MIX THIS!
Hookers and Blow Mix Contest
YES! That's right! Here's your
chance to mix classic RnB and Soul tracks from a bygone era. Recorded
in Lecture Hall 1 during winter quarter 2008, these mostly live tracks
are as close to the originals as most of us will ever get.
THREE-STEP PROCESS
We the Producers - Eddie Ciletti and Adam
Levy - would like you to submit the mix in three parts - course, medium
and fine - so that we can guide you on your quest (and ours). We
don't expect you to get it in three tries, so we've devised a system to
designate your progress. Please label according to your progress
- see examples below - so your mix can be placed in the appropriate
column - then e-mail
it. Please include any notes as to what you did.
Wining mixes will make it to CD.
Please familiarize yourself with the spectral
balance in this REFERENCE
MIX and continue to reference it as you mix.
You are welcome to let the tracks inspire
and take you where "they" want to go. By all means go for that, but
we'd like the mixes to feel like they came from the same session (and mimimize
the Mastering costs in the process). So if your mix gets wild, COOL!
But please also give us one for the competition.
Here are the basic guidelines:
-
Your mix should not be brighter, warmer or
more processed than the reference mix, especialy in the early stages.
-
Try to mix with automation rather than cheat
with processing.
-
If you are very close, we may ask for a copy
of your session so we can work on the remaing five percent together.
Thanks in advance and good luck.
Eddie
Ciletti and Adam Levy
SESSION NOTES
-
Download the labeled files first. While
we will do our best to ensure that only the racks you need are posted,
some may be blank.
-
All sessions have a crotch mic - a dynamic
EV omni lavelier. It's trashy but can be useful.
-
When a reverb track is provided, it was a
live mic in the lounge.
-
When there are multiple takes, there may be
significant tonal changes in key instruments / live vocals, from take to
take. At least one live vocal is noticably distorted, but it is workable.
-
Many of the overdubs were done live and there
may be multiple takes, of live lead and background vocals in particular.
Use the best, don't feel the need to use doubles, but if they work go for
it.
The recordings were made on two consecutive
Mondays. The differenes are:
FIRST MONDAY
-
Stereo condenser overhead behind the drummer
as well as mono dynamic overhead directly over the kit.
-
SWR Primary Bass amp with 8-inch woof, mic'd
with SM-58. You may notice an odd distortion from the Altec preamp
/ compressor that was used. It's fixable.
-
Kick mic ix EV 868. It's too wooley.
SECOND MONDAY
-
Two mono overheads, one dynamic directly overhead,
one condenser behind the kit.
-
Trent's brought his bass amp and it's very
loud in the room. Same mic and preamp combo as the previous session.
-
Kick mic is Sennheiser MD-421. Took
advantage of built-in high-pass filter.
NOTE: TS = Track Sheet