I’m playing around with things that I feel add to the drama and architecture of the mix. This stage is mostly a matter of fine-tuning the automation, riding this up a bit, swoop something else, maybe have a part 3-4 dB louder when the chorus hits and then bring it down gradually. I’ll spend a lot of time riding certain notes up that seem to be getting lost, and notes down that are jumping out too much. It turns out the answer is simply riding the volume faders. Is it compression? Limiting? Some magical and obscure piece of outboard gear? Secret #3 – Ride The FadersĪ lot of Andy Wallace’s work has been on aggressive rock records (Slayer anyone?!) – and naturally people want to know how he gets such hard hitting mixes.
The takeaway here is that simplicity is what works.īy deciding to commit to simply using one EQ and one compressor for 90% of your mixing work, you have eliminated a lot of pointless decision making, thereby allowing you to mix faster and with more creativity because you are focused on what you are DOING with your effects, rather than on which one to use. Please don’t miss this powerful point and think that it’s because he uses a real SSL EQ and compressor that his mixes are awesome. It seems that the SSL can give me what I need. I have found over the years that I use less and less outboard for mixing. I am not shy of using EQ, and it almost always is board EQ. He mixes on an SSL console and simply uses the built in channel processing – hardly any outboard gear. One thing that surprised me was to hear Andy Wallace explain that he pretty much only uses the same eq and compressor on each track in each mix. Your first impression is generally correct, so in one sense by moving quickly you are preventing yourself from screwing things up. Secondly, by working quickly on this mix you don’t have time to over-think things. You are listening like your audience will. Actually two reasons.įirst doing a quick mix before you dissect each element individually is smart because you start with the whole song in mind and make better choices of where to place volume faders and pan pots. There’s a reason why Andy does this (and you should too). I’ll usually be throwing things up very quickly, almost like doing a quick monitor mix, and balance everything very quickly, just to see how all the elements are supposed to sound together, and I have a basic feeling of the entire track. It seems Andy Wallace works this way as well. I’ve suggested for years that a great mix starts with a super quick mix.
We want to dive in and start “making things sound better” – whatever that means.
Photo from Mix With The Masters by Victor Lévy-Lasne Secret #1 – The Quick MixĪll too often when mixing we like to start off by doing major surgery. Wallace is a brilliant craftsmen, and I wanted to pull out three of the his biggest “secrets” to mixing from the interview and share them with you here. So when I saw Sound On Sound landed a major interview with him I was pumped.
If you like hard hitting rock mixes, then you probably like Andy Wallace’s work.įamous for mixing Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Coldplay, and even Guns N Roses – this guy has been crushing it in the studio for over 50 years! The sad thing is, he rarely sits down with the media.