After doing lots of mastering, it’s nice to get back to some mixing. Started a new Shortwave Fade mix. Unusual for a couple of reasons. First, since recording it, their drummer left. This is a shame.. he was pretty great.. especially to play to a click to solidly. So am approaching mixing the live drums with more freedom…maybe doesn’t matter if they end up replaced by 808s as the band are now rehearsing as a three pice (4 with Mr Drum Machine).
At the risk of sounding old, the ability to replace and manipulate drum recordings is amazing. Logic caught up a little with Pro Tools to offer drum replacement in version 9: it’s by no means perfect, and requires tweaking.. but thats fine: a set and forget app would remove the skills needed for a really well balanced drum replacement mix. When it works, it can cure some sins like limited acoustics, badly tuned drums. In this case, the drums are well recorded in controlled acoustics, and, importantly, well played. In that case, it just opens a whole other world of possibilities. So, if the band decide to permanently go down the electronic drum route, I can mix to suite. As I’ve left it tonight, they’re pretty live sounding, but, you never know.
Oh, the other reason it’s an unusual mix is there’s still no vocals… no lyrics even. So nothing to give me an idea of the space I need to leave. Intrigued to see where this mix takes me for that reason. I love mixing.
armyourears.com 