Mixing Music - in the Box - Analog Mixer - or Both !
Here at The Coolest Recording Studio in South London – we get a lot of different clients with a lot of different needs.
Might be a folk group, jazz quartet or classic rock band that want to record everything live – possibly to tape – usually to hard drive as tape costs are a bit high.
Those guys usually want a minimal amount of editing so generally come into the studio after playing a few gigs to get them super tight.
Usually we’ll track all the audio through our mammoth collection of analog preamps, equalisers & compressors, plus we’ll send sets of audio to our selection of transformers for a bit of extra zing & juice.
……..Because we collect transformers (the black art of recording & Music Production) & have probably the largest collection in London Town !
Music Producing
After all that – it’s mixing time.
Analog equipment does odd & beautiful things to audio – it’s to do with a lot of things – buffering – transformers – & the physics of analog equalisation.
In short – there are no rules – some expensive bit of gear may sound crap – while some cheap bit of home build mayhem may for some reason sound superb – you just gotta dive in – spread a few dollars around & keep what appeals to your sense of good audio.
We like to use These Alice mixers:
They have really tasty Belclere (as found in Neve desks) transformers – a musical equaliser section – & a monumentally gorgeous compressor / limiter section at the output!
And that just sits all the audio in its’ right place. Drums especially sound phenomenal mixed through this desk, plus the limiters are superb on vocals.
This is our wall mounted D&R Stylyx mixer – great sounding 80’s desk – the channel strips have added transformer options (bottom left of mixer) & are amazing on vocals, drums, bass & guitar.
The parametric equalisers are literal audio magic!!
The transformers add a whole bunch of weight & saturation to whatever audio is run through them – we either use them in the desk – or solo using the DAW in/out widgit.
And last but not least – this! A hand built analog mixer – maybe not the highest quality – but boy you can overdrive it so it sings like a banshee!!
And here’s a picture of Archie – just because King Krule are an ace band – & they love our studio.
