Mike Senior takes you through the before and after files of his Mix Rescue of Two Spot Gobi's live-recorded track:
- Kick Original
kickoriginal-0708.mp3
kickoriginal-0708.wav
The original kick-drum didn't feel solid enough at the low end to me.
- Kick Main
kickmain.mp3
kickmain.wav
The main kick channel as it appears in the remix.
- Kick Parallel
kickparallel.mp3
kickparallel.wav
The parallel kick channel was gated and EQ'd to add extra weight without uncontrolled low-frequency resonance.
- Kick Mix
kickmix.mp3
kickmix.wav
The combination of the main and parallel channels along with the short reverb which was used to blend the composite sound into the mix.
- Bass Original
bassoriginal-0708.mp3
bassoriginal-0708.wav
The main problem with the bass guitar part was inconsistency, both in terms of overall level and in terms of spectral balance.
- Bass Parallel
bassparallel.mp3
bassparallel.wav
Creating a parallel channel focused on the low-frequency components of the signal allowed some useful extra control over these frequencies.
- Bass Main
bassmain.mp3
bassmain.wav
With the parallel channel supplying extra weight, the frequency balance of the main channel needed to be tilted to favour the higher frequencies by contrast.
- Bass Mix
bassmix-0708.mp3
bassmix-0708.wav
Here is the complete mixed bass sound, including not only the main and parallel channel signals, but also a chorusing effect I used to smooth out and widen the sound.
- Piano Original
pianooriginal-0708.mp3
pianooriginal-0708.wav
The original piano files was not only quite muffled sounding, but it also sustained much more at the low end than at the high end, and this proved to be the opposite of what was required.
- Piano Parallel
pianoparallel.mp3
pianoparallel.wav
A solution to this problem was to use a parallel channel to add in compressed high frequencies, although this also had the effect of increasing the levels of background noise.
- Piano Main
pianomain.mp3
pianomain.wav
With the parallel channel providing the additional high-frequency sustain, the main channel primarily needed just some high-pass filtering to stop it conflicting with the bass part.
- Piano Mix
pianomix.mp3
pianomix.wav
The final mixed piano sound built from the main and parallel channels, and rounded off with a healthy dose of delay and reverb and a bit of pitch-shifted delay.
- Vocal Original
vocaloriginal.mp3
vocaloriginal.wav
The raw vocal was a little on the dull side for me, but the sibilance levels were already obtrusive so simply adding treble boost was not going to be the answer.
- Vocal Parallel
vocalparallel.mp3
vocalparallel.wav
Without access to a de-esser or multi-band compressor, I used another parallel channel to solve the problem instead, isolating the HF band, compressing it to duck the sibilance, and then mixing it back in with the unprocessed signal.
- Vocal Main
vocalmain.mp3
vocalmain.wav
Once the parallel channel was in the mix providing more brightness, the main channel could then be cut at around 9.5kHz with EQ to reduce the excess sibilance without impacting unduly on the overall vocal tone.
- Vocal Mix
vocalmix.mp3
vocalmix.wav
The combined main and parallel vocal channels, together with the send effects as used in my final mix.
- Original Mix
originalmix-0708.mp3
originalmix-0708.wav
David Greaves' original mix of Matt James' song 'Looking For Something'.
- Remix
remix-0708.mp3
remix-0708.wav
My version of the same song, remixed on David's own Yamaha 02R96-based hardware mixing system.