Gregory Scott, founder of Kush Audio, shared an interesting insight about mixing music the other day: Sometimes, to bring something forward in the mix, instead of turning it up, it can be more effective to actually turn all the other things down.
Let’s say you realise that the track you are working on needs more bass. So you pull up the fader for the bass by a few dB. But now you notice that the drums could be more present, so you pull them up a tiny bit as well. Now, the vocal is a bit too silent, so you lift it up a little bit as well. And before you know it, you have turned all faders up, not only the bass. So what you could have done instead, is actually grab all other faders and turn them down a tiny bit to create more space for the bass.
Gregory calls this the difference between an additive and a subtractive mindset. The first impulse, whether it be in mixing, or design, or basically any creative endeavour, is often to use the additive mindset. When we want to emphasise something, we add more of it. More weight, more size, more color, more energy, more loudness, more fancy. But everything we create always exists in relation to other things. Everything we create sits in a context. And it is that context – that contrast – which determines how we perceive things. It is how much space you create for things to take full effect. But the thing about space: you cannot add space. You can only make space, you can only reveal space, you can only open space up. And in order to do that, you have to remove things that are taking up the space. You have to take stuff out.
So, the next time you are working on a design for a website, a content structure, a piece of music, a piece of writing, or also a conference talk – whatever it may be – think about what the quality is you want to amplify and then try to identify what you can take away to reveal more of that quality. Try to think about what the core message is you want to convey and then reduce the things that only add noise around it. Make space for that message.
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This is post 8 of Blogtober 2025.
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