Watch Mick Guzauski Mix The Epic Single, "Vitamin" From Jamiroquai
Grammy Award Winning Engineer, Mixer, and Producer, Mick Guzauski, has made a name for himself as one of the top mixing engineers in the world. With over 27 #1 singles, few have risen to the heights of success that Mick has.
In this pureMix.net Exclusive, Mick opens his mix of Jamiroquai's song "Vitamin" to explain his thought process, workflow, and techniques that he used to create this incredibly tight, punchy and exciting mix that manages to have a ton of space without ever losing the impact of the tight performances.
Learn how Mick:
Enhances low end on kick drums
Creates a crisp and tight high hat sound with a stereo spread
Adds space around elements of the mix with carefully chosen and tuned reverbs
Adds compression without character to subtly control and already great sounding lead vocal
How he sets up session routing to quickly create stems when requested
Tweaks his stereo bus EQ to create a tight low end while still controlling subsonic energy
Watch Mick Guzauski mix Jamiroquai's "Vitamin". Only on pureMix.net
00:00:07 Hi kids, this is Mick Guzauski,
your substitute teacher again,
haven't been for
over year since you've
had real teachers.
00:00:15 I got something today that
I'm really proud of,
it's a mix
I did for Jamiroquai.
00:00:21 This is one of the most
pleasurable projects
I really ever worked on.
00:00:24 Musically it's great,
people are great to work with.
00:00:27 I'm really happy to share this with you.
00:00:31 This is a song called 'Vitamin'
I'll play the mix first.
00:00:34 And then we'll start going through it.
00:04:54 I'm gonna go through the mix
in the order that I set things up
and work on it.
We'll just recreate the mix that way.
00:05:01 When I first get the tracks in
there's always a rough mix.
00:05:05 And these guys have
very good rough mixes
so I had a really good model
of where the mix should go.
00:05:09 So I listen to that a few times,
you'll see what each track is doing.
00:05:14 I hope to put this together.
00:05:15 I start with the rhythm sections.
00:05:17 So, let's start with the bass,
the bass is on two tracks,
one is the direct clean bass
and the other one is
the same bass distorted.
00:05:25 Here's the direct bass.
00:05:33 Here's the bass effect.
00:05:41 Both together.
00:05:50 On the main bass
we have the C2 compressor
to keep it solid in the track.
00:06:17 You can see this compressor
is really doing very little.
00:06:19 It's only a couple dB compression
but what it does is,
by bringing the higher level notes
down a couple dB
some of the softer, more subtle
elements of the bass
are relatively up.
00:06:31 So it's just cuts in the
track a little better.
00:06:33 I'll play it once with the compressor,
once without.
00:06:52 So you can see with the compressor
it's just basically more even
it will sit a little
nicer in the track there.
00:06:58 Let's go to the drums here.
00:06:59 The bass drum is a sampled bass drum
as well as the snare.
00:07:03 The hi-hat and the overhead are live.
00:07:13 So that's the kick drum, I have a
little bit of the subharmonics synth
to give it a little subsonics there.
00:07:19 I'll play with it once.
00:07:33 I'll play it again with it
but I'll really overdo it
so you can hear what
this plug-in is doing.
00:07:46 If you're playing through a system with
response below 40 Hz
you definitely heard that.
00:07:51 OK, now, let's move on to the snare.
00:08:03 And on the snare I'm using this
Oxford Transmod.
00:08:06 What this does is,
it follows the level of the signal,
it accentuates the transient.
00:08:11 Rather than operating
above a certain threshold
so it's always changing the
envelope shape of the signal.
00:08:17 Because the threshold
is set really low now,
like -80, so pretty much
anything that hits it
gets really enveloped.
00:08:27 You can see it's increasing the
level of the transient of the snare
by about 2 or 3 dB.
00:08:31 So with it we have...
00:08:45 It's just giving the snare
a little bit more punch.
00:08:47 After that
there's a little bit of EQ.
00:08:50 Just adding a little bit of
depth to the snare on 160 Hz.
00:08:55 And a tiny bit of a little
crack around 2500 Hz.
00:09:09 Now here is the hi-hat
and overhead, which are live.
