Song off of Nat Clubbs debut ep.  Released Spring 2014

Here I Am

Debut EP from Canadian Country Singer Mandy McMillan.  Recorded at The Sweatshop and Beech Creek Studio in Nashville, TN.

Linger

Song I wrote with my good friend Pete Good.  This was a pop electronica project that we wrote mostly over skype!  That was a new experience.  

EEII Ashes-  Songwriter/ Producer/ Guitar/ String Arrangement

This is one of two songs that I had the honor to produce for Gabrielle Hall.  Extremely beautiful song about home.

Home- Gabrielle Hall-  Producer/String Arrangement

Rachel Rogers-QuickSand

Rachel Rogers- Real Good Feel Good

Rachel Rogers- If I Don't Have Your Heart

Hey fellow mixers! Here is my very small gear list, approach and plugin ideas. Can't wait to read about how you all came at this song.

Gear List............
Logic 9
002 (with black lion mod)
Monster Power conditioner
Rockit 8 speakers 

Approach to Song................

Although I am guitar player, I start every mix making sure that the drums and vocals are right. After listening through this mix with the faders up a couple times, I decided to go into a more Motown/Black Keys direction. This presents some issues because these mixes are known for their analog warmth and vibe while this tracking was done pretty clean.

So starting with the drums I had numerous issues because of the small amount of microphones used on the kit. Not that you need so many, but I like to compress the room mics to give the feeling of space. To get that sound on the snare and kick I used steven slate's Trigger program NOT for the snare replacement, but mostly for the room samples. You can hear the black beauty room sample and the ac Kick sample on the kick drum. I did add a bit of a kick sample to give the kick slap to separate it from the bass.  I used an 1176 on the overheads and sent that channel into a reverb buss to 'open' up the room a bit.

To get the vocal 'vibey' I used Soundtoys 'decapitator' to give it that tube breakup and used 3 sends to give it space. Right now they have a free full demo so try it out! The first send was a 90ms slap, the second was the same, but with a springy feedback (a couple repeats) and the third was a vintage plate reverb. I've found for the 'live vintage' vocal, a plate reverb works best. Finally to brighten the vocal without bringing up the 'Ssss' in the vocals, I used a DeEsser and then eqed up the high end. I love this trick on female vocals. Finally, I did a 1/4 note analog on specific words that I felt like the singer wanted to emphasis.

To get the bass to sit well I eqed out a little 100, and actually boosed the 5k range a bit (wide q). I love when you can hear the frets klank a bit on an old bass. I then used a compressor to knock down some of the dynamics and then did a little more with an L1 limiter. I feel using multiple compressors and a limiter makes the bass pump a little less if you're looking for a consistent up-front sound. I then put a spring reverb on the bass to give it some vibe. The bass amp channel had a decapitator plugin on it to mix some grind and fuzz into the bass channel.

The guitars were the toughest for me because I would have liked it double tracked. Since the guitar player did each chorus different, I couldn't cut and fly parts without making it sound messy. I settled on panning it hard left and using a 30ms delay slapping to the right. I also have a 90ms pre-delay room reverb at 2 o'clock panned to give a little space.

Finally, the mix buss......

I used Steven Slates VCC (free demo) on each channel and the mixbuss and set it for the american setting (punchy bright) EXCEPT for the vocal because it made it too bright. I then eqed out some low end, added top end and then limited the whole mix.

Well there you have it!

Simon Gugala
www.simongugala.com

SimonGugala