I just re-remixed a Mix Rescue I did 13 years ago...

[Mike Senior]

...and it'd be fair to say that I'd mix it a bit differently now!

It's this one from December 2009. And you might reasonably ask why on earth I bothered to do that! Well, some of you may know that I've been running a monthly mixing tutorial podcast for my Cambridge-MT site Patrons for the past five years or so, where each month I provide my personal mixing tips for one of the multitracks in the 'Mixing Secrets' Free Multitrack Download Library. And in the latest episode it was the turn of the North To Alaska song featured in that particular article ('All The Same').

Now, I always do a fresh mix of the featured multitrack while developing each episode, so as to provide proper hands-on advice and develop plenty of audio demonstrations, so I ended up being able to compare my new mix directly with the one I did 13 years ago for Mix Rescue. It's a bit of a time capsule, and really highlighted to me some of the differences I've observed in rock mixing during the intervening years. And because I figured some of the longer-term denizens of this forum might also be intrigued to hear that comparison, I've decided to make that particular podcast episode free-to-listen (it's normally just for Cambridge-MT Patrons):

July 2022 Cambridge-MT Patrons Podcast

Anyone else here remixed something they did that long ago? Maybe it's just me, but I found it a slightly surreal experience, I have to say...

[Bob Bickerton]

That's an interesting exercise, but I'd imagine we would all treat old mixes differently, otherwise the implication would be that we peaked in terms of perfection at the previous mix date, or have learnt nothing in the meantime!

More importantly my belief is that there's no one 'perfect mix'. There's so many factors at play and artistic interpretation (production) can vary between each mix engineer/producer. Within the boundaries of what is technically advisable there's a lot of wriggle room!

There's a show I mixed back in 2000, which I would dearly love to remix - unfortunately I can't find the files........

Bob

[The Elf]

I've done this many times over the years.

Most recently was the mix I did of '6EQUJ5!' for the SOS album. The biggest difference in coming back to that track was in standing down from trying to control and 'nicen' everything, and letting it be what it wanted to be. I think that's been an important lesson I've learned over my decades of mixing - sometimes you have to just let things 'be as they were wont to be'.

[Bob Bickerton]

Agreed, I'm finding that too, which is why my preferred type of project these days is concert recording. It is what it is and the purpose of the recording is to reflect the experience of the concert. Maybe a little larger than life, maybe enhanced a little, but basically true to the audience's experience.

Bob

[Zukan]

I recently listened to some of the mixes I uploaded here years ago and I cringed. Time to redo them all I think.

We change, our tastes change, plugins change and so on......Worth revisiting old mixes just to see what could be done differently and how the results translate to the modern world.

[OneWorld]

I did this and it ended up worse

however the track got the attention of a remixer and he did, and it came out better, in fact he re-arranged it too - lesson learned

[Drew Stephenson]

We change, our tastes change, plugins change and so on...

Fashions change as well. Clipping, bass levels, loudness etc. etc.

[awjoe]

...and it'd be fair to say that I'd mix it a bit differently now!

It's this one from December 2009.

Anyone else here remixed something they did that long ago? Maybe it's just me, but I found it a slightly surreal experience, I have to say...

There's not a ton of difference but I prefer the new mix on the podcast, yeah. This is worth exploring. What were we mixing 13 years ago, and what would we do with it now, right?

[Drew Stephenson]

...and it'd be fair to say that I'd mix it a bit differently now!

It's this one from December 2009.

Anyone else here remixed something they did that long ago? Maybe it's just me, but I found it a slightly surreal experience, I have to say...

There's not a ton of difference but I prefer the new mix on the podcast, yeah. This is worth exploring. What were we mixing 13 years ago, and what would we do with it now, right?

I'm behind enough on my projects already without adding a list of remixes!

[awjoe]

I don't want to remix anything either, but I'm interested in the experience Mike describes. The psychology of it intrigues.

[tea for two]

...and it'd be fair to say that I'd mix it a bit differently now!

I ended up being able to compare my new mix directly with the one I did 13 years ago for Mix Rescue. It's a bit of a time capsule, and really highlighted to me some of the differences I've observed in rock mixing during the intervening years.
Anyone else here remixed something they did that long ago? Maybe it's just me, but I found it a slightly surreal experience, I have to say...

For me it's partially plugins have made a difference to my mixes.

For me it's more these days certain types of sounds are staring to give me headaches.
Basically sounds pitched high : violins played high up, piccolo, voice, flute, harsh hihats, various synth sounds as granular glitch glass even some analogue style filtering.

So I've swapped them out in my tracks, making the mix different to how they were.

[nosonosy]

I did,i been doing music about 15 years ago.On and off because mixing was difficult for me.Back then i knew nothing about EQ,compressor so my songs are pretty DRY,lame but it has something like fire of people who wanna do it so bad! That's why i'm still doing music

[ManFromGlass]

Timely thread. 2 nights ago I opened a folder from 2004 and started reconstructing the mixes as some of the plugins and synths were long gone.
Some of the mixes from then made me wince but some of the songs themselves made me cringe! How could I have let those out of the studio to be performed? Gah! I should have told the audience to bring their pillows to the show.
To be fair there were one or two that I am redoing as they still have some magic for me.

[paul tha other]

I did a remix of an album I did 20 years ago during lock down....I really struggled to get it to sound even close to how good the old mixes were..back then I had 2 fostex d160's ,3 compressors and 2 reverb units.. I used to print effects to tape so then I couldn't change it but from that used to come "happy accidents" etc

in the end I started doing what I was doing back then ie adding compression and reverb to a snare..send that to a track and hit record, then delete the version without the processing.. got it right about mix 6 or 7 but it wasn't easy...in the end all did really was make everything a bit more upfront..im still unsure if I made it any better tbh

I had lots of moments of listening through the tracks and wondering what the hell I was up to 20 years ago but straight away I noticed how out of tune the vocals were..I didn't think that at the time ... I blame auto-tune for that