editing & mixing each instruments

DRUMS:

- Putting on gain plugins on each kit for better control of volume without touching the faders in the pre-mixing stage

- EQ-ing: I mainly looked at where most of the energy is and started deciding where to boost and lower down.

For kick, I boosted around 120-270Hz started off with the preset (punchy kick). I also later on doubled the kick (shift D) to add more punchiness and a little bass to it.

Snare: Boosted around 172Hz for 1.5dB higher for a a tighter snare sound. Again, I doubled the snare to add more body to it since we did not mike up the snare bottom while recording.

Hi-hat: The recording picked up a lot of the kick and snare, so I low-cut most of the energy away and boosted around 5.5-10kHz.

Tom and Floor tom: I did not do much for the high tom as I thought the sound was fine. For floor tom, I was aiming for a very striking bassy sound, around 160Hz was increased.

Overheads: I panned each of them left and right for a stereo effect.

- I use summing stacks which will a create a bus on its own with signals (plugins) that the tracks will receive. For the overall drum tracks, I used the UAD SSL Glue compressor but I used the AUMultiband Compressor (while I'm not in the control room) as my backup.

BASS:

- Boosted the low ends of the bass around 400-500Hz and cut out the unwanted energy like the highs. I remained the low-mids for a little bit around +2dB for some transient sound of the bass strings.

- I used the Vintage FET compressor (which emulates the SSL Glue compressor that is known for adding dynamics and punch drums and percussions). I started off with the Electric Bass preset and started working from there with 50m/s attack and 300m/s release.

GUITARS:

For the guitars, I was actually dealing with a recording I have with a tone that I thought don't really fix in the mix. I started off by trying to try different presets of EQing, amp (crunch tone) and pedalboard (fuzzy pedal) but it ended up only making the mix sounds unclear. I then went down to the control room to try out the GuitarRig plugins which contains a wide variety of amp/pedals/tone setting. I tried to go for a few that cut through the mix but remain well-seated in its own frequency range (mainly the 200-500hz). There are two different tones in the song, one which is crunched and one which is clean (in the verses).

- For the lines played in the verse, there are three tracks in total which I layered. One with the Platinum Digital compressor (for enhancing transience in the picking) + a low level of overdrive (to prevent it from sounding too clean) and of course, a gain plugins as well as on any other tracks, layered with other two tracks with an additional amp plugin (for higher gain/grit) + timed delay + reverb (bus), one stereo panned to the left and one panned to the right as I thought the clean guitar sounded too dry and empty on its own. For the chorus part, I went for a simple crunched tone with just another compressor on with the GuitarRig plugin plus another track layering under playing a line (with compressor, pedalboard, amp, noise gate and simple EQ). I bussed the reverb and tape delay on to most of the guitar tracks as well.

Doing automation on guitar is also another important step to do as guitars tend to have its own light and act as a layering inst simultaneously or also in different parts of the song. My basic rule of doing automation is to also automate the volume gradually for parts that are building up or vice versa, doing fadeouts (or volume down) at the end of a phrase, increasing the volume for parts that need to be emphasised (solo/notes).

PIANO:

- I did not have that much of issue with piano except that I had to fix the timing of certain parts and re-record some of them myself as some wrong notes were played.

- Some EQ-ing was done, starting off with the preset as well. Went for the "gritty piano" preset as I wanted the piano to sound less full-sounding. Boosted the low mid-range (140Hz) and the high (3150Hz) only for a much solid and clear cut sound.

Instrumental mix:

VOCALS:

I had the most issues with vocals due to several circumstances. Because of scheduling issues, the original vocalist came forward first before I had a full recording of the band (at that time I only had drums and bass). The vocalist and I thought it wouldn't be an issue as we were clear of the flow of the songs without needing the other instruments. Eventually, I realised in the midst of editing the vocals, they were 2 keys higher that it should (from G key to A). I tried flex pitching them down to G key. For some of the parts, it surprisingly worked and did not sound too off or unnatural. While waiting to rerecord the remaining vocals (choruses and bridge), I was informed the vocalist was too ill to record and she suggested me someone who could substitute her a few days ago as I was running out of time. I finished my recording last Friday with the main parts + harmonies recorded.

- For the female vocals, all I really did was make sure the signal is good and is compressed nicely without losing the true dynamics and increasing the 250Hz as well as the 7.5kHz range for a full body and clear vocal. I also layered the tracks, panning them one left one right with a chorus effect on to widen the sound.

Reverb and timed delay were also bussed.

- For now my biggest issue is to balance out and mix the male vocals in the chorus. I personally found it difficult to only utilise one track in aim of making it sound compressed (as the recording was way too dynamic), making it sound present and at the same time widening the sound without just amplifying the volume or putting reverb/chorus/ensemble effects on which eventually could sound like karaoke-ing. For now, what I have on for the main vocals in the chorus are a little compression, reverb and boosting just a little of the low-mid and lowering the 440-2.5kHz range to omit the brightness in his voice. For layering, I duplicated the track and put on pitch shifter (with the Voice Doubler preset) instead of chorus or ensemble effect. I also created some artificial harmonies by flex pitching the original track a minor 3rd up. DeEsser was bussed and sent to all of the vocal tracks. More work and research should be continuously done until I am on the right track.