Annie J & Fusion - Mixing Techniques

Hey! Hope you've been having a killer week.

I've got an update on one of my major projects for you today. We're almost at the mastering stage for Stefan and I's project, recording and producing the latest EP from Annie J & Fusion.

After our final recording session, we each took the tracks home and did some editing and general gain staging in preparation for a first-pass mixdown in SAE's S6 studio. In the studio session we ascertained the overall vibe we were going for, and applied some important processing to the tracks with equipment & software that we wouldn't have access to from home.

We split the workload up once more and have each taken the mix sessions home to work on a more polished mixdown, which has lead us to where I'm at with it today. Tomorrow morning we'll be jumping back into the studio to do a final polish and reference across the monitoring system in the S6, and then getting some masters ready.

Today I'll chat about some of the initial performance correction software we used, and also some of the main mix techniques I've employed to achieve the mixdown in its current state!

Performance Enhancement: Softube & Melodyne

One of the first major steps we took to the sessions were enhancing the guitars. Although the performance was great, the sound lacked the energy and imaging that we were after. The main reasoning behind this was that the solo overdubs and other specific sections sounded better than the main guitar sections, due to the guitarist using his distortion/FX pedals on and off throughout the track 'Suburban Cabbage'.

The cleaner signal fell quite flat in comparison and we needed to find that balance. The first step was taking advantage of the vast array of UAD plugins at our disposal, Stefan introduced me to the Softube amp-room plugins.

For engineers/producers who favour a more visual or interactive workflow as opposed to looking at encoders and numbers on a screen, these plugins do feel pretty amazing to use - let alone sound excellent.

We didn't drive the plugin too hard, more-so changed the positioning and axis of the microphone in relation to the cabinet until we had our desired tone and vibe. The result was slightly more crunch, but mainly just getting that higher harmonic content to feel much more present. In conjunction with some EQ, we were able to carve out more low-midrange space for the rest of the instrumentation whilst making sure that the character of the guitar really shines.

So after that, we needed to work on the stereo imaging. Unfortunately we didn't get enough double tracks so we needed to duplicate the main section and create them ourselves; which happened to be a really great opportunity to test out Melodyne!

After analysing the guitar in polyphonic mode, we were able to create subtle modulation in pitch with the 'Pitch Drift' tool. This allows us to pan both tracks and create a haas stereo effect with pitch rather than time delay! When listening back to the track after applying and committing both these plugins (so that we can take the mixes home and not have any effects missing); straight away we've added so much more character to the song, but we've also found a space in the frequency spectrum for the guitar to spotlight in rather than compete against all the other information in the lower-mids.

Here is a really great tutorial video & article on how this effect can be achieved: https://theproaudiofiles.com/video/simulate-double-tracked-guitar-mix/

Vocal Processing

One of the main things I've focused on when reaching the mixdown stage, is making sure that - since there's a lot going on in some of these tracks - the vocals stand out, and aren't overpowered by the instrumental.

My initial additions to the vocal was a +3dB boost to 12kHz to start getting a bit more presence and shimmer out of the performance, and a low-cut to anything under 150 Hz to remove any unnecessary information. Then I worked on 4 stages of compression to reach the desired sound:

1 - Clip-gain balancing

So before touching a compressor, I utilised a technique I've recently been shown in Pro Tools which is to balance out the peaks with clip-gain automation! This as a result allows you to not work the compressors so hard on some of the peaks, especially on such dynamic performances like ones in this EP. It also gives you more breathing room in general for you to compress and reach the character you're after, whilst minimising the audible effect of compression that can leave vocals sounding like they're straining and lifeless.

2 - Fast compression

I then used the native Dyn3 compressor as a second stage of peak control, although it never works overly hard and is more just a second pass-through of my manual peak balancing.

2 - Slow compression

Applying a slower compressor afterwards smoothes out the entire operation of the previous steps, making the processing more subtle and 'natural' sounding.

2 - Multi-band compression

So this is where it gets pretty cool. I never really thought about using multi-band compression on individual tracks - especially not vocals - until I was shown recently the power of it as a vocal processor. I guess I always saw it exclusively as a mastering tool and didn't think of how it could be used in a more out-of-the-box scenario.

The goal in this scenario is to achieve more brightness and presence - a little closer to that 'commercial' quality whilst still remaining transparent. Since I've already taken steps to balance the performance out, I had more room to achieve this since the sharper peaks have already been tamed. So for this I've used a plugin I'm quite familiar with which is Ozone 7, though just using the Dynamics tool rather than the whole mastering suite. I removed the other bands so that there were only two since all I'm dealing with in this scenario is the high-end frequencies - which is represented in the blue section on the frequency spectrum above. From 8.10kHz and above, there's some pretty heavy compression going on. However, once I brought the gain up (on the far right) the main thing I noticed is that the whole image of the vocals felt crisp and present - but in a balanced and natural way. Exactly what I was after.

The benefit of doing this as opposed to just boosting more of the highs with an EQ, is that the result is a much smoother sound. EQ without the control of the dynamics can make some of the peaks and performances in the higher register areas feel quite harsh. After this experience, I feel much more confident that I'll be able to achieve the desired vocal sound in my own future productions!

With our final-polishing session happening tomorrow, I'll have some audio for you to listen to in my next update blog! Exciting stuff!

- Lachy