Can you mix in the morning?

[Rodney Gene]

I can't. Not very well for some reason. (And I don't mean After 12:00 am )

Seems like the evening has a certain 'thickness' and energy to it that just makes it easier to dial in reverb and bass tones better.

Maybe it is psychological but I swear all of my gear and monitors sound better after being on for a few hours and sort-of 'gelling' with the room.

There is no doubt that I require a bit of personal 'mojo' in order to mix well and that often seems to come later in the day.

Can't do it in the morning...anyone else have this?

P&B,

Rodney

[Dave Martin]

Sure - in fact, I'd say that for me, mixing gets progressivly harder as the day gets later. I CAN mix after 10:00PM, for instance, but it's usually not much fun (and I don't know how much of what I do late will stand up the next morning).

[dave-G]

Banker's hours RULE!

-dave

[StoneinaPond]

I CAN mix after 10:00PM, for instance, but it's usually not much fun

That's cause you're an old fart and need to be in bed around 10pm.

I prefer the early hours when I have more energy than at the tail end of the day.

Of course, this begs the question as to when do you get up?

If it's 1pm then technically you weren't able to mix in the morning.

Now I'm being far to clever for my own good.

[Drumsound]

I like to be up a while before I start. Today I'm killing time here before going to the studio to mix. I'll get there by 12:00 and have a leisurely start.

And yes gear tends to sound better after it's been on a while. I rarely power sown my console, and ofter leave tape decks and outboard on as well.

[jho]

yes
that is, after coffee and scan of gearslutz (oh, and on lunch break too!)

[Dave Martin]

Originally posted by StoneinaPond
That's cause you're an old fart and need to be in bed around 10pm.

I prefer the early hours when I have more energy than at the tail end of the day.

Of course, this begs the question as to when do you get up?

True enough - If I'm up by 7:00 AM - fairly standard - then being in the studio by 8:30 and actually mixing by 9:00 is a good thing for me.

[MarkRogers]

I love to mix in the morning, first thing while my ears are all fresh. Whenever I try to mix at night, it takes forever and I can't even tell what sounds good any more. I get up the next day and its all easy.

Hey, Look! Its my first post. Happy to be here! :)

Mark

[StoneinaPond]

Originally posted by MarkRogers
I love to mix in the morning, first thing while my ears are all fresh. Whenever I try to mix at night, it takes forever and I can't even tell what sounds good any more. I get up the next day and its all easy.

Hey, Look! Its my first post. Happy to be here! :)

Mark

Welcome.

[C.Lambrechts]

NO



I know I know .... it's me.

[StoneinaPond]

Originally posted by C.Lambrechts
NO



I know I know .... it's me.

That's OK. When it's morning here, you are already well into the afternoon.

[Lectra]

Sometimes i'm still mixing in the morning but i'm def. trying to avoid that in the near future.
However if i get up in the morning i need at least a few hours.

[Ruphus]

Here comes the night. Whooooo

When everybody else has gone to bed, when the silence comes over the city, then comes the leisure and the fun for me. Now, all I need is a place that leaves the worlds sonic out much better while I can work with monitors on. I just hate to work with headphones. ... And as you can see by now, in the best time of the day .. err night I can merely do editing.

Mixing can only be done during the clinical day times.
Tomorrow I´ll be looking after another place once again. The good thing that I know already is that it would be a house full with studios and musicians, the bad one would be that it is in the highest floor, probably leaving me a spoiled and weak current. ... So probably not a real opportunity, I guess.

Anyway, I can work best at night. Not only when it is about music, but about anything creative from sculpturing over painting to writing.

Daytime is for boring tasks when I can work with automatic pilot.

Ruphus

[max cooper]

Usually gear sounds better when it's not "cold" because the capacitors are more fully charged.

I do like mixing in the morning after a run with my dogs and a cup of coffee.

[Rick Sutton]

I really think that for a lot of people it is an age thing. used to mix till the wee hours of the morning and my best energy was about 8pm till around 1 am.
Last 5 or 6 years I prefer to start mixing at 10 am and wind up by 6 or 7 pm. at the latest. Now my peak energy time is about 11 am to aound 5 pm.
the body, including hearing and general energy changes with age.
So, Rodney Gene, just how old are you?
Rick

[Ruphus]

Paolo Conte ( Italian jazzer, 67 ) in an interview in a magazine of this week:

Questioner: "Is it true that you are writing your music mostly at night?"

Conte: "Only because the night is the best time to work.
It is quiet, one can concentrate better and naturally the atmosphere of the night fits very well to the art.
But I have also composed songs during day light."

[djui5]

I personally can't do $hit before 10am.....but I can work till 6-7am if I have to.....

[kevinc]

I don`t think it`s necessarily an age thing at all. My Fathers got the same strange clock that I do. We both get insomnia when we try to get to sleep too early. I`m much better off if I wait till I`m fully tired to sleep even if I only get 5 hrs or so.

I`ve held down jobs for years where I was forced to get up at 6:00 in the morning or earlier. Sucked but I did it.

When I started a Carpentry company I started getting up more or less when I felt like it but I make sure I get there before ten so I don`t piss off my clients.

Now that I get more studio work I don`t have ANYONE to potentially piss off if I start late so if I`m in a groove and feel like mixing till 2:00 in the morning I`ll do it !