00:09:24 On the hi-hat I'm just cutting off
pretty much everything except
for the way up on top end.
00:09:30 This other hi-hat track
I'm just adding a little top
but this one is giving it
more of the body.
00:09:46 And more of the meat of the cymbal there.
00:09:49 Overhead is mostly hi-hat.
00:09:55 I decided to hi-pass this one quite a bit.
00:09:58 I can turn the EQ off and you can hear.
00:10:11 The mic sounds really close,
a lot of low-end in there,
which I really didn't want in the hi-hat.
00:10:18 And we're getting the body of the hi-hat
from this one anyways.
00:10:25 It sounds more natural that way.
00:10:28 The ear is gonna go towards
the one with a lot of high-end
because you're being brighter
so it pulls you in that direction.
00:10:34 It's panned a little
bit to the left
where the hi-hat would be from
the drummer's perspective.
00:10:38 The other hi-hat mike is in the center
to sort of give it a little bit of a spread
not just the point source,
having the high-end coming
from a little more left
and then the cymbal more in the center.
00:10:49 It's sort of like if you
hear the cymbal in the room,
you hear the direct sound,
which has most of the high-end
coming from where the cymbal is
but then you hear the room
coming from all around.
00:10:58 So it sorts of simulates that.
00:11:00 So, I'll solo the whole drum-kit.
00:11:02 Drums and bass together here.
00:11:21 There's actually nothing on
the bus of the drums on this one
but on a lot of the songs
of this album
I do process the Bus,
sometimes with an EQ,
sometimes with parallel compression,
it just depends on what it needed.
00:11:35 This just sort of worked
having a natural sound,
not really overemphasizing the attack,
not EQing it, it just sort of
sounded nice the way it was.
00:11:44 That's also a point
that I like to make about mixing
because I think that
a lot of times you get the best mix
by not doing a ton of stuff,
just having the balances correct,
having the sounds natural.
00:11:57 And in other cases you really
wanna process it.
00:12:00 I think the song and the
performance dictates that.
00:12:03 This drums are really dry in this mix
and the reason I did that
is because I wanted to keep the
rhythm really solid and punchy
and have the rest of the
instruments sort of flow over it,
there's some reverb, longer reverbs
on the vocals and other instruments.
00:12:16 But the rhythm section is just really tight
and I wanted to keep it that way.
00:12:21 Now, let's go on to the percussion.
00:12:42 A little percussion reverb,
medium length.
00:12:45 I think it's a Valhalla Plate on there.
00:12:48 To give it a little space.
00:12:53 Here it is with the percussion reverb.
00:12:55 A little over 2 seconds,
a tiny bit of pre-delay.
00:13:07 This gives it a little ambiance.
00:13:09 On the next
conga or bongo that comes in there
I think it has the reverb recorded on it.
00:13:26 That conga part is on 6 tracks,
close mic, left and right
and stereo, which is like
the overheads of the conga
and then reverb return.
00:13:35 That was given to me like that.
00:13:37 The only thing I'm doing
is just delaying the
reverb a little bit,
like it would have pre-delay on it.
00:13:42 It's not 100% delay,
there's only about 32%
of the delay in there
with a little feedback on it,
just to give it more space.
00:13:50 I'll take that in and out.
00:14:05 It just sort of gives
it a little more space.
00:14:07 I don't know how much it
really means in the final mix
with it being that low.
00:14:13 And we have a couple shakers here.
00:14:22 And triangle.
00:14:54 And that's all the
percussion tracks together
and I lied about one thing,
that's not quite the order
I set up, I did bass, drums
and then went to keyboards,
the percussion I put in a little later.
00:15:04 The next thing I put in is
the main Rhodes here.
00:16:16 We have drums, percussion,
bass, guitar and keyboard.
00:16:19 Maybe I shut the percussion off.
00:16:33 That's where I started the mix from.
00:16:35 I think when I actually did do
the mix I had the
Rhodes quite a bit louder than that
because that's what would sound
correct if it was just
drums, bass, piano and guitar
but as you'll see later, there's a
lot more information in that range
that works with the Rhodes.
00:17:03 I chose the Valhalla Plate but
I have it pretty long there.
00:17:08 I'm not exactly sure why
because I wouldn't have done
that straight off the bat.
