On a mixing side the first thing
that happens when when we're asked to
mix a song or an album
is once the files
are here we look through them we make
sure everything is working correctly
we have everything we need we then A-B
with the reference mix
and we listen to the reference mix
and if there any other reference mixes available
we'll ask for them
if there's a demo available we'll ask
for that whatever is around for us to listen to.
Sometimes I'll receive notes
before we start the album
explaining what the artist is trying to achieve or
what the producer is trying to achieve
and usually we will be furnished with
good rough mixes that I will follow
As far as interpretation or how far I take
it down the avenue that I would like to take it
depends on artist to artist
nine times out of ten they would like to see
or have the opportunity to hear what
our input would be or my input would be.
Sometimes you are specifically told that
they just want a polished version of
what they've sent me
that they don't want me to
stray very far but that's quite rare
sometimes we'll have two or three
different mixes of the same song
sometimes we have an album version
and then we'll be asked to make a single
radio edit version of it
which will be a little louder
maybe a little bit more up front maybe just
highlighting the hooks a bit more
maybe editing it down to three and a half minutes.
Sometimes the band are here with me
which is great because you have more interaction
quite often how it would work is
I will start an album
work for a couple of weeks on my own
and the band will come and
we'll listen to where we're at
and they'll make suggestions or
change things and then maybe they'll come back
on the last day or two and we'll
finalise it together.
But it means my recalls have to be very fast and so
that's an important part of our workflow
now is the way we approach
outboard equipment and
the different ways of recalling very quickly.
These days the starting point is different
Years ago when we were
working with tape you'd basically start with
drums and then you'd feel around the
song and you only generally would have 48
tracks to work with.
These days some of
my songs have 250 tracks or more
Generally it will come
in in the session and you will then
adapt the session to how I work but
generally the song is already in a
good shape when you get it and so it's
not a question of starting with drums
and everything you'll tend to get it as
a whole and then I'll listen to it and
find the areas I want to work on first
and sometimes it'll be the vocals and
sometimes it'll be drums
or if the drums are fine then I'll
leave them for a while
work on guitars and work on
strings or whatever other things and
then come back to the drums and have a
clearer idea of what they need to sound
like to help the rest of the things and
to help the song and to help the vocal
to help solve and to help the vocal
which you'll hear 100 times
it's all about the emotion and the
connection of the vocal.
Sometimes you can slightly over-compress a vocal
and completely lose the connection
with it emotionally and it just doesn't do that
thing anymore where the hairs
on your arm stand up and it can simply be
because it's over compressed and because
it's not allowed to have its dynamic.
Sometimes vocals need to be absolutely
battered to get across the attitude that
it needs but it's all good fun to be
honest you know you can try different things.
I suppose you need to
try different things quite quickly to
see which has the best effect on you as
a mixer or as a producer or as an
artist and you'll get to know what you
like and you don't like.
I'm not afraid of trying things and I'm not afraid of
people turning around to me saying "well we
"don't like that" that's fine I'd rather
try ten things and them like four of them
rather than not try anything and
give them back a polished version of
what they sent me.
I've been doing this long enough not to get upset
if someone doesn't like my guitar sound
you know it's not a problem.
I have more opportunity to change things now
than I used to when we were using tape
in those days we couldn't
change things too much. We still used
amplifiers and guitar pedals and those
kind of things to try and twist the
sound a little. Now it's a lot easier to do
it with with plugins and there are so
many different analog circuits now
available for us to to mess with sound.
We tend to do quite a lot of reamping
not particularly to change the tone of
things but just to give things a bit of depth
a lot of the time it's better for
me to work with the DI bass, listen to
the bass that they've achieved or the
sound they've achieved with the bass
through their amplifier and then see if
I can improve on that not necessarily
change the tone but maybe
I'll reamp it in four or five different
tones and then use those in different
parts of the song
so the verses maybe
quite a clean sound the chorus then might
have a distortion on it and I'll record
the whole song through four or five
times through the Hiwatt and through
the Ampeg B15 or with various pedals
and just see if a blend of them makes
any difference when I change it from
section to section
Although those things aren't particularly noticeable
unless someone listening out for
them they have a big effect on the
dynamic of the song.
