That was a fun mix, many thanks to the band for providing this track. I've never mixed Bluegrass before so I wasn't really sure what to aim for, it's a totally different approach to the usual rock and pop I do. I tried to keep it natural sounding, not over compress, but enhance the sound of the band as a whole and the environment in which they're playing by way of some subtle room reverb.
As usual I mixed in-the-box in Pro Tools. Overall, apart from the bass, I didn't find there were many issues from the spill, it was largely complimentary between instruments and I didn't find it caused any phase problems.
Percussion / Cajon:
• All provided elements used, 300Hz high-pass on the overheads
• Added extra low frequency on the stomp with MH Thump and parallel compression (but was careful not to overdo it, "it's not a rock track" I kept having to tell myself!)
• EQ and transient shaping on the 160 and 414 mics to take out some of the lows and try to bring out the woody tap sound
• The snare wire track was heavily compressed but kept low in the mix, just to add that bit of wire buzz
• Valhalla room reverb ("Dense Room" mode, 1s decay) added on all tracks except stomp
• All perc tracks bussed together and compressed with Waves Kramer PIE on the shortest decay time to help bring out the transients but maintain the room effect
Vox:
• 100Hz high-pass on all tracks
• Magnus' lead track compressed quite heavily with PSP Vintage Warmer with the speed control right down to give a bit of fuzz and distortion. Also gated and EQ'd with MH Channel Strip (my new favourite toy!
)
• Angel and Marianne's main tracks panned 60L and 60R respectively, compressed with Massey CT5 with a quick release for good diction, gated and EQ'd with MH Channel Strip again
• Magnus BVs panned centre and 55R, Angel BVs panned 50L / 50R, Marianne BVs panned 100L / 100R for a thick and wide vocal soundstage
• Added a slight bit of non-destructive vocal tuning via Graillon 2 on Magnus' BV tracks just to stabilise some of the notes
• Just a little bit of Reverb and Delay added via sends on all vocal tracks - Valhalla Vintage Verb (Palace, 1.4s decay) and AIR Multi-Delay (Although fluid, I'd estimated and set the average tempo at 215BPM, which allowed the use of musical delay times - quarter note, eighth note etc)
String instruments:
• Lead banjo mics panned central, 200Hz high-pass, Brauner mic compressed in parallel, high-boost shelving EQ added to each
• Second "Solo" banjo panned over to the left, same EQ
• Guitar mic tracks treated as one a stereo track, panned over to the left with some light compression, high-pass and high-boost EQ
• Duplicated the guitar tracks but this time panned 100L/100R, added a 1kHz high-pass, 10db of high-boost and a valve exciter in order to bring out the pick rake and really get the "chick-a-chick" rhythm coming out but keep it evenly spread in the stereo field
• Fiddle - only used the Royer mics from each of the parts with a little EQ and compression, I didn't feel the Brauner's were needed. Tried blending them in but I felt it sounded better with just the one mic for each.
• Fiddle B panned 35R, Fiddle A that comes in towards the climax I've used Panstation to move it between 65L and 65R in the stereo field so it "flows around the room" if you will
• All string instrument tracks sent to an additional instance of Valhalla Room reverb to enhance the virtual room sound a little more.
Accordion:
• Used BX Stereomaker to give it a wider spread, 150Hz high-pass, and a whopping 14dB of high-boost from 8kHz up. It also works really nicely that you get an added bit of high frequency spill from the Cajon on this track too and with the stereomaker it really increases the virtual room effect.
Bass:
• Only used the U47 mic, as the Royer (presumably being a figure 8 mic picking up front and rear) had tons of spill that meant it was much harder to shape as desired.
• 3kHz low-pass, lots of Vintage Warmer compression with a relatively slow speed to get the mid-range harmonic distortion going
• Waves MaxxBass used to further help bring out the sub-harmonics so the instrument is not totally lost on smaller speakers
• Panned dead centre
Master:
• Shadow Hills Class A in Mid/Side mode compressing the side element only and amplifying it slightly in comparison to the mid - again to really try and increase the stereo spread and make it as wide and spacious as possible (without going overboard)
• SIR StandardClip used just to shave off the odd Cajon hit that was reaching near 0 dBTP
• Automated the master level so there's a 1dB boost when the band comes in after the Banjo intro to help give more impact
• Loudness measured with TC LM2N at -16.2 LUFS / -1.1 dBTP
Here's the mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hSSzij ... sp=sharing
I've really enjoyed listening to all the mixes so far, but a tip for those still to submit - go easy on the master compression!
All the best
Ben