The 'Mix Rescue' mix

[Mike Senior]

Here's the mix I did of this track for Sound On Sound magazine's March 2010 'Mix Rescue' column, using only Cockos Reaper and a variety of third-party plug-ins. The long-term dynamics of this one were tough, as they always are in this kind of muse-esque epicness. Had lots of fun with the vocal effects, though.

[takka360]

Nice mix Mike.You always seem to pinpoint everything in your mixes

[Mike Senior]

Nice mix Mike.You always seem to pinpoint everything in your mixes

Thanks takka! I do tend to lean more towards clarity/separation in my mixes than blend/cohesion -- my own style, I suppose! Seem to remember cutting out various things on this mix to do it, although it's been a while now since I did this mix, so I can't remember all the details...

[takka360]

Yes i notice you deffo have your own style and sound.
Great stuff

[pauli]

you've definitely got a sound of your own! I usually download your mix rescue versions of the multi-tracks to reference in my daw after I'm finished, and I find myself consistently going in an entirely different direction, especially when it comes to effects processing not present in the original mix, which I'm always reluctant to use. I'm curious as to how you achieve so much character to your mixes... I feel like I get good balance and blend, clarity when I want it, but I never manage to give the production this sort of color or character.

[takka360]

Love that on the vox ,can you remember how you done this Mike ?
Some kind of side chain ?

[Mike Senior]

Love that on the vox ,can you remember how you done this Mike ?
Some kind of side chain ?

It's a bit lost in the mists of time, this one, I'm afraid, as I did it in an ancient version of Cubase SX seven or eight years ago. Normally I can load the project back up, but this one predates both my current and previous DAW systems! However, I did mention a little bit about it in the Mix Rescue article:

"t usually makes sense to take a cue from the existing material, and the first thing I ran with was the idea of using delay effects to generate some interest between the vocal phrases — which is something that Zeno had already explored to some extent in their mix. Like them, I introduced a tempo‑sync'ed delay, but I decided to halve the delay time (for a faster rate of repeats) and then ride the delay in and out more frequently. However, I combined this with an extremely long special‑effect reverb from one of my favourite bits of freeware, Da Sample's Glaceverb. I used Voxengo's MSED to reduce the stereo width a little (because by default it seemed rather all‑encompassing) and then filtered the output for a mid-range‑heavy tone distinct from the vocal itself. Unlike the delay, however, I fed the reverb effect from a separate duplicate lead‑vocal track, so that I could easily edit the audio to vary which notes had reverb, and when the onset of the reverb occurred in each case. The reason I did this was that I wanted to undermine any expectation that the effect would remain constant, and thereby retain the listener's interest for longer. I was also able to time‑stretch the last note of both verses to create a neat transition into the pounding pre-chorus sections."

So, basically, it's an automated delay spin with wierd reverb and EQ applied to it. Oh, and listening to it again, I think I time-stretched some moments of the audio on the delay's feeder track.

[takka360]

Cheers Mike, it was worth the work you put it

[KMuzic]

Hi Mike
I love the creativity of this mix! The vocal effects work perfectly and everything sits nicely in its own space, really cool mix!

Nice Work!

Cheers

K

[alba]

Oh boy. This mix is a classic example of how much a mixer can contribute to the success of a song. Pretty impressive. Mixing can give so much character and power to a song, or even a band, really.