10-05-2021, 01:10 AM
So, it's time to abandon this mix and post it. I ended up really liking this song. I came across it looking for something more complex to mix - something with a lot of tracks. After watching the Dua Lipa episode of Song Exploder on Netflix I wanted to give something like this a shot. I e-mailed Mike for suggestions and ended up settling on this. I really like the song and production - there are a lot of neat little hidden gems in the synth and electric guitar parts, but every time I listen to this song in my car I can't believe it's only 3 1/2 minutes long.
I tend to subscribe to a top-down mixing approach. I'm sorry, Warren Huart, but I can't make my kick drum sound like the best kick drum for this mix and then move on to the snare, and then the toms, and when I'm done I have a perfect mix. Maybe 100 mixes from now I'll be able to do that, but for the time being this works for me.
So, starting from the mix buss, I've got a fairly typical mix buss/mastering chain inserted. It starts with a gain plug because when all was said and done I'd lost track of my gain structure, and had a lot of the balances dialed in by the time I realized it. Following that is saturation with the Kramer Tape and Slate Virtual Console, then compression and EQ courtesy of my Plugin Alliance (PA) subscription (SPL Iron and Bettermaker EQ) followed by their bx_Limiter True Peak. Finally, the Youlean Loudness Meter helps me find my final level for publishing.
The individual tracks are all bussed by type (strings, BGVs, etc.) and those individual tracks pretty much only have a gain plug-in on them. (Hornet VU Meter). The processing then occurs on the buss channel. Often it's just an instance of Slate VCC and some EQ and Compression (frequently Reaper's ReEq and a PA compressor).
The Lead vox (love Angelo's voice for this song, by the way) has Baby Audio's new Smooth Operator cutting a resonance/sibilance at about 5k, with Cakewalk's CA-2A for compression (I auditioned several optical compressors but this oldie was my favorite for this track) with Kush's Clariphonic at the end. Careful, that last one's addictive. The delay is a patch from the Soundtoys Effects Rack that uses two instances of EchoBoy with a FilterFreak in between.
I won't dig into all the processing, just mention a few more of the effects. The choir is Valhalla SuperMassive, which has to be one of the best free plug-ins ever released. I'm using Izotope's DDLY Dynamic Delay on the piano. This has become my go-to delay because it has two different delay settings, and which one is triggered depends on the amplitude of the incoming audio. Very cool. Strings have the Abbey Roads Chambers, and the only other effect is an ambiance on an Aux send courtesy of ValhallaRoom. There were enough room tracks on the drums that I didn't feel any additional reverb there was warranted.
I had some challenges on this mix, unrelated to the sheer number of tracks (88 once Bus and Aux tracks are added in). The biggest was that I listened to the original mix about 20 hours into mine. At that point I just about gave up completely. It was so much deeper, wider, fuller and bigger than mine. I would love to know more about the "Official mix." After a suitable period away I came back and studiously avoided that mix. What I have here I'm actually fairly proud of, although I wish I could figure out how to make it wider. I have many of the individual elements (strings, guitars, BGVs) panned wide, but my mix still sounds fairly narrow to me.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that there's a metric crap-ton of automation.
Anyway, that's my mix and how I arrived at it. I'm kind of hoping this post inspires more people to go a little more in depth into the mixes they post. So many of them are a single sentence - "Here's my mix!" Of course, if you don't find this sort of navel gazing raptly entertaining, then please take it all with a grain of salt. And thank you to Angelo for letting me mix his excellent song.
I tend to subscribe to a top-down mixing approach. I'm sorry, Warren Huart, but I can't make my kick drum sound like the best kick drum for this mix and then move on to the snare, and then the toms, and when I'm done I have a perfect mix. Maybe 100 mixes from now I'll be able to do that, but for the time being this works for me.
So, starting from the mix buss, I've got a fairly typical mix buss/mastering chain inserted. It starts with a gain plug because when all was said and done I'd lost track of my gain structure, and had a lot of the balances dialed in by the time I realized it. Following that is saturation with the Kramer Tape and Slate Virtual Console, then compression and EQ courtesy of my Plugin Alliance (PA) subscription (SPL Iron and Bettermaker EQ) followed by their bx_Limiter True Peak. Finally, the Youlean Loudness Meter helps me find my final level for publishing.
The individual tracks are all bussed by type (strings, BGVs, etc.) and those individual tracks pretty much only have a gain plug-in on them. (Hornet VU Meter). The processing then occurs on the buss channel. Often it's just an instance of Slate VCC and some EQ and Compression (frequently Reaper's ReEq and a PA compressor).
The Lead vox (love Angelo's voice for this song, by the way) has Baby Audio's new Smooth Operator cutting a resonance/sibilance at about 5k, with Cakewalk's CA-2A for compression (I auditioned several optical compressors but this oldie was my favorite for this track) with Kush's Clariphonic at the end. Careful, that last one's addictive. The delay is a patch from the Soundtoys Effects Rack that uses two instances of EchoBoy with a FilterFreak in between.
I won't dig into all the processing, just mention a few more of the effects. The choir is Valhalla SuperMassive, which has to be one of the best free plug-ins ever released. I'm using Izotope's DDLY Dynamic Delay on the piano. This has become my go-to delay because it has two different delay settings, and which one is triggered depends on the amplitude of the incoming audio. Very cool. Strings have the Abbey Roads Chambers, and the only other effect is an ambiance on an Aux send courtesy of ValhallaRoom. There were enough room tracks on the drums that I didn't feel any additional reverb there was warranted.
I had some challenges on this mix, unrelated to the sheer number of tracks (88 once Bus and Aux tracks are added in). The biggest was that I listened to the original mix about 20 hours into mine. At that point I just about gave up completely. It was so much deeper, wider, fuller and bigger than mine. I would love to know more about the "Official mix." After a suitable period away I came back and studiously avoided that mix. What I have here I'm actually fairly proud of, although I wish I could figure out how to make it wider. I have many of the individual elements (strings, guitars, BGVs) panned wide, but my mix still sounds fairly narrow to me.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that there's a metric crap-ton of automation.
Anyway, that's my mix and how I arrived at it. I'm kind of hoping this post inspires more people to go a little more in depth into the mixes they post. So many of them are a single sentence - "Here's my mix!" Of course, if you don't find this sort of navel gazing raptly entertaining, then please take it all with a grain of salt. And thank you to Angelo for letting me mix his excellent song.