Split Studio Session 14 (evening). First mix and master of 'Behind the Sun'

Team members present: Mike, Lee and Bob

What was planned

Produce a first mix and master of 'Behind the Sun'

What was achieved

We approached the mix by dropping all faders in Cubase. We then increased the fader for the drum track to zero to use as a starting point. We then faded up the bass, guitars, trumpets, whistle and effects one by one to achieve a balanced mix. We used the orchestral theme from 'Hang'em High' as a reference track to help achieve a good sounding mix. We found that we had to use volume automation to achieve a balanced mix because the song naturally builds in loudness as it progresses and the correct level for some instruments (such as guitars) for the crescendo were too loud at the start of the track. We also automated the panning to cause the gunshot and ricochet effects to bounce across the speakers. We also deleted some tracks which were masking other tracks and which were not adding anything to the mix themselves. We then mastered the track using the following plugins; Multi-band compressor, Studio Equaliser, Stereo Enhancer, Limiter and the UV22HR.

When listening to this master we all thought that the level of some parts of the guitar tracks was too high and the whistle was too low. We went back and remixed the song accordingly and remastered the song to a 16-bit 44.1 KHz wav file.

We were very happy with this new master file.

Next Steps

Listen critically to the 'Behind the Sun' master track over the next week and use the next split studio session to give the track a final polish if required.