For the most part I try to start around 1:00 P.M. and get out of there by 11:00 -12:00 though. It takes me a few hours to unwind usually and if I`m not carefull I`ll start going to bed at 5:00 every night which is unaccapetable. I don`t mind waking up at 9:00 - 10:00 A.M. but once I`m getting close to noon I start feeling like a slob.

Just the same it just doesn`t feel rockn` roll enough to be mixing in the A.M. hrs to me so I gotta wait till at least 1:00 P.M.

[alphajerk]

i work best from 11pm to 4am. and if its raining... tracking sounds much better.

morning im just too asleep. takes me until noon at LEAST to start functioning properly.

[thethrillfactor]

Too early for me.

I am either getting up at that hour or getting in.

I can't stand morning people anyway.

Clients that are all peppy, with their Starbucks in their hands with a list of things they want to accomplish in the mixing session.

[picksail]

My partner and I work around the clock in shifts.
He works the AM shift then I come on at around 6:00 pm or so. This seems to work flawlessly at our place.

I am going in at midnight tonight to allow the producer and I to get some editing accomplished without the distraction of having the enitire entourage present. These distractions gets old really fast.

[drundall]

I find I mix best during the afternoon/night but I can put the final tweaks in better in the morning. I also do less tangential shit and have a better forest vs. trees vision.

[Renie]

Originally posted by thethrillfactor

Clients that are all peppy, with their Starbucks in their hands with a list of things they want to accomplish in the mixing session.

haha, do they wear name tags?

[Rodney Gene]

Originally posted by Rick Sutton
I really think that for a lot of people it is an age thing. used to mix till the wee hours of the morning and my best energy was about 8pm till around 1 am.
Last 5 or 6 years I prefer to start mixing at 10 am and wind up by 6 or 7 pm. at the latest. Now my peak energy time is about 11 am to aound 5 pm.
the body, including hearing and general energy changes with age.
So, Rodney Gene, just how old are you?
Rick

Hmm. I don't think age has to do with energy..not if you take care of yourself. I am 37, I look and feel 27 and I am a complete hombody bore.
I do not party, or stay up late. My general working hours are 5-6 a.m. to 10-11 PM

Even if I have been in the studio all day I can get a better feel for the mix around the time it gets dark...
People have settled in and have had supper, the energy in the outside is calmer. It just feels better to me.

Of course I often HAVE to mix first thing but it isn't my choice time.

I love remedial tasks like editing, setting defaults, studio organization or backing up during the day! Whatever I can do to make the evening work better.

[Rick Sutton]

Hmm. I don't think age has to do with energy..not if you take care of yourself.

You could be right. I admit that I may not have taken care of myself as well...but I was a night person 'till about age 48-50 and then my clock just started drifting earlier 'til I would rather get going earlier and wrapping up earlier. Probably a lot of factors, not the least of which is having kids and the other family obligations that come along with that. I still track at night, just find mixing better during day.
Maybe it was just too many years of working 'til 3 in the morning that burned me out on it. You know, it tends to work out, as I've got a younger engineer who loves to work late hours and I can take care of the earlier ones. Compared to what a lot of jobs require the "early" hours of a 10 am start is still pretty "cushy". Ya gotta love this job, not exactly like digging a ditch or going into a coal mine at 6am.
Cheers and a tip of the Starbucks to 'ya all .Rick

[wwittman]

I find what works best for me is to do the "busy work" of mixing, setting up the console, doing mutes, patching in outboard.. whatever... and then getting a good FAST balance and some basic moves, just whatever feels right, like a good rough mix... I do all this at night.
Then I take a CD.
The next day (starting whenever I start, which even at my age is NOT 'early' by any reasonable definition) I listen to the CD (often in the car on the way to the studio) and in the first few hours I can get all the little things fixed that i would not have heard the night before.
Often I find I'm CLOSER than i thought I was... that is always the trap, I've found, with late night work... one tends to keep pushing for rapidly diminishing, or unnecessary, returns.

I also find it's a good idea to PRINT that 'overnight' mix ... more times than one might think, we've gone back to those and find we never beat the spontaneity of the one that we knew wasn't a "final".

[gitarted]

I don't do anything well in the morning except....ZZZzzzzzz.
That said, It's just more peacefull, the energy of the world outside has calmed down, I don't feel as rushed.

Yeah, Night time rocks!

[faeflora]

I prefer to mix after I've been awake after a few hours. Too early, or too late in my day and my mixes end up crappy.

[Tousana]

I'll work anytime someone wants to within reason,don't want to start asession at 2 am, but I think I do my best work between 10am and 7 or 8 pm.

[Jax]

I found this, which I seem to experience late at night:


" Alpha rhythm (-activity, -frequency)
EEG oscillations with a frequency of 8-13 Hz in adults, prominent over the occipital cortex: indicative of the awake state in humans; present in most, but not all, normal individuals most consistent and predominant during relaxed wakefulness, particularly with reduction of visual input. The alpha frequency has a range in each individual: the low end is exhibited in drowsiness or sleep and the upper end with alertness. The frequency range also varies with age; it is slower in children and older age groups relative to young and middle-aged adults."

The mention of reduced visual input interests me, because I tend to turn off my monitor repeatedly while mixing so I can get a better aural picture of where the mix stands. Also, in terms of the definition above, I'm able to hover above drowsiness for a long time while mixing.

Sheesh, I mix best half asleep!


p.s. - Any references to any alphajerks, living or dead, is purely coincidental and no alphajerks were harmed in any way during the writing of this post.