I never began recording other people's music in order to spend ten-hour days working alone. The early Covid lockdown really brought that home for me. Even though I'd been mixing remotely for many years, all of a sudden all of my work was remote. I was massively grateful that I had been building up the skills needed for this model of working, and that I had trust from my clients, as well as multiple jobs coming in. But it was lonely and so unlike my many years of collaborative, everyone present, tape-based sessions in the previous decades. As life began to return to sort-of-normal, and I took on album production jobs or people booked time for other projects, attended mixing time returned.
None of what I'm talking about below is to disparage mixing without the client present. A large amount of my own day-to-day work is still performed remotely, and I'm excited and grateful to be able to mix records for clients across the globe. Sometimes I've done extensive pre-mixing solo for clients and then had them attend for just a single day as we sign off on everything and make some changes. One client – in a very democratic group – has noted how much more this process "finalizes" their albums. But, either way, there are definitely pros and cons to mixing attended or unattended.
Pros:
-A quick chat and getting a "feel" for the clients will help the mixer understand who they are and their mix needs.
-Body language can say a lot. I've felt bass players uncomfortably fidgeting behind me, and then noticed I had the bass far too low in the mix. Nothing needed to be said.
-Social interaction is healthy! It's proven to be good for the brain and may even extend your life.
-For our mental health, there's nothing quite as soul-eating as sending off a remote mix and having doubts about how it will be received. The client's feedback in the room on an attended session completely avoids that.