For the Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer and owner of the Nashville-based mastering powerhouse The Hit Lab, Nathan Dantzer (Niall Horan, Teddy Swims, Kelsea Ballerini), trusting your first instincts and leaning into what excites you without letting doubt creep in will always lead to better results. At times this might mean stepping away from personal music taste to instead give the song what it needs and take it where it wants to go.
#MixTricks is where the very best mixers, engineers, producers, and musicians let us in on some of the best secrets tips and tricks they’ve picked up on their way to the top. With LISTENTO from Audiomovers you can stream uncompressed multichannel audio to and from any DAW. Ready to go in five minutes. Just send a link.
WATCH VIDEO
TRANSCRIPT
My name is Nathan Dantzler and my mix trick would be to trust what you feel and lean into it.
Oftentimes people try to explore every single option, but their first instinct was the right one and so if you can get to a point where you trust your first instinct inherently and don’t let doubt creep in, you’ll do better work.
I can only make records sound the way that I feel excited about them. That’s just what we try to do. Just whatever excites me and whatever feels right and I mean, it’s putting your finger to the wind and understanding like, what does this song want? Where does this want to go?
And sometimes disregarding your own taste for that, but ultimately your taste is still in there and what you enjoy. Don’t second guess yourself too much. There’s power in momentum.
