Bass was really well recorded, so only light compression doing 1-2db of reduction was necessary for dynamic range control.Ħ. That gives the cajun a spot to thump without the bass getting in the way, so the two can work together. Huge scoop out of the mids, tight boost at 1khz for finger noise to cut through the mix, and a cut at 80hz which is the same frequency I boosted the cajun. Worked to get the bass driving with the cajun.

I gave a decent amount of 'warm tube emulation' saturation via my favorite FabFilter Saturn, and EQed the saturation as well - boosted the lows, cut some mids, and added presence. I HPF around 24hz to clean up the rumbly stuff, scooped out the mids quite a lot to remove boxiness, gave a tight boost around 80hz for thump, a tight boost around 2khz for punch, and LPF off everything above 7k. The cajun needed more thump and punch, which I achieved with a combination of EQ sculpting and saturation. First processing decisions were made on the percussion since it was the backbone of the song. I started panning loosely and continue the panning adjustments throughout the entire process as the mix starts to take shape.Ĥ. I muted a bunch of tracks that I didn't think needed double tracking.

I realized quickly that you had double tracked almost everything, so my first decisions were based on which instruments I thought needed to be spread wide and which ones I wanted to use mono, placed throughout the stereo field. I listened to the song with the faders all at 0 a few times and start pulling things down and pushing things up to get a general balance.ģ. I went through and color coded everything according to my personal color scheme and set up a handful of buses that I almost always use (drum/percussion bus, acoustic guitar bus, electric guitar bus, vocal bus).Ģ. You had labeled the files really well which helped. The first thing I did, that any engineer needs to do, is organize the tracks. I would be happy to discuss the various decisions that I made.ġ. I'm glad you enjoyed the mix, and I am happy to wait for some new vocals and then make other adjustments to the current mix. There can be no halfway hose with these phrases: either you give them the strength that Hay does, or you work out a way of delivery that works with your gentler style. The inhibition is very audible here, and it sounds like you were trying to sing out without actually singing out. But the vocal does suffer at a couple of points: 'at least there's pretty lights' and 'come back another day' are two points I noted. The choruses with their harmonies would then really stand out. I'd work on this and emphasize that quality by not double-tracking during the verse. You kind of held back on them, and the result is quite a gentle treatment which, for the most part, works really well. For example, the percussion isn't all that clear, and through my headphones the bass did not have a lot of presence. For the way you've recorded it, the results aren't too bad, but I can easily imagine you being able to come up with something even better. I like your ideas and the the musical treatment you've given this track. I’ve just downloaded Reaper in hopes that making adjustments to EQ, compression, etc., might be a little easier in real time as opposed to the Audacity approach of making a blind stab at tweaking parameters, listening to the results, clicking Undo, and so forth.Īnyway, please give it a listen and let me know if any improvements could be gained from a proper mix job, or if I should just use my garage as a place for woodworking and parking my car. Mixed might be too strong a word here, as most of my mixing consisted of panning, silencing a few squeaky noises here and there and adding a little reverb.

The electric guitar parts were played thru a Zoom 3GX effects pedal and “mixed” in Audacity. This is a “garage” band version in the true sense of the word, as the vocals, cajon and acoustic guitar were recorded in my garage, using a Zoom H4n hand held recorder and Behringer C1 mic. I hesitated to post it, but hey, nothing venture, nothing gained, right? When I started out, this was going to be a Colin Hay acoustic (Scrubs) version of the song, but one thing lead to another… a little bass wouldn’t hurt and maybe some cajon for percussion? This is the 4th or 5th song I have attempted to perform and record.

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