Steve Hoffman Session Rituals

Steve,
I've got a question for you and for anybody else in the biz. Are there any rituals that you practice regularly prior to sitting down to start a mastering session? For example, do you refrain from listening to music and isolate yourself 24 hours prior to, or do you have your ear canals irrigated by a doctor two days before, etc? Deep breathing exercises? Fire walking? How long will you typically work before giving your ears a rest and how long of a break do you take? I've got a huge mixing job facing me at the moment and I'm just looking for suggestions on how to improve my performance and also searching for further insight into the factors that contribute to your product sounding so dope.

 

Don't think about it too much. I just go in and do my job. I trust myself enough to know that once I get to the studio and start working with the tracks I'll have something listenable in a short time and from there I can just do some tweaking. Before I know it, I'm finished.

One thing that helps me is to listen to something inspirational on my drive in to work. By inspirational I mean something that I think was mixed well. It helps me get my game head on and raises my expectations. I also always check my mixes on my way home. By that time I've had enough time to start to distance myself from the mixes.

As for breaks, I listen really quietly so I don't need as many breaks as most mixers. Listening low just works for me. I saw Bob Clearmountain mixing this way about ten years ago and I tried it. There's many benefits to training yourself to mix like this. You save your hearing, the whole Fletcher Munsen curve plays into things sooner and you're less irritable at the end of the day. Plus when you finally do turn it up you get a big sense of audio adrenaline. Pretty neat!

 

Thanks! I appreciate the feedback(no pun intended). What you've said makes a lot of sense to me. You make it sound so easy. I tend to hammer my projects and drift dangerously close to neurotic abyss. Got Valium?

 

Aside from a couple of other factors, listening loud all the time is one thing that I didn't look forward to if I went into the recording biz. My cousin sent me a stack of magazines once, and one of the articles dealt with engineers who wanted to mix at their own levels, versus band members or producers who wanted to hear their mix at ear-bleeding levels. (The engineer was just supposed to tolerate that insanity, just being a 'hired gun' in the proceedings.) Or staying up 'til the wee hours trying to get that perfect take. My family knows well enough that if I'm forced to stay up past my natural passing-out point, to stay FAR AWAY from me. My aunt once told my cousin he was going to go deaf...."Mom, I'll just quit and go be a doctor!"

I have enough of an opportunity in my car to blast things at a high level. Nothing like crankin' up 500 watts of ZZ Top with the windows down and those 32-Hz notes in "Sharp Dressed Man" making the rear view mirror shake around.

One mixing or mastering question: do you find you have to take a break from the project or song you're working on? I'm not a pro by any means, but I will sometimes spend a few hours working on a LP/CD transfer. I usually am driven to finish it, but there was a Christmas A&M project I was working on where I got to a point where I didn't even want to hear it anymore. And it happened a couple of times. I actually finished cleaning/editing everything in Feb. 2002. And it wasn't until this past December that I finally dropped the tracks back into CD Architect and created the finished product. Because that is the ONLY work I did on it in many months, I actually listened to the CD quite a bit over the holidays this year.

It gets to a point where I just get sick of listening to the music. And it doesn't help that I'm nitpicky. Sometimes persistence pays off, but for others, I find I need to shut it out of my mind for awhile.

 

It helps to really get into what you're doing for days, take a day off, and re approach it. You sober up, mentally so you can make better choices for sound. I find this works immensely. You can't overwhelm yourself on one thing, because your brain starts to get bored...

At least this helps in reviewing sound equipment and tubes. I can say it's great one day, then go back and have a total different outlook later on.

 

When I mix, I like to monitor at a mainly medium level, not too loud and not too hush hush, but what I also do is go up and down between the level of almost a whisper and a 'pumpin' it loud' type level. I find it helps me to get a more balanced mix, especially when you can hear all the elements at a whisper level. Then I check it loud to make sure nothing is standing out too much at normal to ridiculous type levels.

 

Yes, it often helps to take a break even if it's just an hour or two or so much as a couple of days so that you can gain perspective, I think.

 

Wait a minute! Don't you guys draw pentagrams, light candles, recite mantras and drink Goat's Blood?!?!? What's the bloody point of rituals if you don't go all the way?!? .

I had assumed Steve, at the least, would slaughter a chicken or something

ED

 

ARghwH!Hh!! Three joints, half a bottle of Jack Daniels, few lines o' coke, do a couple of ladies...duuuudes, I'm ready to rokkkk, maaan!

I do have a ritual for my own home projects: 1) get the girls tucked into bed; 2) grab a tall ice water; 3) head downstairs and *hope* I don't doze off while working on something! Can't monitor too loudly or I'll wake everyone up.

 

Does that mean you're working on some Alice Cooper stuff?

 

Regular or extra-crispy?

Ryan

 

Before I start mixing a project, I do not listen to music for a day, and try to avoid any loud sounds in living. I am driven to get things finished, but I also take breaks. Sometimes when I come back, I have a better perspective of where the mix is. I mix at low to koderate levels. I know that if I mix loud that the music will sound dull at lower levels. Mixing at lower volumes gives a better chance that the music won't sound totally different played loud.

When I do LP-to-CD transfers and restorations, I take many breaks because I want my ears fresh to enable me to hear all the noise I want to remove. I don't worry about volume as much here because with my procedures, I know that the resulting CD-R will tonally sound the same as the LP.

 

No sacrificial virgins or anything?? Maaaaaan....

I've slaughtered a good BBQ'ed burger or a bowl of ice cream before doing work, though.

 

Prior to mixing, I like to listen to older rough mixes and original demos in my car while driving around. This sometimes lets me hear something that I might have missed, which in turn may give me a new perspective on the song and then think of the mix in a new way or to try different things that I might not have thought of before. Sometimes it's good to go back to the beginning of the process for new inspiration and a wider perspective because it is very easy to get too "microscopic" when it comes to the details of the song that you are working on.

 

So does Khorn - does that mean he's also a mastering engineer

All the best - Andrew

 

Sorry, Tonmeister. They just had to go and use the word "ritual"...

How else to explain some of those magical DCC's....something going on there

ED

 

When I first started mixing at a low level I had problems when I turned it up. Seemed that the vocals and any instrument fills were buried a bit. I've trained myself to over compensate for this now to where it feels normal to me. I also don't feel good about a mix until I've done a listen at a louder level. This is when I finalize my vocal levels and instrument fills. Be cautious though, if you ride the vocal listening too loudly your vocal is going to wind up too loud. I don't know why this happens, but it does. Your bass will also be too quiet.

One other thing I do that really works well for me is to have a set of small speakers to the left side of the console, stacked on top of one another. This gives you a more normal listening experience. Nobody (besides us) listens to music with their head between the speakers. Most people will be in another room or walking around. It's also a nice way to check the overall mix in a pseudo-mono form without having to push the mono button and lose all your reverb. I get my initial mix this way (which is 85% of the work) and then switch over to a more normal speaker set up for my automated rides.

I also mix without my stereo compressor in. I don't engage it until I feel I'm finished. I usually take a five minute break and come back to set the compressor. I use a slow attack and a fast release so I'm not stomping on anything. It just gives it a nice analog tape evenness and will toughen the mix up.

 

Geez ED, I dunno know...maybe those death metal pentagram dudes slaughter something? not sure what though? maybe the lead singers?...but...Those who create the beautiful remasters must smell the lilacs and roses before they turn those dials...peaceful mood they need...

 

Geez Steve,
Do you at least have the poor thing for dinner? LOL...

 

Talent...baby...talent...