon preamp & amp, into 1976 Boston Acoustics), the car, boom boxes, phones, etc. I learned the 'searching for transients at lower than 80dB volume from a previous video of yours and just learned to L-R swap for perspective from this! I don't know why I never considered that, but thanks!

[@ryanrose2863]

Whenever I have trouble with a mix, I play it through the cheap speakers on my Mac mini. Sounds like garbage, but makes certain issues very obvious!

[@hleet]

a lot of valuable advices there, thank you

[@billyruss]

Wow! Some fantastically simple ideas to give you an instantly new perspective. Love it!! :-)

[@MrRiker94]

Great advise like always. Thanks🤘

[@TheHouseofKushTV]

Any time!

[@johnnyvegas2015]

as usual, great video, awesome advice...thanks so much

[@leejmalcolm1]

Banging info as usual. Cheers lad. :)

[@orebromusik9080]

Great video as always. I like the philosophy approach and the great little tips to see yhings from another perspective. 😀🎵🎶👍