WATCH TRAILER
02h 47min
(32)
In Episode 6 of our Lifeboats Series, Grammy Award Winning Engineer, Jacquire King, opens the multitrack for the Will Knox song, "Lifeboats", and takes us all the way from hearing the song for the first time, to a completed powerful and energetic mix with his signature sound imprinted upon it.
In this 3 hour tutorial, learn how Jacquire:
- Has his assistant, Danny Pellegrini prepare a session for mixing
- Uses his 16 Channel Modified Quad console for out of the box summing
- Address phase and polarity issues on multi-mic’d sources such as bass DI versus bass amp microphones and the drum kit
- Addresses the commonly overlooked phase relationship between kick and snare
- Discusses the importance of elements pushing the speakers versus pulling them
- Sets up his mix bus processing at the beginning of the mix
- Sets a Distressor for parallel drum compression
- Adds stereo width to synth bass, and demonstrates using EQ pre and post-process
- Controls the kick drum using SSL Channel compression and demonstrates how he hears the compression before the low-resolution meter displays what is happening.
- Adds space to guitar and synth elements using multiple styles of delay and reverb
- Uses tape saturation on background vocals
- Adds tone and weight to the vocal by carefully tweaking the UAD 1176AE compressor, taking full advantage of the 2:1 ratio
- Meticulously automates several elements of the mix to dynamically perfect the balance
Watch Jacquire King’s episode of our exclusive Lifeboats series, only on puremix.net
Learn More About The Lifeboats Series Here
Equipment & Software
- Aphex Vintage Exciter
- Bomb Factory BF 76
- Cytomic The Glue
- DB-33 Leslie
- Fabfilter Pro DS
- Fabfilter Pro L2
- Fabfilter Pro Q2
- PSP VintageWarmer
- Protools Lo-Fi
- Protools Mod Delay III
- SansAmp PSA-1
- Soundtoys Decapitator
- Soundtoys Devil-Loc
- Soundtoys EchoBoy
- Soundtoys FilterFreak
- Soundtoys MicroShift
- Soundtoys PanMan
- Soundtoys PrimalTap
- UAD AKG BX20
- UAD Curve Bender
- UAD Distressor
- UAD EMT-140
- UAD Fairchild 660
- UAD Neve 1081
- UAD Neve 33609
- UAD Precision K-Stereo
- UAD SSL E Channel Strip
- UAD Studer A800
- UAD Teletronix LA-2A
- UAD Trident A-Range
- UAD UA 1176E
- Valhalla Room
- Valhalla Shimmer
- Valhalla Vintage Verb
- Waves API 550A
- Waves CLA-76
- Waves Puig Tec EQP1A
- Waves Scheps 73
- Waves TG12345
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Mentors
Jacquire King
Grammy Award Winning Producer, Engineer, and Mixer, Jacquire King, has worked with some of the world’s most influential artists in every role you can imagine in a recording studio. From being an acclaimed recordist to mixing and producing multi-platinum records (9X in the case of Kings Of Leon) by superstars like Kaleo, Modest Mouse, Kings of Leon, Tom Waits, Norah Jones, Buddy Guy, Cold War Kids, MuteMath, Melissa Etheridge, and James Bay.
To date, Jacquire has been honored with over 30 Grammy Nominations for his meticulous attention to detail and unique approach to creating records that withstand the test of time.
His discography is well-known for the variety of music encompassed from the past 20 years. When you see Jacquire’s tutorials on pureMix, you will have the chance to sit next to a true master at work, who strives to enhance the artist's vision and serve the songs he helps deliver to the masses.
Credits
Kings of Leon
Tom Waits
James Bay
Modest Mouse
Buddy Guy
Norah Jones
What do you have to say?
Leave a comment 
Melodic Dreamer
2020 Jan 13
Cool video. All in all this wasn't my favorite mix, but I love his methods.
Honestly, I really enjoying watching these videos. I would love to see you get someone like Tucker Martine or Tchad Blake to be apart of this. Please reach out and get Tucker to be a part of pure mix.
franciscowm
2019 Dec 10
awesome episode! almost 3 hours that seemed half an hour to me ahah
interesting that Jaquire doens't do any gating to the kick drum. sounds dope tho
Pipezeta10
2019 Aug 30
@harlekin88. Yes they usually have the best monitors available for their job, sometimes 14hZ seems like we won't even hear that, but he has subwoofers in his studio. Also take in consideration they have 20 years or more doing this, they say .5db but for their ears it makes a difference. Just keep at it
harlekin88
2019 Aug 29
Love the Lifeboat series. Love that different worldclass engineers do the same mix.
