Still not had time to blog what I’ve been up to….
The Summer Sundae sessions album took a while to mix. Loads of tricks to make the tracks sound as good as possible. Where I could, I wanted the mixes to sound polished… not your usual session-at-a-festival sound. This proved super hard given some of the source material…..
Over the weekend we battled against the Wateringhole stage (we were right behind it), the Energy Drink man (loud man with loudspeakers on full right opposite us), the Loo emptiers (hourly)….. so the idea I had to mic up acoustic guitars went right out of the window… DI’s all the way. Beta 57a mics were a good choice.. nice and cardioid, but even they struggled to blank out the sound. All this made worse due to the fact there were no monitors to listen back.. and when performances were reviewed it was over the din of the other background noise… so lots and lots of guesswork.
When I got round to mixing in the studio (mine and at day jobs) I was pleasantly surprised for the most part.. really ace clean recordings. Not in all cases, though….. weighing up what part the spill and ambiance played in the mix was difficult. Lots and lots of automation: of volume (gating too unnatural) and EQ (so whacking down the 200 hz band on the plosives).
So, here it is… hope you enjoy bits of it. It’s free for god’s sake, go get it
armyourears.com 