I Love this song and spent a lot of time on it. There were two remix I kept as reference (Spede and Bmullen). I also read the challenge they faced in their own mixes before getting to work.
The drums
Basically I kept only the sample tracks and the OH one. I recreated the kick and Toms tracks to scratch (with midi) and used some Logic samples. I also doubled the snare track with Logic samples.
The Bass
I split the track in two stems, one with the slap playing and one for the other. Each bass track has it's own virtual amp and effects to help the bass get through the bassy spectrum of the Taiko and the Toms.
The guitars
I loved the style of the guitar on tracks 28 and 29 so I created another one to extend the groove through the song. These guitars are sent to a verb, a chorus and an echo in three aux tracks. I also added a background guitar that puts accents on the rhythm with the slap bass.
Piano, Organ, Synth, Strings and Mellotron were balanced to glue the rest together.
As for the vocals, I kept only the main tracks and removed the ones that were created in duplication (kept 10 out of 30). I used a verb as a send and varied the send volume depending of the sections of the song. There is a second verb as a send with a fixed send level. I cut out the falsetto parts of the lead vocals (the Bee Gee style) and exchanged with the same section from a backing track. This keeps the spectrum of the lead in the same register throughout the song, and leaves the higher parts as backing. I sent the lead vocal track to an aux track with a pitch modifier that lowered the input to get harmony in background. There is a lot of automation on the lead tracks. I also corrected the backing vocals tracks looping a section that sounded right.
Hoping this sounds good enough. Regards.
The drums
Basically I kept only the sample tracks and the OH one. I recreated the kick and Toms tracks to scratch (with midi) and used some Logic samples. I also doubled the snare track with Logic samples.
The Bass
I split the track in two stems, one with the slap playing and one for the other. Each bass track has it's own virtual amp and effects to help the bass get through the bassy spectrum of the Taiko and the Toms.
The guitars
I loved the style of the guitar on tracks 28 and 29 so I created another one to extend the groove through the song. These guitars are sent to a verb, a chorus and an echo in three aux tracks. I also added a background guitar that puts accents on the rhythm with the slap bass.
Piano, Organ, Synth, Strings and Mellotron were balanced to glue the rest together.
As for the vocals, I kept only the main tracks and removed the ones that were created in duplication (kept 10 out of 30). I used a verb as a send and varied the send volume depending of the sections of the song. There is a second verb as a send with a fixed send level. I cut out the falsetto parts of the lead vocals (the Bee Gee style) and exchanged with the same section from a backing track. This keeps the spectrum of the lead in the same register throughout the song, and leaves the higher parts as backing. I sent the lead vocal track to an aux track with a pitch modifier that lowered the input to get harmony in background. There is a lot of automation on the lead tracks. I also corrected the backing vocals tracks looping a section that sounded right.
Hoping this sounds good enough. Regards.