The View from 2005: Little has changed, except we have even more cliches now than we did then (Auto-Tuning tricks jump immediately to mind). The point remains entirely valid. Cliches are valuable beecause they’be withstood the test of time. You too can use them to good effect.

Tricks of the trade

Either you are making a mountain out of a mole hill or you are barking up the wrong tree. But that’s neither here nor there. This mix just isn’t happening, and you’re beginning to lose it. The little left-brain voice in your head is doing its Alcoholics Anonymous routine: take it easy, one day at a time. As usual, you’re hoping against hope that this mix will be the one, a serious chance to really score a big hit. But the guitar solo still needs something - a delay probably. Or is it EQ? Again, you dither and vacillate. Not being sure which way to go is the nature of the monkey on your back. So pick a delay. Or pick EQ. Six of one, half dozen of the other. The problem, you decide, is that they’ve all been done before. There’s nothing left, no new breakthrough, no way to be original.

Clichés rain down like cats and dogs, and they can be dangerous. Great literature, or so you’ve heard, avoids them. Your seventh grade English teacher, Mr. Skolda, used to nail your clichés in red ink. What you ended up learning was that writing demands original expression of thoughts to even qualify for the creativity sweepstakes. But those used and abused clichés are such a normal part of every day communication that they must have some value, and in fact they do. Clichés can be used to very effectively and efficiently convey a specific thought, evoke a specific feeling. Halfway through the worn, trite phrase, listeners already know what you are going to say and already are reacting to it. The cliché works quickly and precisely. It is sufficiently well known and understood that there is little chance for a misunderstanding. For instance, the phrase, “Six of one, a half dozen of the other,” is often misquoted, and it doesn’t matter. I once heard someone say, “Six and a half dozen of one or the other” to a room full of people. We all knew what he meant and how he felt, and I would guess most of the people in the room didn’t even hear his actual words but just grokked (now, there’s a cliché!) his intended meaning instead. It didn’t matter that what he actually said was, well, meaningless.

In the world of music, clichés graduate to a higher status. Music is an abstract vehicle for expressing non-verbal feelings and ideas. It calls upon listeners to absorb, digest and assimilate its message via their own associations and memories – they bring their imagination, thoughts, feelings and mood to the experience. These personal contributions to the listening process are a major element in the great richness of the musical experience. But they can also be the musician’s curse.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but trends work better as more people follow them. It is rather difficult to get a large number of people excited about your music if they don’t have similar reactions to your music. Stated another way, gold and platinum record sales are the result of a consensus of opinion about your recordings. When one person tells a friend, “Check out Uncertain Torture on the new album by The Vagues. It’s totally awesome. It really sucks you in, makes you think – it’s very deep,” the wrong response is, “No way man. It just had me dancing all over the house. I really cranked it up, and I’m not sure what the lyrics were even about.” A more desirable answer is the profound empathic response of our time: “Yeah, man, I know what you mean!” Inspiring a strong, consistent reaction is an important though generally unstated production goal. Listeners are taken on the same ride through the creative use of clichés – musical clichés. Songwriters use them profusely. Clichés live in the lyrics, melodies, chords and arrangements of all successful albums. And not surprisingly, we have our own set of recording and mixing clichés which are worth examining.

As always we are on a mission for fun and profit. By recognizing the standard tricks we use for stereo loudspeaker music we can make sure our mixes are understood without sounding trite. Through clever and appropriate use of these time-proven devices, with the possible addition of some clever modifications, we can create mixes which have a predictable effect on the listeners – and hopefully the effect proves to be a desirable one.

The many tricks of the mixing trade fall broadly, and with some overlap, into the following categories: 1) Time, 2) Stereo, 3) Equalization, 4) Pitch or 5) Amplitude manipulation. In this article we’ll look at time and stereo. Next month, we will continue with equalization, pitch and amplitude.