As I said some weeks ago, I’m very busy these days: Deimos new album recordings are completely filling all my spare time, so I still don’t have enough time to write, at least not the “quality” time I like to have when I want to write. It’s exactly in these kind of situation that it would be great to have a “do-it-for-me” device that could handle all the work and just finish it. Think about it: you have to complete your 5 tasks on the to-do list, just push the “do-it” button and watch the device work for you, with a cocktail in your hand. It would be really nice. What? What do you mean “It doesn’t exist“? You know what? You’re right. That’s why you should stop searching on Google something like “best mixing plugin ever” or “super mix ready plugin preset” or something like that. As for the do-it-for-me device, you have to apply the same thought on mixing: there’s nothing magic, the best plugin ever is just YOU.
Mixing is not just moving knobs or load a preset and go with it. It require time, hours of practice and the most important thing: your choices. You have to do the work, not the plugin. The plugin can’t decide if the track needs a cut at 1.2 KHz or a high shelf boost after 5KHz. The plugin is the tool, you’re the master. Just trust me, you don’t need anything but an EQ and a compressor. I mean it. If you know how to handle these two mixing tools you’ll never need anything more. You can even find free or open source ones on the web that won’t cost you anything, download them and give them a try and, above all, master them. They’re just there to be used.
Moreover, if you are lazy like me and a Google search is like the worst thing you want to do right now, just go with stock plugins on your DAW. Every DAW on the market has stock plugins, which are usually very well designed. I bet that you’ll find for sure an EQ and a Compressor among those plugins. Maybe they will not be so cool to see, but if you learn to use them you’ll be the happiest-lazy-guy in the world. By the way, if you don’t even try them you’ll never know if they are good or not:
- try stock plugins, start (not just load and stop) with a preset and use it as a starting point to carve the best track you can.
- If you think the plugin is not giving you what you want start a Google search and grab as much free EQs and Compressors you can, but stay focused on these two for the moment, because at the end of the day they’re really everything a mixer need to do the work.
You‘re the best do-it-all plugin, EQ and Compressors are your weapons, use them the best you can!
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