00:17:12 I would have had to wait more things
in there to use that kind of reverb.
00:17:16 If I was just listening to drums,
bass and guitar
I'd probably have that more like
in there.
00:18:07 I think when I started
putting these synth tracks
here in later is where
I thought the guitars
could use more ambiance.
00:18:23 Mixing is a process where
you set it up where you
think it should be first
and then modify everything throughout
when you hear other elements come in
and how they all work together.
00:18:33 You can never really mix by just
setting something up and forgetting it
and leaving it there because it's always
gonna interact with another
track in a different way.
00:18:42 I'm sure with the guitar dryer
or shorter reverb
and then when we got to these parts
I used a longer reverb.
00:18:57 I'll get that Rhodes back in here.
00:19:18 Now we have drums, bass,
guitar,
keyboards
and lead vocal.
00:19:45 So now that we have that,
we're playing the lead vocal back
with all the processing
in the final mix,
but when it was first in there
I usually just, if it needs EQ...
00:19:56 I EQ it to smooth it,
maybe a little bit of reverb.
00:20:00 All the other stuff, the fine points of it,
are done later on.
00:20:05 Let's go to
some of the other instruments.
00:20:13 There's synth strings.
00:20:50 Those are the next elements to go in.
00:20:53 We have some real strings.
00:21:12 On the solo that's here.
00:21:33 See when the strings
switches to that other track,
how much lower it is,
it's because that's exactly when
the lead vocal comes in.
00:21:39 At that point.
00:21:48 So they are up front,
sort of leading everything
at the beginning
and then they're dropping back
when the vocal comes in.
00:22:01 Those are the strings for
the breakdown section.
00:22:10 I shouldn't call it breakdown,
it's sort of a sax solo,
sax solo section there.
00:22:36 OK.
00:22:37 Processing, the strings I'm cutting
really low, like below 30 Hz
for room rumble.
00:22:43 Rolling off above 10 kHz
because I didn't want it to sound
too bright and too airy there.
00:22:49 A little bit down in the mid-range
just it feels a little
bit smoother sounding.
00:22:59 Rather than using the send and return
since this reverb is only gonna be
on the 2 tracks that are bused here,
I just went through an Altiverb plug-in
and just set the mix in the plug-in itself.
00:23:31 Just a very slight
chorus enhancing the stereo width
just a little bit.
00:23:37 It's not doing that much
but it helps in there.
00:23:53 And you can see there's a
big ride on the strings.
00:24:21 That's what we're listening to there.
00:24:23 I'm taking out a little
bit of the mid-range,
taking out a little low-end.
00:24:26 I think these EQs were on
when they sent me the session.
00:24:29 And then I used this
EQ in addition to them
on the Bus of the strings
they're being fed to.
00:24:35 Usually if I get a session
and there's plug-ins on it
and the processing is right
I usually don't take it off
or change it, I usually would just,
once the mix is closed and I wanna just
tweak a little bit I put
something on to add to it
rather than start from scratch if it sounds
good to begin with.
00:24:53 And we have one more group of
keyboards to listen to here
which are really nice
effects kind of stuff.
00:25:19 That one doubles the melody there.
00:25:21 The melody of the backgrounds.
00:25:34 That one going into the Bridge.
00:25:36 The reverb of the keys,
being sent on this,
it's not just in the bus
because I'm using the send and
return on a couple of them,
going on the 'keys verb'.
00:25:44 This is...
00:25:46 UAD Pure Plate, it's EMT 140 emulation.
00:25:50 It's just a really nice rich reverb.
I just really like it on those.
00:26:19 I'll show you what part of the song
we're in while this happens.
00:27:31 On reverb
I use both sends and inserts
and I'll use and insert
if it's only one track
or an audio subgroup
that's got a couple tracks to it
that all need the same
reverb treatment
rather than setting up another bus
and a return
going back to this subgroup
I just put a reverb in there
and do the mix within the plug-in.
00:27:51 If there's several tracks
in a group of tracks feeding a reverb
and other tracks in that group aren't,
they need different
levels of reverb
than I'll use a Send and Return
so you have a separate
mix to the reverb.
00:28:04 Right now I don't remember why
I did this separately
because these reverbs are sort
of similar sounding.
