Bringing Back the Art to Mixing - Grammy Winning Engineer Jeff Ellis Worldwide's Aproach

Hey y’all!

When I was a wee young audio school student, my relationship with mixing was a little… rocky. We were taught to think technically first, with artistic decisions coming second- something a-ok that only emerged once things were sounding “correct.”

For example, the wild reverb on the snare came once the drum kit was sitting within an acceptable numerical threshold. For a while, I felt pretty darn lost as someone who has always understood music from a feeling based place rather than through meters and numbers.

As my career unfolded and my friendship with Jeff Ellis Worldwide began (hi Jeff), we’d occasionally talk about his principle based approach to mixing, one that brings the focus back to the art. He mentioned wanting to create an online course to share his approach and help bring us back to a more artful way of making music. Thus, Mixer Brain was created.

To make a long story short and not get too sappy, that course completely changed my life and ushered me into an era of more artful thinking and actually listening to the music, rather than overcomplicating things and falling into plugin chain death spirals.

Bringing Back the Art to Mixing

I say all of this to segue into something we recently did with Jeff: a video where he revamps the aesthetic of a mix using three Safari plugins and his principle based approach.

Plugins used in the video:

In the video, Jeff establishes an objective for this mix: to make everything feel like it exists in a grog fueled pirate ship monster mash world. With that, he can deduce what could help achieve that aesthetic. Using Cassette Bunny helped pull ultra clean drums into that pirate universe alongside the already distorted vocals, while Dirty Dog and Cobra Fuzz pushed the guitars into that same aesthetic too, taking them from a slightly flat, DI sounding place to something pirate attitude. Just artful thinking, vibe, and some Safari spice went a really long way.

Where Mixer Brain Meets the Safari Audio Philosophy

The whole approach of being in a state of artful awareness while mixing, and really thinking about aesthetics, felt deeply connected to the Safari message. That initial spark, the feeling of inspiration that lights your music brain up like a Christmas tree, is what we aspire to capture with our plugins.

The pedal layout approach is rooted in that as well. We believe fewer controls can create more space to follow a feeling, rather than getting caught up in numbers, graphs, and meters. This intersection is where I feel the Mixer Brain and Safari worlds collide, and it’s been inspiring to see that message resonate with people!

What sounds have been inspiring your mixes lately?

Feel free to email me at abi@safariaudio.com I’d love to hear what worlds and aesthetics you’ve been digging into lately :)

Catch you next time!