Hey Everyone, like I mentioned earlier, Pt 3 picks up after a bit more time in Ableton, though I did realize and restart right before I began the proper "mixdown phase". I often jump to mixdown when the composition is at a good place, and then afterwards go back to start refining/cutting stuff out, etc. before a final mixdown polish phase.
I start off with some bus processing on drums and then the music bus, including a healthy does of my favorite parallel distortion techniques.
Around 15:00, I start to get more surgical with some of the EQs and continue refining the arrangement of various one shot elements and breaking stuff up onto new channels. It's key that I adjust the EQs separately for the duplicated vocal sounds once I change their pitch/octave (as the surgical EQ curves are very specific to the pitch)
At 37:00 or so I start developing/refining the intro and outro some more, before continuing on random refinements with arrangement and automation on many elements. At around 50:00 I continue enhancing the transition into the bass solo.
At 55:00 I add my go-to mastering chain and finesse it a bit for a quick self master. Then I go back to some of the Soothes and Pro-Qs to fine tune the harshness control on various elements and busses, now that the master is in place. From 1:04:00 onward its back to random adjustments and enhancements.
At the end point, it's ready to start testing on other sound systems and sharing with a few friends for feedback.
Michael
2022-08-10 18:51:11 +0000 UTC