00:28:23 Oh, that's why!
If you hear this reverb.
00:28:27 On this Juno track.
00:28:34 First is with that out.
00:28:36 There's some stereo
movement in it too.
00:28:42 This was about a year ago,
I don't remember everything I do
until I look at it again.
00:28:47 But, anyways, that's what that is.
00:28:50 So that pretty much takes
care of the keyboards,
there's a piano solo at the end here...
00:29:23 On the piano solo I use,
the 1176
from UA...
00:29:38 To control some of the peaks,
some hit really hard,
so it doesn't jump out
of the track too much,
a very little compression.
00:29:53 And...
00:29:54 A little bit of EQ adding
a little bit of body
down here, between 100 and 200.
00:29:59 450 in there
and then a little
top end definition.
00:30:02 Cause this is the solo.
00:30:04 Then the keys verb.
00:30:06 Just a little bit of it
to give it a little ambiance.
00:30:20 I've pretty much gone through
all the instrumental tracks
except for the brass section.
00:30:24 The brass section here
is sent to a Bus
treated all the same
with Altiverb and an EQ.
00:30:47 Teldex convolution on the Altiverb.
00:30:50 I'm running it a 80% of
its normal decay time,
chopped out a little bit just because
one of the brass sounded
a little more room
rather than a large chamber,
this room can get pretty long
if I have it 100% where it's sampled.
00:31:08 A boost there where the brass needs
to really fit in the mix there.
00:31:24 I'll play the brass with
both plug-ins bypassed.
00:31:33 Now with the EQ.
00:31:41 I'm cutting off some of the top
to get rid of some of
the edge of the brass,
because one of them is
really warm in that spot.
00:31:46 That's without the reverb, of course.
00:31:55 In the mix.
00:32:09 OK, so the sax solo on the song.
00:32:20 That one ended up on a send and return.
00:32:22 No idea exactly why
I did that but I did.
00:32:27 Because it's only on that one track.
00:32:28 EQ is...
00:32:46 EQ really sounds a lot
more subtle than it looks.
00:32:48 I'm just taking some top off.
00:32:50 And this is just
really getting rid of rumble,
just subsonics stuff,
there's nothing in the saxophone down
at this frequency.
00:32:58 Compression.
00:33:00 1176.
00:33:08 Lots of compression to keep that
sitting in the right spot of the track.
00:33:29 Let's listen to it in the track
with the compression here.
00:34:26 It tends to go in and out
of the mix without the compression.
00:34:29 It just captures it
to really stay there.
00:34:31 We're gonna go through the lead vocals now,
there's a vocal and a double.
00:34:34 I'll just gonna be soloing the main vocal
and go through all the
processing that's on it.
00:34:47 First thing on there is a gate
set with a very low threshold.
00:34:50 Because this vocal went through tape
so I just put that
to get rid of any tape hiss.
00:34:55 It really didn't need it
but when the vocal was
soloed I heard it
so we got it out of there.
00:35:03 The next thing is the EQ.
00:35:06 What I did here was cut off
the low end below
60 Hz, way way below
where he's singing because
there's some room rumble on there.
00:35:14 You can here a mic pop.
00:35:22 And then cut out a little bit about
a little over 700 Hz.
00:35:26 That makes a difference when it's doubled.
00:35:37 There's a little built up there
when you hear both of them.
00:35:39 So I just took that
out a little bit.
00:35:41 This is pretty much inconsequential,
about a half dB.
00:35:46 0.4 dB.
00:35:48 The next thing is
multiband.
00:36:06 This is a multiband compressor,
you can set
the upper and lower
limit of the band, the slope.
00:36:13 What it will do is it will cut or boost
according to the dynamics,
right now it's set to cut
energy that exceeds a certain amount
of a certain band.
00:36:24 This low band here is...
00:36:31 That's just cutting a little bit of that
200 Hz.
00:36:35 It's cutting it dynamically so
the vocal doesn't get thin.
00:36:37 There's still some of
that frequency in there.
00:36:39 But if it gets out of perspective
this starts cutting it.
00:36:45 OK, where he's singing harder.
00:36:51 We're dealing with taking a little out
of that band there.
