With the three tracks all recorded and complete, it’s now time to start mixing. The initial plan for this stage was for O’Brien to join us when mixing the tracks but due to personal reasons he has had to go to Jamaica for two weeks. So this week Phil and I have began to start editing and mixing the three tracks in Pro Tools. After researching some mixing techniques from engineers such as Phill Brown who was a recording engineer for Island Records, I have noted some ideas down to try out with the three tracks for the EP. This idea comes from the fact that Phill Brown mixed many of Bob Marley’s tracks and I thought it would be good to try and achieve some of the trademark sounds of records from the reggae genre.

Angel

Angel was the first track we began to mix and we started by tidying up the session with a little bit of housekeeping. The housekeeping included editing out parts where there was no audio activity and introducing fades to smooth out the parts and also cutting out the parts in the vocal tracks where O’Brien breathed. Cutting the breathes on the vocal was done as we were compressing the vocals and although many producers keep breathes in their vocals, we felt it was better to keep them out as we were hoping to achieve a commercial pop sound within the reggae genre.

Monday Morning Love

Monday Morning Love was the second track we looked at during the mixing stage. The harmonies alone consist of 9 tracks broke into three parts which are each panned left and right and the remaining in the center. The drums were compressed to bring them to life but sit relatively low in the final mix whereas the vocals are the main focus point in the track.

A screenshot of the edit window for Monday Morning Love

The keyboard and guitar parts of this track sit opposite each other in the stereo field with one slightly to the left and one slightly to the right. This technique is popular within the ska genre and so we felt we would use this idea to bring to the track.

Another Day

Another Day is by far the song on the EP that had the most tracks in the session and it involved clean and distorted guitar parts. The EQ on the main vocal track is boosted at around 10kHz by 3dB to bring it out of the mix to appear clearer and the vocals on the chorus are double tracked to create a thicker texture on the song. The drums were compressed to add to the distorted guitars driving rhythm on the chorus and this was the track on the EP that felt more commercial due to the elements not abiding by the ‘roots reggae’ rules. Our thinking behind the more commercial sound was so appeal to a wider audience and I feel that this track especially puts O’Brien’s sound into a commercial reggae and ska genre.

The mix window for Another day highlighting some of the tracks and their fade levels and pan pots

Overall reflections

Overall, the mixing stage of the project for the three tracks was enjoyable and I felt that I learned a lot about different compression and balancing techniques of reggae and ska music. Learning how to mix this type of music has helped me understand a lot more about mixing in general and that the more you mix songs, the better you get each time.