Minor Project Process WriteUp

This mix was really great to work on.  It’s been a while since I was able to sit in a studio and do some work.  I enjoyed being able to work on such an interesting song, because it offered some aspects that I haven’t really had to work on yet.  The fact that the song pretty much did a 180 halfway through was something new for me.  It was kind of like mixing two different songs altogether.  I really did break the song down into its two parts. 

When I first started, I trimmed up the tracks.  There was a lot of empty space in there, which just seemed unnecessary. Breaking up the tracks made it a lot easier to look at.  I put fades at the beginning and ends of each region to get rid of any pops that might be in there.  I added my master track, and added my submix tracks.  I adjusted the levels, which was almost the most time-consuming part of the process.  I went back and forth so much, unhappy with what I was hearing everywhere.  I used automation in certain spots, especially in the end when the vocals get a lot louder.  The panning was interesting to work on.  I was glad to be able to work in 006, which definitely made working on the panning a lot better than just listening on headphones.  I only added some basic effects, some reverb and a little compression.  The use of the synthesizers (the bottom-most group of tracks) already gave the song some effects.  It was mostly the vocals, drums, and guitars that needed work on their sound. 

The Bad Rabbits song in my session was used as a reference for the first part of the song.  The slower portion of the song was influenced by Muse.  Not any particular song, but more in general.  I think the voices have similar qualities, and I found it to be helpful when placing the vocals within the song.  Especially in the second mix, the slight phasing was inspired by Muse. I changed my mix by moving the first part of the song to the end.  I think it sounds pretty interesting.  The phasing I mentioned earlier really made a difference, too.  It was something I had played with a little in the first mix but decided to hold off on.  I think it’s a pretty cool effect, that works well within the feel of this song.  The second mix wasn’t really inspired by anything, but was really just me experimenting.  I haven’t really worked with a song like that, where I changed the order of it or took something out.  In the past, my mixes have just been basic editing because I have always hesitated to mess with an artist’s vision.