00:37:03 So you hear the body of the voice
rather than having that "Ahh"
come out too much in the track.
00:37:09 The high band here
it's for de-essing but it's not
really hitting the threshold.
00:37:17 This is just to cut the extreme highs back
but I just set it, it didn't need it.
00:37:21 The next thing we're going
through is a compressor.
00:37:36 Well, what I'm doing with the vocal is,
he sang pretty smoothly
and I wanted
to compress it but really
not look for a character of a compressor,
just to even it out.
00:37:47 This is a great compressor for this
because it's super clean
and the knee is adjustable
so you can make it attack very gently,
go into compression very gently.
00:37:56 The characteristic of the compressor
is very transparent.
00:37:59 You hear it compressing a little
but you don't hear it changing the sound
and it doesn't really sound drastic
even when it's compressing quite a bit.
00:38:06 Here we go.
00:38:23 It just evens it out without
really changing it much.
00:38:25 Sometimes on vocals I use a compressor
with more character,
maybe some harmonic distortion.
00:38:30 Whatever sounds good for the track,
this one I just thought it
should sound really hi-fi
and real this present.
00:38:35 The de-esser
and that is
just to keep sibilants under control.
00:38:46 There's good Ss right there.
00:38:54 You just hear how it
controls the Ss, keeps them down
but doesn't affect the high-end where
there isn't an S happening.
00:39:01 And that's pretty much the processing
on the vocal, a little reverb.
00:39:10 The reverb is automated on this too.
00:39:12 Because we only wanted it on some.
00:39:30 The reverb on this is the
Pure Plate, again.
00:39:33 The UAD Pure Plate,
one of my favorites.
00:39:41 I have two Pure Plates,
the settings are pretty close.
00:39:45 One is on the keys and
one is on the vocals
and the reason I use two
rather than one is because
I'm mixing to,
on this one,
11 subgroups
and I like to return the
effects to the proper subgroups
so at the end of this, when I make stems,
each stem has it's proper effect on it,
if we cut the vocal stem,
we're not not hearing the reverb
of that on the keyboard stem.
00:40:09 Everything has its separate
sends and returns, I takes a little
longer when you're setting it up, not much,
because you can pretty much copy a plug-in
if it's gonna be the same setting
and it just keeps everything nice and neat
if you need to make different
versions and different stems.
00:40:23 Next let's go to some
of the background vocals.
00:40:27 Quite a bit of stuff going on here.
00:40:30 This is one group of backgrounds here.
00:40:35 OK, we have here...
00:40:36 The Bus going to the stem
or to the subgroup
is called 'girl bgs'
and we see that this one here
is set directly to that
bus and has effects on it.
00:40:53 Repeats, a lot of reverb.
00:41:04 EQ.
00:41:13 I use the ValhallaPlate on this because
you can set,
they have different
materials that they simulate.
00:41:19 I wanted a more
bright reverb on that
background where the
Pure Plate is real warm,
on this one I wanted a little
bit of a spike in there.
00:41:26 OK, that is compressed.
00:41:35 Which is just
holding it tight but it's
also reducing the level quite a bit.
00:41:39 I mean, it's a hard thing to A/B in here,
how much the compression is actually doing.
00:41:45 And how much it's really
just cutting the level.
00:41:51 And then the last thing is
Echoboy for some repeats.
00:42:02 In context with the track...
00:42:11 It's with the lead vocal
so we're not hearing much,
I can accentuate it a little bit.
00:42:25 That's what that's doing.
00:42:26 Now,
the other backgrounds,
pre-stereo pair, is doing these parts.
00:42:32 They are coming back on a sub.
00:42:43 The same ValhallaPlate, a little shorter.
00:42:54 I'm using the
SSL E Channel from Universal Audio,
a low frequency cut-off,
and a high-pass just to put the
stuff in the mid range a little bit
and a little compression.
00:43:09 And...
00:43:10 a tiny little bit of Echoboy there.
00:43:46 This one too is part
of the 'girl bgs' track,
I don't know why I have this
track separately down here.
00:44:02 That's just the high part of that.
00:44:04 Which has...
00:44:15 Which has a little bit of EQ from this.
00:44:19 High-pass and low-pass filter.
