The OffBeat #59: Leading is Like Sound-Mixing

Balancing all the tracks

I love the band Bailen and have been following for them for a few years now. I can’t remember how I discovered the group—it’s a trio of siblings, which means their voices sound amazing together and their collective chemistry is ingrained—but I’ve seen them perform live twice here in Philly and their stuff pops up all the time in my playlists.

The other day in the car I realized how different one of their tracks sounds live vs. recorded. The reason? Sound-mixing.

Sound-mixing is the art of layering different audio tracks from each instrument and vocalist in a band to create a well-balanced song. Mixing engineers adjust the volume and tone of each track to ultimately land on an ideal end state, to their ear, for the song. Sound-mixing is the last step before mastering, or making final adjustments to the song to create a release-ready “master” version.

This is a helpful metaphor via audio tech company iZotope:

“The artist is the author. The mixing engineer is the editor, helping the author frame their project in the best light. The mastering engineer is the copyeditor, minding the Ps and Qs.”

So sound-mixing is taking raw material and fine-tuning it for prime time.

Here’s where leadership comes in. I adore this quote from Andre Durand, CEO of tech firm Ping Identity, via Harvard Business Review:

“Leading means continually fine-tuning expectations. It’s like a big sound-mixing board, and you’re constantly trying to keep the organization in balance. You don’t control the external environment, and things are always changing—which means you’re constantly changing your balance.”

If you’re a leader in the workplace, the sound-mixing board is your mission control. It’s your responsibility to balance all the tracks—the individualized input of your team members, both their work product and the squishier human stuff—and do whatever it takes to make it all feel like a solid, cohesive song.

How do you know when it’s solid and cohesive? That’s also your responsibility. You need to leverage your experience, instincts, and capability as a leader to determine—ongoing—if things sound right and, if not, what to do about it.

More from iZotope:

“With tools like EQ, compression, panning, and reverb at their disposal, mix engineers reduce clashes between instruments, tighten grooves, and emphasize important song elements. In some cases, they might even layer drum hits with samples from outside the session or mute redundant instrument parts.

Mix engineers EQ instruments to shine over other instruments, or to fit into the right context. They compress individual tracks to reign them in, or to punch them up. They add all sorts of crazy effects when necessary—reverb, delay, modulation, pitch fx, anything that serves the material.”

Phew. That’s a lot. Leadership, like sound-mixing, is a weighty responsibility. You’re making creative calls about which instruments to highlight (in my Bailen example above, the drums are much less prominent on the recorded track than in the band’s live performances), which to tone down, which to tap in from outside the team; you’re using your judgement to determine which voices should be at the forefront, when, for how long; and you’re smoothing out conflicts and tension; all in the service of a clean, coherent song.

And as a leader, like a mixing engineer, you’re not necessarily the frontperson of the band (some artists like Billie Eilish and Pharrell are heavily involved in the mixing of their music)—your most critical work is behind the scenes, in the construction of the finished product.

Put another way, the quality of the finished product—the caliber of your team’s output and the culture within which they produce it—is a direct result of your talent, heart, and capability, even if it’s not in a spotlight on stage.

Have a great week,

Allison

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