Do you ever have an existential crisis while mixing?

Every single time I mix a new project I feel that way. But when I listen back to something, after 6 months to a year, I'm always pleasantly surprised...so yeah, idk. I definitely have some insecurities that come up. Imposter Syndrome as some call it.

I was just talking with my buddy who is mixing an album of his own music, I was giving him mix notes and he was telling me that he's ready to throw in the towel he's so deflated...i think it's very common. I'd guess the only people who don't feel that way (at least some of the time) are either lying or not introspective enough to recognize their own insecurities.

Don't let it get you down.

My learning curve is so steep right now in regards to engineering/mixing that it’s often hard for me to think that I’ll ever be any good at it.

Where I believe I have really messed myself up is in terms of thinking that my actual songwriting and musicianship is/was subpar. I kept doubting that what I was doing was ever going to be “good enough” and therefore missed the golden age of perhaps making a living at playing/touring by basically quitting. I didn’t hardly even pick up anything but golf clubs from 1997ish until just a few years ago. I now know that if something is in “your blood” you have to do it. I have a lot of catching up to do.

Some thoughts:

The things we hear are (thankfully) not what other people hear.

We tend to obsessively focus on minutiae and get lost in the details, and oftentimes we feel unrealistic pressure to be as good as everyone else. This leads us to make weird choices that we wouldn't make otherwise, i.e. let's boost 10dB of top end on these cymbals so my mix can be as bright as X mix (without realizing that your cymbals don't need that kind of treatment for your song to sound awesome). 

It's important to frequently turn off the "engineer brain" and just listen to the song. Your mix doesn't need to sound as wide or deep or punchy as the reference mix. It can still sound awesome in its own right. You don't need to nail your kick drum EQ with immaculate precision in order for your song to have an impact.

When A/Bing with a reference, I find it's less important to ask "does my mix sound as good?" and more important to ask "do I absolutely hate my mix in comparison?" If the answer is no, you're probably much better off than you think. I know it's almost impossible to stop analyzing the small details, but try to remember that NO ONE aside from you is ever going to give a f*ck about the exact amount of distortion on a BGV layered deep in your mix somewhere.

Lastly, I think it's important to stop worrying about conventions and rules. A lot of us have a really weird sense of pride surrounding our various methodologies, and thus stand in our own way when it comes to doing whatever it takes for a song to sound great. There is no wrong way to make a sound. At the end of the day, they're all just different ways to do the same thing. If you have to rip a snare from another song to get the sound you want, who cares? If you have to use 15 different instances of Pro-Q 3 with all sorts of crazy surgical cuts and boosts, who cares?

I'd also be willing to bet that your mixes don't sound half as bad as you think they do. You're probably doing just fine.

Mixing can be humbling to be sure. I think you’ve just gotta keep swinging the hammer.

Cheers,
Geoff

I really believe references should be kept to an absolute minimum. I don't really use them. I'm working on the thing in front of me, not the thing elsewhere.  I'll reference other songs from the same project.   Maybe occasionally another song(s) from the same artist, previous projects.  

Yep. I do use references frequently, but when I stopped trying to make my mixes sound exactly like another mix, my work improved dramatically. I basically use them just to make sure I'm in the same ballpark. Mostly just making sure nothing sounds weird/off when I flip back and forth, i.e. "Would my song hold its own in a playlist with this song?"

That's how I feel sometimes.  I enjoy doing it, but I also enjoy pushing myself.  I spent years just doing as I felt like doing and I think I did myself a disservice by not constantly trying to one-up the next guy.  

There's a local guy that I've lost a couple potential clients to lately that is just sucking up all the potential artists.  The stuff he's producing just sounds phenomenal for a young guy who's only been doing it professionally for a couple years, and I constantly reference his stuff and my stuff just sounds mushy and lifeless compared to his no matter what I do.  It's maddening.

It seems like it's just no big deal to him.