00:44:20 Again, the E Channel.
00:44:22 From UA.
00:44:24 And...
00:44:25 The good old ValhallaPlate,
just a little shorter.
00:44:29 So that's the
'girl bgs' bus, now we have another...
00:44:33 Another girl, Hazel here will sing
a lot of the backgrounds
and I can just solo all that.
00:44:39 All her vocals are bused to one sub.
00:45:13 On her is an UAD SSL.
00:45:16 High and low pass filters.
00:45:18 And a little EQ adding a little top below
where the cut-off is so
it shelves up and then
cuts back a little bit.
00:45:25 The shelf up is around 10 kHz,
which of course is gonna start below that,
the shelf looks sort of like that.
00:45:31 And the low-pass
is going down at 9 kHz,
so what's happening
is...
00:45:38 you see a little bit of a shelf up
and then a cut.
00:45:41 It gives a little presence in there
but takes off some of
the really high stuff.
00:45:45 This is one thing that
I've done quite a bit
on this Jamiroquai album
that I usually don't do. I usually like
very transparent and bright backgrounds.
00:45:53 But the way they have this in here
with a lot of vocals and a lot of room
for the high-end to happen
didn't quite sound right as the
backgrounds were really
extended on the top end,
I thought it would sound better
a little mellower.
00:46:08 So that's why that's done.
00:46:10 And then also this has a de-esser on it.
00:46:17 Sibilance here.
00:46:24 And a Valhalla Plate.
00:46:26 The reason this SSL plug-in is on here,
usually I would use a separate EQ
and compressor, there's no reason
why I wouldn't use this
but it was on here already
and it sounded good
so maybe I tweaked it a little bit,
I don't know
but as I said before,
their rough sounded really good,
they had some processing on things
and unless it was something
I really wanted to change
I just keep what they had
if it sounded good to me.
00:46:52 That's why it's there.
00:46:53 Then we have
Jay,
backgrounds, Jay is the lead singer.
00:47:00 I'll solo that.
00:47:10 In this case
the Valhalla room is first.
00:47:14 And right after that is this BF76
and this is compressing a lot
so what happens here then
is when he's singing
there's not all that reverb on the vocal
but as soon as he stops the tail comes
way up because of that compressor.
00:47:54 So you really hear that
reverb come up after the direct sound.
00:47:59 This is the SSL channel that was on there.
00:48:01 An Echoboy that I put on
there to give a little...
00:48:04 a little repeats.
00:48:07 And that's pretty much all the elements.
00:48:10 And how this whole thing goes together.
00:48:13 One interesting thing on this project,
on the brass and the lead vocals
they recorded it
to Pro Tools in the session
and then transferred it to tape
I believe it was an ATR 102,
and then back to Pro Tools.
It's going to real tape,
rather than some kind of simulation,
which warms it up nicely.
00:48:32 All these tracks are sent to
the groups as we discussed before,
here are the audio subgroups.
00:48:37 Bass,
no processing on it,
drums, no processing. Percussion...
00:48:42 it's adding a little top end.
00:48:44 A little air there.
00:48:45 Usually I put processing on these busses
once I get the balance,
get everything there
and then if one group of things
need a little more top end
or a little more body or
compression as a group,
that's when I put it on the sum group.
00:49:01 Strings, this bx_solo, this is a plug-in
from Brainworx,
it's a stereo widening plug-in.
00:49:07 I'm just widening the synth strings
and the strings a little bit
with those.
00:49:13 The girl backgrounds,
a little EQ cutting the low-end off
below any of their fundamentals.
00:49:20 And that was
because
when we sighted it,
in things of the individual tracks,
I had it where I thought it would be good
and then, putting the whole mix together
I thought: "OK, I could use a little
more top overall on that group".
00:49:34 Or maybe there was a little of a rumble
in the bottom.
00:49:38 But rather than going back and
changing everything in the group
I'm just doing it on the sub.
00:49:43 The same with the de-esser there.
00:49:45 That same thing is pretty
much on all the vocals.
00:49:48 Oh, a little LA-2A
on the lead vocal, which was done after
the other compression.
00:49:54 And I probably did that more for character
because I know
I'm using that FabFilter C2
that's very clean on the lead.
