The Case of The Muddy Mix (solved)

This book should be required reading

The Mike Senior book is the cats meow. Every word and sentence is good advice. Notice how his title includes “For the small studio”.

David Miles Hubers book is also fantastic. However, notice how it does not specify “For the small studio”. He does mention small ” project studios “, but the book isn’t based on the #1 problem with small studios – Heavy Compromises – in room treatment and budget.

I decided to try double miking and double tracking every track. That’s great if you have stereo pairs of really good mics, (which this book discusses), but I tried mix and match using lesser mics. Fail!

When I got the Avantone Mixcube, I instantly realized I had two many tracks, too many effects (plug ins) and I was using arbitrary Mic pairs. I also fell in love with the Universal Audio Volt 276 because if its awesome ergonomics. Turns out, the ugly duckling SSL2 has cleaner, clearer and crisp sound.

Then I really tested all of my mics and two posts back, you can see what I experienced.

Today I used the VR2 on vocals and Royer R10 and only had 4 tracks. No double tracking! No double tracking because that’s what caused all of my mixing problems, and with bad Mic choices.

The mixing time I spent with the Mixcube today was maybe 10 minutes. The whole experience was so much better and the end result is what I’ve wanted for many months.

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