Michael Soutar

The first and primary mix I worked on was this song, Freddy V, the song was already well balanced but it was dry, with no effects, EQ or panning, on it. So these were the primary areas I worked on in the piece, I started off by getting the volume levels sorted on all the instruments before working on the vocals.

The drum kit needed toning down and besides the overheads, each part of the kit had a different compressor on it, this allowed for far more versatility and ability to fine tune it all. I then soloed the overhead track to get a feel for the overall placement of the kit, I then panned each individual track accordingly.

I then worked on the keyboard and organ, overall the organs were slightly overpowering and the keyboard was lacking, so I turned up the keyboard. As well as turning it up, I added an EQ on it to try and boost its clarity in order to make it sound much brighter and stand out since it has some lovely twinkle parts in it. With the help of my lecturer I was shown an interesting technique for panning the organs and piano, making them give the impression one is on the left, and the other on the right, but still sounding like they are also in front of you.

I then worked on the guitars, which besides the vocals, was the most worked on instrument in the whole piece, I started by sorting its levels but it wasn’t having any effect, and it wasn’t until my lecturer helped by pointing out the guitars were out of phase (which I learned how to fix) and so upon fixing that, the guitars stood out very well. I then EQ'd them to make them like the keyboards, brighter and with more clarity. I then panned the two guitars, as they were labelled on track respectively, into stereo, which really brought out the melody.

Finally I worked on the vocals of the song, overall there was 9 tracks of vocals, the primary and 8 backing vocals. I started by adding reverb and an air enhancer to the vocals, to make them stand out and give the feeling that the singer is right next to you. It took a while to get the right ratio with the reverb, it was hard to make the main vocalist not get lost in the other instruments. With trial and error I eventually became happy with how it sounded.

Compressors were added to most of the tracks of the song, just to regain the balance that was lost in the mixing process. The bass guitar and keyboard had some automation added to highlight some key points they had within the song. The final mix was shortened due to it initially being 7 minutes long with a long fade away.  

The other two mixes that I have chosen is song called, “South of the water” and my DAW project, which are currently still being mixed. However I am using the techniques used in the mixing of Freddy V and applying them in these songs also.

 Links to the initial mixes are on the right.