I'll try certain things and I can only guess what the
artists will like and after a while I'll get
is understanding and what they like and
what they don't like, what kind of vocal
sound they like, whether they like the
vocal being edgy,
whether they like the vocal being clean
and sometimes we'll try
and we will twist the vocal a little bit
to start with and see if they're happy
with that and maybe try a bit further
and see if we can just change the
textures again on different parts of the
song just to help the dynamic of the song
and then try and build up a rapport
with the artists and get to understand
what what he she or they like.
There's very little set routine really
apart from the way the sessions laid out
and maybe your hierarchy in your signal flow
but generally even if you're mixing and album
every song will have a
different snare drum sound even if it's
the same snare even it's the same
kick drum it depends how hard it's hit
so there are certain effects that I will
tend to lean towards like reverb
I tent to like certain types of reverbs
so I will tend to use Springs for vocals and
I'll tend to use Rooms for guitars and
so in that respect I have my kind of go to
ways of doing things but every song
is so different and so I don't think you
can apply rules to things really.
I mean vocal compressors I generally have I
think four different chains of analogue
compressors with EQs after and de-essers after
and I'll try them, I'll try each one
and see which one I prefer so one might
have an 1176 followed by a Pultec
another one might have a PIE followed by a Pultec.
I have an EAR followed by a Cinema EQ
and a de-esser so even the same vocalist on
different songs on
the album we might try three or four
different chains and they won't always
be the same chain, it depends on his
delivery in the song and we obviously
have to confine ourselves because we're
only given a day to mix a song.
Usually takes about a day and a half but you
know I have to get these things done
within budget so I can't spend two days
on one kick drum sound or reamping the
vocals through twelve different
amplifiers you can't do that.
Once the song is working, lucky with Pro Tools you
could save it and you can mess about and
then revert to previous if it doesn't
work out or you can try things and
you'll try stuff and you've you've got
the song working and then you decide
right i want the end to just be massive
so you push and push and
push and then at some point you'll think
it doesn't feel right anymore
it sounds too mashed or it doesn't have
the emotional attachment or I don't have
the emotional attachment with it that I
did have so you'd step back a couple of
mixes and then that's when you kind of
start to know okay
this is actually as far as it's going to
go this is kind of it now and then I'll
send it out my work in progress 1
and I'll get comments back from the band and then
they will say they love this, this, and this,
don't like that, that, and that,
then we'll change those things and within
maybe 2, 3, or 4 revisions we'll get to a
point where the band are happy, the label are happy,
the manager is happy,
the plugger's happy and it reaches the end at that point
It's generally a collective decision
it's quite rare that I will
send out work in progress 1 and
they'll go "Yep that's it", it happens occasionally
which is lovely but not very often.
Now you have to present something that's almost
mastered and something is so loud
and so in your face which normally should be
the domain of the mastering engineer really,
but if I send that a work in progress reference mix
generally I'll have to apply a little bit of limiting
in it to get it loud enough because
otherwise when they A-B it with
something else they'll go "It doesn't sound any good"
and in fact it just a bit quieter
So you have to be aware of those things
also the bar is so high now
the bar has been set so high that
records now invariably you know sound
pretty bloody good compared to what they
used to you know
and it's harder work to achieve those standards.
Timewise you're not given as much
time as you used to be given.
Albums now are recorded and mixed in a fraction
of what they used to take
so you've got to work smarter you've got to work faster
it is about workflow it is about
keeping the time down for experimentation
in terms of yes you can experiment
but have things set up so
we'll have all sorts of signal chains
and amps going into different things and
we'll just try it and it'll all be set up
and there'll be a spring going into a
guitar amp coming back through a delay
and we'll just throw things at it and
see if that sounds good great well then
we use it if not don't spend time on it
move on to something else
try something else but if you can have
things set up around you where you can
try things quickly and discard them
quickly then
it's better.