I am in the control room of a recording studio in Florida, a cool oasis of air-conditioned comfort in a land otherwise enveloped in muggy unpleasantness. My hands rest on the cool aluminum of the mixing console, and beneath them, motorized faders glide smoothly and silently in their slots, repeating my previous movements. The mix has become a living, breathing thing. It responds to my gentle corrections but possesses a spirit and a consciousness through the silicon mind of the computer and the voice of the singer. It’s her part I’m concentrating on now. Forty-seven faders move autonomously while my finger rests on just one, the one with a small star drawn on its scribble strip.

She’s not here, of course. Not physically. The little room beyond the soundproof glass is dark and empty, but the magic of two-inch analog tape ensures that her performance lingers. I constantly make small adjustments, keeping the level of her voice precisely balanced with the other tracks.

The last note trails off into the fade. For a moment, the room is silent. Motors whir, the big reels of tape rewind, and the faders snap back to their starting positions like soldiers coming to attention. Another pass. Refine. Hone. Sweeten.

Sing to me.

I am on a tall scaffold, looking at a stage a couple of hundred feet in front of me. Beyond it, the office buildings of downtown Orlando slowly empty, and people migrate toward the open-air concert. Already a large crowd stretches out beneath my perch, and the music is well underway.

The singer is blonde and wears a black leather outfit that doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination, but from my mix position, she is just a blur. Besides, I’m too busy for sightseeing. My hands are full keeping track of the combined output of eight band members and four backing vocalists, not to mention the siren herself.

Her voice is neither sweet nor subtle. The notes fall like the blows and strokes of a hard, stimulating massage, pounding the audience with pulses of staccato horsepower. I look down and all around me, the growing ocean of humanity is moving in time with the music. I see smiles and laughter. Hands clap. Heads bob. I notice that I’m moving right along with them.

The cop with the sound level meter standing beside me is moving too. Momentarily I catch his eye, and he smiles. The crowd’s responses intensify. Smiling myself, I move my finger a few millimeters and unleash a few thousand Watts more.

Sing to me.

I am in a room constructed of concrete block, situated beneath the steeply terraced seating of a megachurch. I can see nothing other than my console and what’s displayed on the two nineteen-inch video monitors in front of me. Behind me sits my A2, a high-school senior wearing a headset that connects her to the director in the television control room two floors up. On the monitors I see, from two different angles, a church leader introducing a guest who will be singing today. I know who she is, and with every fiber of my being I dislike her and what she stands for. She is an obscenity, a makeup-covered monument to insincerity, greed, and apostasy, Jezebel in nylons.

My A2 taps me on my left shoulder. “She’s on Cindy’s mic.” Instinctively I reach for that channel strip and immediately dial in equalization settings that I think will match her voice, line up an appropriate effect, and take a quick guess at the proper trim setting. I solo the mic and make sure I hear room tone. As she steps forward to sing, I quickly forget who she is. I don’t see a woman on my monitors; I see performance cues, microphone technique, and phrasing. It doesn’t matter who she is, not now. She is a singer, and I am a mixer. My fingers fly; my concentration becomes absolute.

A moment later, there’s another tap on my shoulder as my A2 relays another message from the director. “Your mix sounds hot!” I nod my thanks without looking away from my work. At least it’s a good song, and she does sound clean, clear, and powerful. Into the chorus, I lean into the console, and notice that I’m tapping my foot.

Sing to me.

My eyes hurt. I’ve been staring at a computer monitor for hours, editing. The tracking session the day before had been a miserable experience for the poor singer. He’d had an off day and had not been able to get through a take without going off key, missing a lyric, or just running out of steam. We’d come away from the day with a stack of takes, more than a dozen of them, all lacking one major element or another. My assurances that we’d fix it at mix time did not seem to reassure the poor fellow, and he’d left feeling like a failure, his shoulders slumped and his voice gone.

Starting in the early morning, I’d taken all twelve takes and listened to them critically. I’d chosen the best parts of each, sometimes cutting elements as small as a syllable or two. I had then reconstructed the entire lead vocal from these bits and pieces, Frankenstein-style. Now I’m running down a rough mix of the whole song, working entirely in the computer to save time. Just as I finish, the singer walks into the room, fearing the worst. I greet him and invite him to take a seat as I patch in the big control room monitors and adjust the volume to a comfortable level.

“It’s just a rough,” I remind him. I tap the space bar and sit back as the intro begins to play, and watch his face.

As the verses go by, I mentally tick off every edit in my mind. His expression changes. After the first two completely inaudible edits, his face registers mild confusion. Four or five edits later, when the expected gaffes aren’t heard, the confusion gives way to incredulity. Then he breaks into a grin, and then an outright smile as it dawns on him what I’ve done. By the time the song ends, he’s laughing.

“Dude, you totally pulled that out of the fire! You rock!”

People sometimes ask me why recording, mixing, editing, and sweetening vocals is such a passion for me. There’s really only one way to completely understand the answer.

Sing to me.