Mastering Dynamics in Mixing: Insights from David Nakaji

Hey y’all!

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about dynamics- how to preserve the natural ebb and flow in my mixes while still making sure the song lives in a cohesive world. It’s a tricky balance since so much emotion lives in that “push and pull” of dynamics. This rabbit hole led me to dedicate this blog post to exploring it.

On that dynamic note, I had a blast chatting with Multi-Platinum and Grammy-Nominated Engineer David Nakaji (Doja Cat, Glass Animals, Post Malone) to get his take.

I asked him: “What is your approach to maintaining dynamics in a mix while still giving it a cohesive feel?”

How to Maintain Dynamics in Mixing While Keeping Cohesion

He said: “I think the first thing to touch on is the difference between an objectively great mix versus a subjectively great mix.

Mixing, even though it lives in the technical domain, is very much art and art in its own nature is a subjective experience where the piece of art can be interpreted differently from person to person. Everyone that sits in front of a visual art piece or listens to a record has their own personal life experiences and feelings that affect the lens in which they perceive it... I say all this to build up to the concept that there are plenty of hit songs out there that are technically bad sounding records or mixes and plenty of amazingly perfect sounding recordings that go nowhere.

I find this is a pretty abstract concept for young engineers and producers to really take hold of since they are generally shooting for their interpretation of "perfection" in whatever they are doing. Whether that's a perfect production, recording, mix, or master, perfect is usually a pretty far goal post and one I'm not sure anyone ever truly obtains. Their interpretation of perfection is usually based on something that they loved from their past which lives romantically in their mind and if you went today to ask the people who worked on it if there was something they would go back to change there's probably a number of things that they would. 

We should of course always strive for greatness and to bring the best out of a production that we can but sometimes the quest for technical perfection can eat up a ton of unnecessary time and lead to a sterile sounding product. I think a lot about the story of Bruce Sweiden mixing Michael Jackson's "Thriller" 91 times and ultimately the label going with mix #2. At sometime in the life of any production there is a point of diminishing returns.

Once again, art is subjective. When I think of concepts like dynamics or cohesion in a mix I think of them as tools to achieve a goal and that goal for me is invoking an emotional response in the listener. So the first thing I ask myself is simply "What is the emotion or message that the artist is trying to convey?". This is going to change song to song and is going to be directly affected by the genre, artist, and target audience. The dynamics of a say a pop record are going to be completely different from that of jazz record, or metal, or folk, or rap, or bedroom indie. Every genre and subgenre has a sound or vibe and the techniques to reach the end goal of one are not going to directly correlate to the others. So the first step to starting any great mix is to understand what the end goal is. From there you can begin to make decisions on how you're going to get there. For example do I start with a limiter on in my mix chain or off? If loudness is important you might want to start with one on. If openness is important then you might want to leave it off.

I once heard Dave Pensado say "If what I hear in my mind comes out of the speakers, then I'm having a good day" and this lives as a core tenant of how I approach mixes. Though I work in service to the artist as well as their art and truly respect the rough mix and creative choices that the artist or producers set before my involvement. I still approach it from a very selfish place where I'm making decisions on what feels best to me in the moment where I'm working on it and am not afraid to diverge from it if I feel it's what will serve the record the best while still taking into consideration the aforementioned concepts and goals.

This may sound incredibly simple and underwhelming but use your ears. I spend a lot of my time closing my eyes when I critically listen. As someone whose first student projects were done in an analog studio, on DAT tapes, with DA-88 multitrack recorders I find a lot of visual stimulus from screens can be awfully distracting to perceiving what you're actually listening to. When I close my eyes and critically listen I perceive the mix very much the same way someone might visually perceive a painting hanging on the wall of a museum. It's an image and it has height, width, and depth. The height is dictated by the human hearing spectrum of 20Hz to 20kHz (realistically somewhere around 18.5kHz give or take as very few people have ultra perfect hearing). The width is dictated by the stereo image from left to right. Then lastly depth, which can be determined or affected by things like loudness or reverb. For me, taking advantage of this space is how you maintain dynamics and cohesion in a record. 

Understanding the tools, concepts, and end goal can help you to know how and when to make certain moves. Maybe offsetting that hi hat or perc slightly to the left in a space otherwise unused in the stereo spectrum might bring out some really cool syncopation in the rhythm section that was lost somewhere in production. Or maybe unmasking that synth pad with EQ ends up being a distraction and takes away from the vocal. This goes back to the quest for perfection thought process. Sometimes the things stacked on top of each other, masking each other slightly or other things in the mix, is what inherently makes that part vibey and trying to make everything have its perfect place and be audible makes the whole record fall apart. The human brain can only proactively listen to somewhere between one to three elements in a mix at a time so for me it's about figuring out what is driving the song and highlighting that thing or things and everything else is there to support it. Everything in the mix can't be at the forefront because if everything is loud then nothing is loud. “

Final Thoughts

I absolutely loved diving into David’s answer. What really stood out to me was his principled approach to mixing— considering everything from genre and the artist’s vision to staying present and not getting overly distracted by screens. This mindset not only leads to strong technical choices but also allows him to fully connect with the art and find the best way to serve it. And because his approach is principle-based, all options remain on the table.

That flexibility is something I realized I need to strengthen. I also loved his painting analogy— just as we all perceive visual art differently, the same goes for music. Striving for “perfection” can quickly become a subjective rabbit hole that might not actually serve the song. I’ll definitely be referring back to David’s insights as I continue my audio journey.

Thanks David for your insightful answer!

Catch you next blog!