So I’ve just got started on the mix for the new St Liquor-ish EP which looks like it’s gonna be out on a 12″ as soon as it’s all finished. It’s really exciting for Jerry to get this on to vinyl, it was our goal for the first EP but it just didn’t happen in the end and I think the tracks for this one deserve to be on vinyl and blasted out.

I thought I’d go through a little run down of the mix process for the 2 key tracks for the EP and let you guys see whats involved. I’ve uploaded both tracks “pre mix” which come straight out of Jerry’s MV8000 sampler, gutter mixes as he likes to call em. Jerry bounces out each individual track from the sampler and I drop em in to Cubase for the mix, pretty standard process for most people. Here’s the tracks for ya…

100 Snakes

Sexxy

100 Snakes: I really like both these mixes but there are a few thing’s which i’ll be working on to just step the track’s up.

• the first thing is the stereo field on the track is mostly all mono because Jerry uses samples straight down the middle on most of his tracks, I’m not gonna go super wide but just moving things around will give me more room for the beat and vocal to hit harder.
• low mid definition needs some work as it’s a little messy down there
• the general EQ curve of the track also needs a little work

Sexxy: I think this one’s gonna need a little more work, here’s my first thought on it

• the synths and samples are hittin on the right so moving a few thing’s around and gettin some balance needs lookin at. I like to double tracks in cubase and then use the time slider to move them around in the  stereo mix
• it’s all very dry at the moment, I’m not a reverb fan but gettin a few short delays in should work
• bass needs some work and a little more weight to it

I’m sure that once I get in to it i’ll get more of a feel with where I’m going with the mix. Jerry likes to have the general levels the same as his gutter mix and as in the first EP, gettin the beats to really “krak” and just giving the  mixes some width is what I’ d like to achieve.

My question to you is what do you think needs doing to the tracks, what would you do, how might you approach it? I’m always trying new thing’s and learning more about mixing so it would be great to know what ya think. I’m also going to be sitting in with Chris Chetland up at Kog studio and goin through the mix with him, it’ll be great to learn from one of the best and get this runnin through some of the Manley and API gear up in the studio.

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So it’s actually been a year since I started the tracks for the Bluevibe studio presents EP and they’re finally ready to go off to get mastered. This EP has been a bit of a labour of love for me and while I actually have another 2 EP’s more or less completed I’m really excited to be finally getting these tracks out. It didn’t actually seem like a year until Lisa Preston pointed it out, I guess that’s because I’ve had a baby and started a new job since this project kicked off and the months have just flown by, that’s babies for ya!

In my previous post “Bluevibe studio presents – finishing the tracks for the EP” I outlined 7 stages in the release and I’m now up to stages 3 and 4, funding and mastering. I’m still working on funding options so I’ll run through the mastering this week and get on to funding the EP next time.

My good friend Kerry Adams from The Proof will be taking care of the mastering duties, he’s got a wicked ear and works in quite a few different genres so he seems like the perfect man for the job. The EP consists of 2 main tracks with 2 remixes of each track plus 2 bonus tracks which have previously only been available in demo form. I mix on Genelec monitors and although they are excellent my mixes sometimes don’t translate too well when played on other systems. This makes the mastering stage even more important for me and is the key reason why it’s great to have a a mastering engineer work with each track to make sure they sit together on the EP and translate across different playback systems. I would always recommend you get someone else to master your tracks but if you don’t have any budget and really want to DIY then here’s a list of some great tutorials for you to check out.

Next week funding!!! It’s the big one for me as I’m basically an unknown independent artist doing his first full EP release so I’m going to have to get creative with the cash if I’m going to make the most of it!!

• The secret of the mastering engineer – Bob Katz – mastering manual from the TC electronics finalizer written by Bob Katz, well worth a read.
• Mastering with plugins from Har-bal.com – complete in the box tutorial.
• The elements of home studio audio mastering – nice simple tutorial over at tweakheadz using some of the excellent uad plugins.
• Mastering masters – Mastering article from the excellent Sound on Sound website.

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