Hey everyone!
I know it’s been a little while since I’ve last posted, and this assignment for class is technically late. I got back from the Nashville trip that the Music Tech department went on over fall break and got hit with what I have deemed the plague.
I’m doing a lot better now and I’m finally able to catch up on the work I missed, now that I caught up with the tests I missed. So I want to talk to you about this mix!
I was really excited to mix Malibu Stasi’s He Tried. It was a really cool song with spoken word lead vocals and really cool harmonies on background vocals. The drums were big and in your face, the bass and guitar had crazy pedal boards they were going through, and the keys track was killer because it went through the same pedal board that the guitar went through.
After doing the general volume and pan mix, compressing and gating things that needed it, I realized that I didn’t want to do much to the guitars, bass, and keys other than maybe putting it through a hint of reverb. They sounded awesome, so there wasn’t much to do to make it more awesome than it was. Instead, I decided to add more effects to the vocals. I slightly tuned the speaking vocals by about 20 cents up in order to give them some distinguishable character and make the layering more noticeable. I added a sans-amp plug-in to the lead and double to give it some similar grit that the guitars, bass, and keys had. I did that to the background vocals as well, but added it more to them since they had generic ‘ah’s and I wouldn’t be compromising the integrity of the words. I also put the ah’s through a decent bit of delay so that they filled out the song with a lush quality. The lead vocals got a little but of verb, as did the guitars and keys.
I had a lot of fun with this track, I hope you enjoy! Parental advisory for language in the lyrics, but it’s a rockin song so give it a listen.
