I've had the pleasure of being part of creating this short epic, and now mixing and mastering it has been an adventure and a challenge!
This is one of the more complex mixes I've worked on, and I definitely had my share of struggles trying to get all of the elements to fit where I wanted them. I'll share a few of those struggles with you here and a few of my favourite additions I've added in the mix!
I used the Muse track 'Algorithm' as a reference, this track is similar in that there is a lot of complex and full sounding instruments and synths going on. It has keys and strings of similar fashion as well, and a pumping kick and snare. (check out the video, it's got Terry Crews in it =P)
My goal in beginning this mix was to achieve a similar sound (with a few exceptions), but as an instrumental I actually have more room to play with as I don't need to make vocals fit on top of everything, allowing the instruments to utilise the entire frequency spectrum.
Check out the final track here!
Strings:
The strings are a huge part of Algorithm, wanting my strings to also take the spotlight, I went ahead and started with my processing for those tracks. I like to begin a mix with my most prominent and important track, and work my way down to the least important, this work flow ensures that the priority tracks get to sound the fullest, while everything else sort of needs to find it's way into the mix without bumping into the others too much.
I've side-chained my strings to the low end of the bass synth, making 50Hz to 350Hz duck out of the synth by a few dB when the strings kick in. This has helped the strings become more prominent in the mix, cleaned up the low end of the track and allowed the strings to have the full bodied sound you can only get when you include these frequencies.
Parallel Processing:
I've taken this concept of parallel processing a step further than normal, or more advanced with this track. I got a bunch of tips and ideas from Dave Pensado's Advanced Parallel Compression video here, and adapted them to fit this track! This is where I went with it:
I used this great plug-in acting in parallel across my kick, snare and the bass synth. Devil-Loc provides these three tracks with compression, distortion a HPF and the characteristic roughness the plug-in has even if you don't use its features. Really beefing up my kick drum and bringing out the snare with some somewhat dirty sounding harmonics, giving way to a more epic sound that fits the genre I'm going for!
These guys above, are my entire parallel processing chain on the bass synth. This is a good example of what else you can do in parallel, instead of just compression! I've got an EQ here that brings out more of the high end raspiness you can hear in the bass line, but still some of the lows are present, this EQ goes into the Devil-Loc and then into the Tremolator, which brings some more dynamics and reduces the droning sound that was there before! Blending this in parallel with the original really helps me achieve a feeling of movement (an envelope) in the synth and brings out the high end just enough to keep it present in speakers that can't play those lovely lows.
I'm very happy with how my parallel processing has turned out, and I'm keen to continue exploring other types of effects when used in parallel!
So by now I've achieved what I like about the muse track, that nice rough bass line (only in the beginning of Algorithm), the present strings, I've drawn my inspiration from the kick and snare though mine cuts through the mix a little more and I'm happy with where my piano sits in the frequency spectrum.
Reversed Snare:
I turned my attention to one of those little 'ear candy' things I can add to the song. I really liked the sound that Twenty One Pilots have in the song 'Nico and the Niners', where they reversed a high hat to add something different and interesting (2:45 in the music video).
I ran with this idea and threw a plug-in called Crystallizer on an auxiliary that had the snare being sent to it, I played around with the options, reversing the echo, pitching it up and adding a slight amount of feedback (recycle in this case). My efforts ended up as the cool sound that you hear every second snare hit (I automated the delay). Using Crystallizer for this came to me after I'd watched an in depth descriptive and exemplifying video on the SoundToys plug-in.
Again I really like how this effect turned out and I've heard some good feedback from fellow engineers about it!
One thing I'd have liked to change about the track is some of the midi characteristics. Unfortunately as this song was given to me as committed waveforms, I was unable to alter the MIDI data and have only acted as a mixing and mastering engineer after the track was sent to me. A future project may entail expanding on this track, (even adding some vocals) and that is when I'd see about getting access to the original MIDI compositions session, in order to alter the dynamics. We shall see!
References:
1. Pensado, D. (2012). Into The Lair # 53 - Advanced Parallel Compression Techniques. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcXj6OMU0Gs [Accessed 4 Dec. 2018].
2. FX, A. (2016). Soundtoys Crystallizer, a granular echo effect. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tplOTCLqdWE [Accessed 4 Dec. 2018].
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