00:50:06 And this has got a really
nice warm characteristic.
00:50:09 Also, a Microshift is on there
mixed almost dry.
00:50:14 Microshift is
slight pitch-shift
on each side,
an electronic double.
00:50:20 Just a slight bit of
that on the lead vocal.
00:50:23 The lead vocal is already doubled
but I think this spreads it a little
and makes it a little fatter
That's pretty much what I did
in the bus on the subgroups.
00:50:32 Now the Stereo Bus,
we have
all these subgroups summed
into the Stereo Master through the Mix Bus
and on it we have this EQ which is
cutting up a little 25 Hz
just to get rid of any subsonic stuff.
00:50:48 Cutting back a little bit about 150
where there's some mud in there.
00:50:53 A little presence boost around
3.2 kHz.
00:50:57 A little high boost around 16 kHz.
00:51:00 And then it goes from there
to this
Manley MST from UAD.
00:51:05 I really like this equalizer.
00:51:07 A nice thing is this
thing has really really nice air
and presence on top.
00:51:12 I'm using a 16 kHz boost
for this a little bit.
00:51:15 And then cutting back
maybe 0.5 dB on 180.
00:51:19 And a little boost around 47.
00:51:23 We're boosting the low-end and then
the EQ before is cutting it below that.
00:51:27 We're getting a nice
heavy bottom end
but not a lot of subsonics.
00:51:31 And then
going through this FabFilter Pro-L
which is a limiter but
we're really limiting very little.
00:51:47 Just hitting about 1 dB
so there's no clipping.
00:51:50 No appreciable amount of limiting
is being used
because that's how
I send it to mastering,
I give the mastering
engineer some room to work.
00:51:58 I usually send a mix to the clients first
and that's a lot more
limiting so it's as loud
as a commercial record
but then
I send one less limited to the
mastering engineer so he's got
some room to work rather than
send something slammed and brick-walled,
they can't really
do anything with it.
00:52:15 I'll play some of the mix without the EQ
and we'll turn each one on.
00:52:37 It's pretty subtle but it helps a little.
00:52:39 A little bit of bottom and air.
00:52:41 So now,
I just wanna show
some of the automation.
00:52:44 I put every channel on
volume automation view
so we can see any volume automation.
00:52:51 See, in most channels there's none
none that's on audio there.
00:52:55 There's quite a few things
that session came to me with.
00:53:00 There's one I did,
I rode the piano solo,
right there, so that's on that channel.
00:53:06 Here, the Memory Moog
was sent to me that way.
00:53:10 You can usually see
because I do the automation
with faders so it looks like these
and when they do
automation for the arrangement
before they send it to me
you can see it's mostly
just done graphically.
00:53:22 You can see
where they did that.
00:53:24 We kept their automation,
it's pretty much part of the arrangement.
00:53:27 We have those strings come up
drastically and everything.
00:53:33 And then my automation is
mostly on the subgroup.
00:53:38 Percussion rides in the Bridge.
00:53:41 There's guitar rides in a few spots,
string rides in quite a few spots.
00:53:47 Brass.
00:53:48 Lots on the vocals.
00:53:50 I pretty much get
mixes in the groups first.
00:53:53 I do the final rides on the groups
and then if things within the group
aren't gelling then I'll go back to
the group and fix things in there.
00:54:02 I guess it's sort of
my old-school way of doing things
when I used to do sessions
with 16 tracks
or 24, however.
00:54:09 I try to get it
really close
going to the dozen or so groups I have
and then do the final tweaks on that.
00:54:17 I do the tweaks
usually on the Audio groups
instead of the VCAs because
if I do on the VCAs
and there's processing on the groups
I'm changing that because we're hitting
it at different levels,
changing the compression.
00:54:33 The Audio Groups are the final
level control before it hits the Mixbus.
00:54:37 There's a couple
situations that I would do it differently,
do it on the tracks that are feeding that.
00:54:43 Suppose there's drastic moves
and there's reverb and delays on it,
if I'm doing the move on the
group I'm doing it at
the return of the effect so
the effect is changing
and if I do it before that
the effect,
our return,
is at a constant level.
