Mixing Vs Composition vs Producing

a.chassum

New member
I want to know your thoughts on when composing, producings and mixing starts/finishes and if you think they can ever truly be seperate processes.

I say this because when I am making an instrumental I might add a really cool saturator or guitar sfx on my synth lead. I may add a bass rig on my 808. However is this composing/mixing/producing?

Always wondered
 
I consider composing to be the arrangement of music. I tend to use "producing" and "composing" interchangeably. Mixing is taking the elements of a composition and getting them to sound as a cohesive song for however I/the artist envisions it.

What you describe could fall under sound design or mixing. I usually think of more dramatic changes in the tone of a sound as being part of sound design. I personally do this early on before finishing up the arrangement. In general, my mixing decisions are more subtle when it comes to adding effects. My mixing also works on sound design choices.

Just my own interpretation that I don't adhere to 100% of the time :)
 
IMO, and many others I've worked with, they're all part of the same process. If a mix engineer ISN'T hearing problems in the arrangement that he/she should address, production aspects that he/she could contribute to, instruments that could be added, etc., then that mix engineer isn't much more useful than an artist pushing faders and EQing with a compressor on the mix buss.

My perspective when mixing- I look at the piece as an artist and try to make the music engaging at all moments. Each song needs ups and downs to take the listener on a ride.
 
This really is a question approach and workflow. I (and most producers I know) treat composition and production as one. A lot of mixing decisions are also made during the production, because a lot of effects (like delays, reverb, sidechain compression...) are in fact part of the arrangement.

However, I always so a final mixdown after the song is finished, where I focus on the details. It's more like a polishing the whole thing, filtering stuff out, adding more brilliance, a lot of minor eq and other tweaks.

In parts of the music industry, however, composition, production and mixing are often treated as completely separate processes, performed by different people, who are all specialists at what they do.
 
interesting bro. I agree. I am composing right Now, and I am spending time tweqaking drums etc. I guess the better you become at composing the better your production skills become
 
As long as you pro in one of them the next one comes after. I mean 20 years a go when i just started i was producing, i never saw my self as a composer, i didnt know notes and theory, i was just playing with synths. after I perfected the production skills I was concentrating on mix and mastering, and after few years I started to learn piano. 5 years ago I started to compose music for TV and films. but for your question I know a lot of composer that dont know anything in mix or production..and exactly the opposite. So in my opinion its a matter of perspective, because even if you dont know noted or music theory you can still compose with your hearing...
 
Music technology has made it possible for an artist to compose, produce and mix all at the same time. It’s one of the reasons why I consider myself a songwriter, producer and engineer. I can literally do all these tasks at one time. Especially working directly in a DAW. It would be hard to find anyone who wouldn’t consider themselves a writer of music and producer at the same time. Unless they work in a genre like rock, country or a genre that’s based on actual writing first and produce later. But in hip hop, electronic and r&b music. Production is a hybrid job of songwriter and engineer merged. Usually when we Producers have ideas or come up with ideas, it’s usually being done by tinkering around with an instrument you like. You start to maybe tweak it more and then there you have it. You start to compose with that sound. You might have a bass line laid down in a 4 to 8 bar loop. Or melody composed or better yet some Rhodes or piano playing a complex chord progression. Whatever it is. You probably went right into production first and composed after. Then mixed it in with the rest of the instruments way later. The order of operations are different for creating music in certain genres. And that’s fair game. But don’t get me wrong. You do have some producers who come into play after the entire song made with or without vocals. And take creative control on how they want every instrument to sound sonically. Like with drums. They may want the drums to sound like they’re in a stadium for the chorus and then panned to the right speaker for 8 bars for the 2nd chorus. This could be something the first producer didn’t think of. This is a production team which could be very lethal if very good at producing. Anyways. I was raised in music and was brought up as a hybrid music creator. It is normal for me to think this way. Trying to separate these roles or parts of creation was confusing to me. And took years for me to understand. When all in all. I was playing 3 jobs at once! This my view and opinion of music production.
 
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