Kind of unnecessary it seems for Jacquire to bypass and engage the eq with the lowcut at 14Hz... how many watching these have monitors to even hear that?
Often feel that mix videoes like these are so rough. Half of them (not just puremix, but everywhere) are like "take a lowcut, a little boost at the topp, 0.5 dB here and there" and then the video is over.. don't always get the depth i'm looking for, at all.
harlekin88
2019 Aug 29
Love the Lifeboat series. Love that different worldclass engineers do the same mix.
Kind of unnecessary it seems for Jacquire to bypass and engage the eq with the lowcut at 14Hz... how many watching these have monitors to even hear that?
Often feel that mix videoes like these are so rough. Half of them (not just puremix, but everywhere) are like "take a lowcut and a little boost at the topp" and then the video is over.. don't always get the depth i'm looking for, at all.
musikus
2019 Aug 23
I learned a bunch on this trip thru Lifeboat. The use and explanation of some of the plugins was great. Automation section was fun to learn from. Over all, this was what I needed right now.
RRiquier
2019 Aug 21
A lot of timing issues in the arrangement... why wouldn't the producer address that before giving it out to the mixing engineers ?
Anyways, not my favourite mix. Jacquire spent a lot of time doing a lot of things that we really interesting but the end result just wan't there. It was as though as he was afraid to use EQ and compression in anyway other than sparingly, like he was afraid to push things. Don't get me wrong, his work is proven, I just didn't really like the end result on the mix. Plus, that automation latency tip was really valuable. Cheers !
RRiquier
2019 Aug 21
A lot of timing issues in the arrangement... why wouldn't the producer address that before giving it out to the mixing engineers ?
Anyways, not my favourite mix. Jacquire spent a lot of time doing a lot of things that we really interesting but the end result just wan't there. It was as though as he was afraid to use EQ and compression in anyway other than sparingly, like he was afraid to push things. Like that 0.5db boost at around 2K on the Juno Bass. Could anyone hear that having an impact ? I dunno. Don't get me wrong, his work is proven, I just didn't really like the end result on the mix.
shaman
2019 Aug 14
Jaquire‘s mix has been my favourite so far.
However it also shows that a mediocre song won‘t sound good even if a worldclass engineer mixes it. The arrangement is full of unnecessary or wrong elements.
Where in hell did they get the idea to feature a shaker in that song ?
Or these electronic blips ? Or the sound sound doubling the hammond.
It basically is a ballad - a rim shot instead of full sanre hits would be a gift from god.
The small room sound on the OH sounds like......oh well, where do I start...?
MarcoPolo
2019 Aug 05
This series has been a valuable part of my pureMix membership. Watching all the talented mix engineers approach the same track has been an excellent example and education for me. I just wish we would have gotten more or all of the recorded tracks to mix! Every time I watch another mixer work on this, I pull out my mix again and am disappointed to remember that we don't have the bridge or outro, where a lot of the dynamic and emotional "changes" occur. If there's ever a next time, please provide us more or all of the recording to work on. Thanks.
mataran
2019 Aug 04
I love that series. Jacquire's approach is amazing with that touch of "elegance", a mix of efficiency and (what could appear as) simplicity. I spent some time to compare the different approaches for bass, drums, vocals,... between the mentors, I saw something they have in common (and I was not surprised), it's the intention, the idea they have about the song and so the mix, and then related to that idea the choices they make. What I always find so impressive is how they are always in control of the mix... but they are masters of their art, aren't they? :-) Thanks Jacquire!
P_James
2019 Aug 04
Love how you all do this Fab. For someone like myself, who hasn't found an assistant position yet or a studio here in LA that has room or needs an assistant, this is as close as I get (these videos) to experience and guidance in what to do correctly in a mix. Seriously, these are awesome. Thank you
P.S. If you know any engineer who needs an EXTREMELY hard working and dedicated assistant, I will go ANYWHERE to get that...ANYWHERE
tobbegorm
2019 Aug 02
Jacquire is truly King!