Melbourne born singer-songwriter and musician Angie McMahon recently played a show at The Tivoli in Brisbane, as part of her I Made An Album Australian tour. I have been provided the multitracks from the desk, and asked to mix the show for radio play on 4ZZZ's Live Delay segment. Take a look at how I approach a live mixdown...
Angie McMahon has been performing for quite some time, previously in a nine-piece soul band called The Fabric, before beginning her solo career. In July of this year she released her debut solo album titled Salt, which peaked at #5 on the ARIA Charts. She has since been making waves around the country, with Happy Mag placing her on their list of "15 Australian female artists changing the game right now". With a few recent visits to Brisbane, and another one in the near future, I really wanted to do her and the band justice in the mix I have been asked to do for 4ZZZ's Live Delay.
Initially I had a critical listen of her previously released tracks, and took note of how they were constructed. Check out one of her most popular songs below:
Using this as a reference, I took note of a few key points:
her vocals sat comfortably in front of the band (as most popular indie vocals do)
the kick punches through the mix quite well
the snare sits quite in your face, driving the song forwards
guitars appear to have been dual mic'd and panned hard L & R
bass subtly sits below everything, filling out the bottom end
I started out with the aim of constructing an appropriate drum sound, ideally balancing a formidable kick and snare, and working up from there. Isolating drum sounds is difficult at the best of times, in a live setting even more-so. One tip that I have found works favourably when mixing a live performance is to lean into this bleed (White, 2013). For example, there was one unlabelled track in the session that didn't seem to be mic'd up to anything in particular. Perhaps it was a spare vocal mic that sat near the drummer, as it picked up a lot of snare and some kick, but there were already three kick tracks and a snare top / bottom. As I was building the snare sound I ended up incorporating this spare track, subtly blending it in to provide some more natural reverb.
Another technique I've noticed myself using a lot more of in a live context, is the heavy use of EQ, all subtractive, to really sculpt the desired sound. By doing this, and the use of some gating, I have found that heavy compression is possible, enabling each drum track to be boosted much higher in the mix. This allows them to really stand out, whilst not introducing more background noise than is already present.
Whilst I was processing the kit, I found it useful to bring up the crowd/room mics to provide some context. This assisted with panning and level choices, and really allowed me to create the lively drum feel that I desired. Another tip I have discovered for crowd or room mics is that it's important to check their phase alignment (White, 2013). The Tivoli is quite a large space and, using a sharp transient for reference, nudging these tracks a few microseconds made a difference to how tight the drums sounded. In the end, with so much bleed through all the mics, I didn't really need to add very much artificial reverb at all.
Next I worked on incorporating the bass, filling out the bottom end of the mix with the aim to keep its relationship to the kick balanced. I mentioned earlier that the reference track indicated bass wasn't a crucial component, so this balance was much easier than usual to achieve. Initially I blended the mic'd amp and DI and applied heavy compression for consistency; though with bass tones changing throughout the performance, I quickly realised that I would have to automate some parameters of the compressor. Instead I recalled getting some advice to take a look at the Waves Bass Rider, and after some research and an impulse purchase I very quickly had a new toy. The best part about this plug-in is that it's "designed to balance the levels of individual notes without changing the note dynamics, adding coloration or altering the individual note envelopes" (White, 2012).
At the top is a horizontal bar which displays the incoming signal, where you can set a target level. The two sliders labelled Range allow max gain increase and max attenuation to be set. The centre fader signifies how the gain is being modified, and on the right is an output gain-adjustment fader with a ±12dB range.
A sound-on-sound article (White, 2012) probably best describes the functionality of the remaining knobs: "The side-chain's note-detection algorithm is controlled by a Sensitivity knob and a slide switch for Fast or Slow response time: Fast provides better note-detection separation for busy playing styles. Two further knobs to the right adjust Spill and Artefacts. The former allows Bass Rider to ignore low-level spill from other sources (for example, where the bass has been recorded using a mic when other instruments were playing at the same time), while Artefacts adjusts how much the gain is affected by things like finger noise that are not a part of the pitched note."
Waves (2019) recommended following these steps to achieve the best possible result:
Insert Bass Rider on your bass track.
Begin playing your song and watch the energy meter shown on the Target Energy Meter.
Set the Target Slider within the action area so that loud notes go a little outside it.
Now, solo your bass track and check that all notes are detected.
If notes are missed, increase the Sensitivity setting and set Response to Fast.
If string noise, buzz, etc. are being unintentionally detected as notes, increase the Artifacts setting.
The main Rider fader will move automatically, levelling your bass.
Un-solo the bass track and set its overall level using the Output fader.
Limit the amount of automatic gain change by setting the Min/Max Range faders.
Overall the plug-in was quite easy to use, and did a better job of retaining the bass' natural sound than I could get from a compressor; it seemed to retain its natural sustain and decay. With this as a useful tool for level control, I could then use my compressor to add some colour and character. Waves suggest to use this before any other processing but I ended up throwing an EQ on before it to remove the sub-bass frequencies.
Next in my process I took the guitar recordings and panned them hard left and right, leaving room in the middle for her vocal to really shine through, as well as another guitar used intermittently throughout the performance and a mono keys track which I left sitting in the centre.
Finally, it was time to blend in the voices. I did nothing special with the backup vocals, just usual processing, panning, and levelling. Mixing Angie's vocal track in was also relatively simple (it was nice to work with an accomplished singer); the only real complication I encountered was the extreme dynamic range between loud and quiet songs, and particularly achieving clarity in her softly spoken words between songs.
To tackle this I used my trusty Vocal Rider, before two compressors, one with slow and one with fast attacks, and finally sent it via an auxillary send to a parallel compression channel. I used this technique with my last live mixdown also, and it seems to really provide consistent clarity whilst the artist is talking or singing quietly, but then gets buried in the dynamic burst of a louder song.
I exported the finished product, ran it through a basic mastering chain in Ableton, and sent it to the 4ZZZ Live Delay coordinator for some feedback. Soon after I received a response from him and he seemed pretty happy with the result, merely suggested I tame some of the crowd chatter throughout the quiet parts by ducking the Zoom stereo room mic, which was easily fixed. With some automation I was quickly able to bring down the Zoom throughout the quieter parts of the performance, but reinforce the energy of the crowd at the appropriate moments. Ultimately it was this stereo channel that contributed a lot to the live believability, energy, and vibe, as well as providing a fantastic natural reverb (White, 2013).
It was great to receive some positive feedback from him, and I can't wait to now hear back from Angie to get the green light for it to be presented on an upcoming show.
Stay Tuned
- TA
REFERENCES
Waves. (2019). Bass Rider User Manual [PDF]. Retrieved from https://www.waves.com/1lib/pdf/plugins/bass-rider.pdf
White, P. (2012). Waves Bass Rider. Retreived from https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/waves-bass-rider
White, P. (2013). Mix Rescue: Mixing A Live Recording. Retreived from https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mix-rescue-mixing-live-recording
Comments