Mixing tracks for Burt Myers

Today I will be mixing tracks for Binghamton's Burt Myers. Burt came to me on the recommendation of my friend Mark Dann, who owns Mark Dann Recording in NYC and also has a smaller studio in Woodstock. Burt has recorded and edited a bunch of songs in a home studio and has brought them to Wilburland for me to mix.

I am going to set up some rules for myself for these mixes. First, Burt has limited funds to get these mixes done so I will try to spend only 1 hour per song. Second, I am going to set up ProTools like an analog mixing console, with Digidesign's new Reel Tape plugin, then a URS N series EQ and a Massey CT4 compressor on each track. All of the plugins will be the same, just like mixing on a large scale console with built in eq and dynamics. My reverb will most likely be the amazing Altiverb. I'm also going to try to mix through McDSP's AC1 analog channel on the mix buss.

I find that setting up rules like this can be very freeing, partly because you eliminate the "which plugin" debate which is confusing and time consuming. I can just get into the headset of "these are my tools, now do the mix" and this works for me.

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, mixing folks' home recorded tracks is something I do more and more, and it presents a fun and interesting new challenge for me. When I record the tracks here at Wilburland, the sounds and shape of the songs are already there at mix time. I know the songs, I know the emotion that the artist wants to convey, and the mix comes easily. When people bring me stuff that they recorded at home, I get to play with the tracks until the song presents itself, and this discovery process is challenging and exciting to me.