Colours can be deceptive.

Over the years I have worked with designers and colourists and been heavily involved with finishes in manufacturing.

In a sense, they are to a product what an album cover is to a record release. Often, they can be a major factor, in selling the product.

By the way a colourist makes up the batches of colour for manufacturing large paint runs, which all have a specific batch number for matching purposes.

A colourists job is highly technical, for instance if on a dark night you shone a torch on a colour like nightfire, you would suddenly identify, green, blue and yellow "flames" you had never noticed before, as with a night fire.

With the colour gold, they can create very many variations, starting from a yellow base or a green base, or an orange base. And if you really think about it, you have probably seen different types of gold, representing these distinct differences.

The thing is, if in business you had to give a report to superiors, using varying types of graphs with differentiating colours to illustrate how well your division in the company is doing. By judiciously picking the colours you use to illustrate areas, where there is under performance.

You can create the illusion that the under-performing areas are actually rather better than anything other than straight forward figures, would ever reveal to be the case. Certain colours tend to dominate the eye relative to other colours that tend to have a reducing effect. Because of this, you can distort the actual reality of the graph.

Large products need to be seen in colour before being released to market, as this little-known colour effect can alter the way or even the size that a product appears to be.

Photographers and their models can use different coloured items to make them seem fuller or thinner. Women understand this well.

It is an optical, illusory effect.

The point here, is if you are mixing sound, with a big screen in front of you full of vivid colours.

Do you really want that type of added complexity that may be playing tricks with your mind, without you ever actually being actively conscious of that, realising it?

I think not personally.

Furthermore, some things I have discovered over the years have pleasantly surprised me.

One of which is that methods which some of the mixing engineers I most admire, utilise the same methods I have quite independently developed.

It is as far as humanly possible, to always lay out the very many different instruments on the various channels of the mixer, in an identically consistent manner.

Of course, vocal and instrument line ups can be quite drastically different. But for me at least, it is extraordinary how very often, they are entirely or almost entirely, consistent.

Particular instruments to the far left, particular instruments to the far right. Elements of the mix that are central requiring consistent adjustment, in the easily reached centre. Subgroups all together for easy control of multi-miked instruments.

Personally, I believe that digital technology aside the greatest, most important development in recording technology has been the development of continuously repeatable, automated mixes. Mixes can be honed to perfection, A dB higher here, 0.5 of a dB lower there, though automation can be a slow and boring process.

A engineer friend of mine found himself totally bored stiff in Miami at the incrementally infinitesimal care “The Bee Gees” were taking, honing their analogue mixes. Olivia Newton- John walked in, leant over the meter bridge and breezily inquired: “anyone here play Trivial Pursuit?” The bored engineer immediately responded: “Every day ma’am. Everyday!”

Today coloured track identification is extremely common on most sequencers.

To my ears at least, that has not resulted in providing superior mixes.

There are more arguments against such technology.

Than ever there are, in their favour.

Is my viewpoint.

Name the tracks clearly.

Utilise consistent, standardised methodology.

Reaching for the right fader will eventually become second nature.

Avoid having any “mix by colour” influences that distort your clarity of perception.