The 'Mix Rescue' mix

[Mike Senior]

Here's the mix I did of this track for Sound On Sound magazine's February 2009 'Mix Rescue' column, using only Cockos Reaper and a variety of third-party plug-ins. I ended up doing a lot of multing here, as well as triggering some samples and doing a fair bit of tuning work.

[takka360]

Wow Mike you have done a fantastic job of the vocals and what a stunning mix overall, dont know how you do it.

[JohnSmith]

Really nice mix of a cool song Mike !

I love that "Phil Collins/Hugh Padgham" sound you've (re?)created here ! I might be a little confused with the low tom panned a little too much for the main role it has... but that's really to say something critic about it .
About the rest ? Crystal clear, powerful, creative and rich.

How do you do that ? I might have some ideas... : in disorder, and non exhaustive : humility, patience, experience, referencing and listening to lot of music, adapted tools for what's to be done (no need of SSL hardware to achieve such a good result, or 1000€ cracked plugins...), great knowledge of the "art of listening" to the others' job, making lots of pauses to rest ears and brain, smile, love and passion ... May this list be correct and helps..

Cheers Mike ! Always nice to listen/ear a mix/song from you !

[Dags]

[falls to knees and bows repeatedly]
"We are not worthy!"

I would love to know what effect is on the vocals that makes it sound like there's no effect on it.
I'm still learning about constructing effective 'dry' mixes.

Thanks for showing us what is possible

Dags

[JohnSmith]

Dags : this is for you !

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb09/ar...09.htm#Top

And for all those who want to know "what and how"


Great job Mike

[Mike Senior]

Thanks all of you for the very kind words. I seem to remember being quite happy with the way this particular Rescue came out -- some of them turn out better than others!

I would love to know what effect is on the vocals that makes it sound like there's no effect on it.

Funnily enough, someone recently emailed me about this mix independently, so I'll see if I can resurrect it from my session backups and upload the project file (and screenshots) to the multitrack library. Hopefully that should provide some additional info beyond what I was able to write about in the article -- there never seems to be enough space to write about everything I've done on each of those remixes!

[Mike Senior]

Just dusted off the project and, miraculously, it appears to have loaded back in completely intact, so I'll try to get that uploaded to the library within the next couple of days.

[Dags]

Mike and Xabi, I thank you!
I'll print the article off tomorrow so I can digest the information in the evenings.

I love learning new things!

Dags

[takka360]

Nice one,will look forward to a look at that.

[niljack]

Wow!
From the beginning to the end, everything sounds cool. Love the huge drum sound and the guitars and keys are working perfectly together!
The vocals are sounding so pro!! Grrt to here that we dont need the greatest analog compressors to do such a great vocal sound

Cheers.