00:55:00 A lot of times I'll do vocal rides
on the actual track
rather than on the group,
if it's gonna affect
the reverb or delay on it.
00:55:11 OK, let's
listen back to the whole mix now.
00:55:14 You can see the automation
and listen to the song.
00:59:37 Remember, take your vitamins!
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Mick Guzauski has won 9 Grammy Awards and mixed over 27 #1 hits. Mick is considered one of the top mix sound engineer and mixer in the world.
Mick's love for both music and technology started when he was in high school. Growing up in Rochester, NY where there were no nearby commercial studios so Mick put together his own studio in parents' basement with equipment that he had begged, borrowed, built, repaired and modified.
In the early '80s, Mick worked with Maurice White and Earth, Wind and Fire at the Complex owned by George Massenburg (the father of parametric EQs in case you did not know...). "Being around George was a great learning experience in both the art of recording and in audio technology," said Mick.
Then in 2013, Daft Punk was looking for an engineer/mixer to team up with on their fourth studio album and at the recommendation of mutual friend Mick got the call. Unlike most dance albums, the sound of Random Access Memories is completely organic and incredibly dynamic (and fat!)
Mick is actually well-known for his natural and organic sound. Have a look at his pureMix videos and pay attention to his subtle eq and compression move. Whatever he does, it always sounds unprocessed, real and sweet to the ear.
Parts of this site and some files are only accessible to pureMix Pro Members or available to purchase. Please see below our membership plans or add this video to your shopping cart.
Love the breakdown of the funk always puzzled about getting such busy parts all sitting learned so much hope you bless us with more
varicoclub
2020 Jul 06
Best tip is at the end.
Audiobsesion
2020 Jun 26
please subtitles in Spanish
mattgriffo
2020 Jun 17
This is so great, more with him mixing please! These are so great
RNDM.ID
2020 Jun 09
I'd love my mixes to be this minimal... Sadly, what my clients hand over to me are completely unusable unless they are processed to death. Top notch performance captured with great recording skills and boutique microphones are just not available for engineers like me :(
RW33Rudi
2020 Jun 04
Afther 5 minutes listen, i say thats really first class music.
Thanks Mick Guzauski to share this with us, very nice arrengment i like the sound Greathings, from Belgium.
jonathanwing
2020 May 13
That was really clear and concise. I love his minimalistic approach to mixing – fixing at first and keeping everything simple. Thanks Mick!
pete.j
2020 Apr 30
Very good one, very interesting.
I have to mention that (even the mixes of Mick always have been very good) with many things I've seen from Mick I couldn't really catch it (has nothing to do with the quality of his results, that stand for them selfs, but I just couldn't kind of adapt something of his expertise in my work till now).
But with this he ave me some very useful sights of dealing with topend and space (which he mastered to have warmth/smoothiness in his sound I like and also pretty much space, openess an clarity at the same time, if this somehow makes sense to describe).
sircletus
2020 Mar 17
I love Mick! VERY envious that he gets to mix music recorded this well. I guess that's why I prefer mixing stuff I've recorded. Was recently sent an EP from a local band who recorded at a local studio that people just love. It's AWFUL. Clearly a crappy old house reel. Clipping all over the place, bad ground hum 1kHz test tone audible on all the drum and bass tracks, terrible guitar tones all around.
It's nice to be reminded that there are still folks out there recording this well!
L Pass
2020 Mar 07
Love it. Thanks, Mick.
Star Jee
2020 Feb 23
I love any Mick Guzauski mix and the way he does it. Au top.
drmax0
2020 Feb 21
So the recordings were great to begin with. I get the message that you should do less if it already sound good. The mix was put together nicely. But as a home recorder a learned almost nothing because I have to deal with less than ideal recordings.
RW33Rudi
2020 Feb 20
Very Smooth nice mastering with uad plugins, sounds finaly very bright and good top end EQ ing. Its like Taste of Cake.
afranklinjr@comcast.net
2020 Feb 19
This is what REAL MUSIC sounds like!!! This is how I want MY music to sound!
There is a difference between good music and music that SOUNDS GOOD! Brother Mick has taken both those strands here and woven them together seamlessly into a tapestry of sound that intoxicates the ear and makes an addict of the imagination!
Save me a spot in your Masterclass!
