Playing WITHIN the mix is a skill very few musicians ever have to learn. Most of the time either we don’t have an audience so it doesn’t matter, or if we do, we have monitors where we can listen to a mix that is what WE need to perform at our best.


But the audience needs to hear that balanced, even mix!

And arranges rarely have multiple outputs where we can split what we are playing away from what the track is doing. I say it over and over again, but learning to play a quieter part or rhythmical part without being able to hear it too well, because that is where it is SUPPOSED to be in the mix is one of the toughest skills to get right.

You really have to be able to play at your best without really even hearing yourself very well a lot of the time, and you don’t really play as a musician, you play more as a producer or engineer! Your first question should be is that a great mix? Not am I playing well?!

For me, the only satisfactory answer I ever get to that “am I playing well?“ question is by recording the mix and listening after the fact. I NEVER seem to get it dead right without a few goes at recording it and then remembering how it felt while I played it.

I am either a little too hot, or a little too quiet the first time I give it a go! I DO try to play fairly hard though even on quieter parts. That way, at least the physicality of movement helps me to be rhythmical and lock in even if I’m not supposed to be hearing it too well lol

It is funny how arranges, although really being designed and used by beginners a lot of the time, require you to actually be a BETTER player than a live band musician simply because of the challenge of playing well WITHIN a mix, not ON TOP of it..!

EDIT: I found the problem! I had accidentally changed the markup field to HTML rather than UBB code. Sacrifice so much.