Part of my day job as the Director of Marketing for Allen & Heath USA involves traveling out to music festivals and tradeshows across the country to support the brand and capture content. I happen to be writing this article from the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, so the song “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys” is a fitting soundtrack. As Waylon and Willie sing, it is generally the wish of most parents that their children grow up to be “doctors and lawyers and such”. As I entered college, I decided I was either going to be a professional musician or a philosopher — not exactly the sorts of careers that promise high-paying and prestigious positions in the case of the vast majority of musicians and philosophers out in the world. But the music gig did work out and I’m now back in school completing my PhD (in philosophy), so things turned out okay in the end I guess.
I think, therefore I am
It dawned on me recently that a couple of key concepts in philosophy can be readily applied to the work of live sound engineers of all levels. First up, even the most casual reader of philosophy is likely aware of the phrase attributed to Descartes (1596-1650), “I think, therefore I am.” In one of his most famous works, Descartes goes through an exercise of trying to sort out what kinds of things he can be absolutely sure about. Perhaps we believe that we can be sure pushing up the fader on channel 1 will make the bass drum louder. But Descartes would ask us to challenge that belief. Maybe an “evil genius” is tricking us all into thinking this is real life and we’re actually in a dream or a hallucination or even a simulation! Or perhaps today is the day that the laws of physics turn out to fail us and what we thought was up was actually down?
Descartes eventually landed on the idea (roughly) that the only thing he can be sure of is that he is thinking. In other words, if thinking is happening and we are aware of thinking, it couldn’t be the case that we are just imagining we are thinking. In that case, we’d be thinking that we are imagining that we are thinking — but thinking is still happening in some manner. Sounds a bit silly to some people, but I think he’s onto something.
So how the heck does this apply to mixing audio? Why is this Jeff Hawley fellow writing about Descartes in an audio technology newsletter? Well, I think that the idea here is that things we think we know may turn out to be wrong. It does generally follow that pushing a fader up will make the instrument on that channel louder. But maybe if we start to apply a bit of skepticism about whether we are going about things in the best manner, new ideas and techniques can start to open up for us. Why do we default to putting bass drum on channel 1? Maybe we’d uncover something new or work more effectively and efficiently if we rethought our channel layout or patching routine now and then. What if every once in a while we challenged what we thought we knew to be certain?
There is something to be said for finding a fast and (generally) stable way of doing things, sure. But I guess what I’m getting at here (borrowing a bit from Descartes) is that there can also be some value in switching things up now and then and always trying new things. If we can have some doubt about whether we’re even awake right now — why not introduce a bit of healthy reflection on the processes and go-to habits that we develop over time? Maybe the next time you’re in a bit of a mixing rut, think back to Descartes and route that bass drum in a new place on the console or in a totally different way and see if something new opens up for you. Rather than think that we’ve totally landed on THE way to do things, weave in some experimentation and exploration every now and then.
A Paradigm Shift
On a someone similar note, the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) is well known for his 1962 book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. While he tackles many interesting philosophical points throughout the work, the idea that really sticks out to me is around paradigms and paradigm shifts. He says, “… though the world does not change with a change of paradigm, the afterward works in a different world.” While he’s getting at something a bit different than what Descartes was up to, I think the concepts are related. For an audio engineer working on an analog console in 1980, the audio mixing world looked a certain way. Then digital mixing came along and there was a paradigm shift. Engineers needed to adapt to this new paradigm and rethink how they approached mixing. I’d argue that engineers who had a healthy habit of applying a touch of the occasional Cartesian skepticism in the period prior to the paradigm shift likely handled the transition a bit better. There wasn’t “the right way” of mixing (in the analog world) that must be applied to mixing in the new digital world — but rather a process of adapting and rethinking things to work best in the new framework (and the next framework, etc.)
The future
I’ll make a bold prediction here … there will be more massive paradigm shifts in audio mixing in the future. Well, ok, maybe not that bold for me to make this prediction at all. Of course things are going to change. Artificial Intelligence in audio mixing, touch-based mixing, new ways of interacting with audio in general, immersive audio, etc. are all already starting to shake things up. Stay nimble and open minded and hopefully these philosophical concepts can help along the way to “roll with the punches” as the technology and art and science of mixing evolve over time. Happy mixing!
About the author
Equally at home in front of a console, playing bass guitar, developing award-winning marketing, or working through analytic philosophy, Jeff Hawley is currently the Director of Marketing for Allen & Heath USA. He is also pursuing a PhD in Philosophy at York St John University. Find him on LinkedIn if you’d like to connect!
